~@~Common Ground

   The investigation into the mystery fighters and the warlord factions continued, though uncovering precious little new information. At this point New Republic Intelligence was certain that these fighters were attached to the rapidly expanding warlord factions rather than the shrinking numbers of Imperial loyalists, but it was difficult to trace things beyond that. And there was still enough evidence connecting those ships to Imperial sources to cause concern on Coruscant. The ship's initial design specs were traceable to the old Imperial records and Tritis space had been the place where the ships were first seen; even if one of the upstart warlord operations had been able to get a hold of those design specs, they would not likely choose the last safe haven in the galaxy for Imperial loyalists as the place to test out that prized new technology – unless there was a connection to what remained of the old regime, and that was a very dangerous possibility for Coruscant.

   Months of tedious negotiation had finally brought the Pellaeon Agreements to an acceptable close.  The war against the Empire was officially nothing more than history now. The Pellaeon Agreements assured a cease to hostilities in exchange for an unconditional surrender by the remaining Imperial loyalists. Other conditions of the treaty had been negotiated, compromises made, but the formality of a working peace agreement had given Ackbar his wish. The New Republic was beginning to regroup a great deal of its military forces into a movement to suppress the warlord factions.  That was the official tag line.  In reality the early action was much more a matter of bottling up the obvious offenders, those who were not strongly entrenched and had the least resistance to offer.   

   The priority was practical as well as political. The stronger powers at the centers of their huge networks were well-implanted by now, hard to trace and harder to fight, with many layers of infrastructure separating the more unfortunate underlings from the true powers.  With that in mind, officials on Coruscant recognized that it was much wiser to gather a few small victories in the early going than to expend a great deal of time and energy chasing shadows and accomplishing little.

   For New Republic Intelligence the task of getting a handle on those organizations continued, and with each new military advance they gathered more information.  Perhaps soon, some of those scavengers caught operating along the fringes would make a mistake. Perhaps the next hammer that fell might be the one to break things open.

~

   In Laus' study a young aid stood ready, reporting. "The New Republic is starting to tighten down on some of our buyers." His frank statement of fact was only slightly edged by worry. 

   "Yes," Laus admitted, "Coruscant is fairly predictable.  I knew that once the Pellaeon Agreements had been finished and the situation with Dare had been resolved, Coruscant would be looking to turn their full military and political attentions to us, and to the hundreds of others like us."

   "We may need to go underground for a while; it might also be wise to cut our connections with the Tritis sector," his aid suggested cautiously.

   "No," Laus reassured him easily. The boy was bright in his own way, in following orders and recognizing danger.  Important qualities, but he still seemed to need things spelled out for him, which was also not a bad quality; it was one that made him less of a threat in a power-centered organizational hierarchy. "This merely marks the end of our free reign," Laus concluded. "Now that the Imperial market has all but dried up, we will have to be more careful with whom we choose to do business. And we will have to be more discrete from now on, particularly when it comes to the Tritis sector; but this is expected," he concluded. "The foundation has been laid accordingly.

   "We will lay low for a while," he conceded to the boy, "for the New Republic's further frustration.  And at this point we can afford to forgo the more traceable financial attributes of the Tritis sector. We are comfortable and, frankly, they are not, which can lead to problems.  Desperate individuals will place temporary gain above lasting alliances or long-term benefits, which creates a situation that certainly could become hazardous to our security.... But that alteration need not effect my overall plan," Laus decided confidently.

   "Sir, if I may ask, where does my work fit in?" 

   Laus measured the young man for a long moment before he answered.  "Our show at Rhaci served several purposes," he began slowly.  "Most obviously, it provided a little continued harassment of Coruscant, to stir the political turmoil there a bit more. It's always a good thing to keep your adversary off balance," he clipped.  "The more they have on their plate, the less likely they are to see the true nature of your plans until they cannot act to stop them."

   The boy nodded.  He also knew when to keep his mouth shut. Laus would have to keep in mind his potential. "You provided the information I sought, and it was as I hoped," he said, purposely giving little away in that aspect. "We covered your tracks by impairing the planet's security systems, and so far that seems to be all that the New Republic suspected as our intent. Conveniently for us, the Rhaci facility's information database just happened to be adjacent to the planet's primary defense structures. 

   "A rather dubious design flaw," Laus noted critically, "but, for us, a good cover. And it's fairly obvious, I should think, that we needed someone on the inside feeding us timely information in order to make the hyperspace attacks efficient. Pracos should be an adequate scapegoat for that task."

   Laus paused in his recounting, waiting to see where his young aid's train of thought would go next.

   "And Dare?" the young man asked after some consideration.

   Laus nodded. "Dare. Unfortunately I can no longer afford to make Dare this organization's top priority.  Her acquisition is still essential," he weighed heavily, "but for one reason or another she has slipped away from me too many times....  I must admit, their finding the undermessage in Pracos' self-destruct transmission came sooner than I anticipated."  Laus fell silent. "To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure that they would uncover it at all – that was a risk in using a more outdated form of technology, but it was necessary to disguise the trap in a way they wouldn't suspect. 

   "I wasn't fully prepared for Dare and Skywalker's arrival so soon at the Aci base, and I was forced to place the details of their capture into the hands of small-minded individuals, like Dangin." His voice lowered. "A pity, to have to compromise such a well-laid plan so needlessly, but they did benefit from the initial stages of the preparations.  As you know, there had been time enough to alter the situation so that their interpretation of the facts at hand could be scrambled....  The plan moves forward, still," he concluded. "Remember, even your losses can provide future gain, as long as you keep an open mind."

   The boy nodded obediently, and Laus continued. "It's all about timing; timing is key. So for now we will lay low and see how things progress.  As for the information you provided," Laus retreated from his plan's familiar intricacies to return to the boy's initial question. "I have not yet decided," he admitted lazily.  "For now, there are uses we can pursue on our own.  As for the other possibilities... we will wait to see how things progress with our associate, Imago.  His primary concern should be finding a replacement for the Aci base.  Once he is able to get those production lines up and running again, then maybe I' ll have another task for him."

~

   Lara looked around the too-familiar walls of the old Imperial archives, trying to relieve her strained eyes.  She was looking for something that would substantiate her theory on the suspected third Imperial. Following her and Luke' s near disastrous trip to the hidden Aci base world, Lara believed that someone very dangerous was orchestrating a campaign against the New Republic, first with the construction of these mysterious high-tech shielding fighter ships, and then with the hidden message that had almost gotten her and Luke captured by the former Imperial, Dangin.

   So far she had uncovered nothing to help substantiate her theory; a good deal of information was available on her suspect, which, she liked to remind herself when she started to grow impatient, was a novelty in itself. But that information consisted mostly of old service records, special involvement projects, and the odd news line....  Lara had just recently begun following up on something that she had skirted before: the curious self-destruct sequence of that sublight craft that had transmitted the undermessage. 

   They had throughly researched the message itself, both before and after it had lead them into a trap on the Aci base world, but the fact that the message had been tied to the self-destruct sequence of the ship that had transmitted it – that showed advance planning, and that fact added another strange turn to all this.  There was a mastermind at work. Someone had planned to lure Luke Skywalker into a trap from the moment his team had arrived at Rhaci, if not before. Lara wanted to know who, and she wanted to know why... she rubbed her tired eyes again and, checking the time, decided that she'd better call this round an impasse.  She was due to meet Luke for a meal. 

~

   "You still think he's the one to look for, Major Gerent?" Luke asked her from across a table at one of the Palace cafes, prompting Lara to think for a long moment. Looking past Luke, she took in the cafι's light purple and blue decor as she collected her thoughts. The lighting was just beginning to dim into soft reds now; it was a unique and elegant way of indicating the changes in menu items and service as the late afternoon gradually progressed into evening.

   "I still think he's the most likely suspect." 

   Luke waited. "What's changed?

   "His name was attached to the project," Lara started down the established list of indicators, "he's capable of being the power behind an elaborate strategy, and I wouldn't doubt that he could work with the fractions to serve his own ends."  She paused, and Lara shook her head.  "The Gerent I knew was a tough Imperial officer, controlling and coldly efficient, with a great mind for measuring and outguessing an enemy."

   "Hardly the brilliant mind we saw in action on that Aci base world," Luke noted, casting an absent glance to the pair of servers who were making their way through the restaurant's shifting chital trees.  The trees' motion and glossy finish reflected the decor's colors while creating a little added privacy between the busy restaurant's patrons.

   Lara waited until their servers had left them alone with their orders and she and Luke had watched the two droids exit through the shifting chitals before she answered.  "Exactly," she nodded in agreement, looking her meal over and reaching for a vial of salted spice. She shook a little of the mixture over her plate and handed it across to Luke.  "He may still be behind this, controlling things from a distance, but that trap was a weak effort. Much more Dangin's doing."

   "But someone went through a lot of trouble to get us there."

   "I know," she conceded quietly, worried by that. "Something must have been lost between then and our arrival."

   "Maybe they weren't expecting us to break the undermessage so quickly."

   "That's a possibility. But the main sticking point for me is that I can't find a solitary thing on Gerent since Endor, not during the last stand following Endor or under Thrawn.  A good strategic officer should easily have risen to the top during one of those offensives, but he seems to have disappeared during the transition – and Gerent wasn't the type to defect." 

   "What does that leave?" Luke asked, raising his eyebrows; he already suspected the possible answers.

   Lara pushed a little of her food across her plate, watching Luke.  "Either he dug in during all the chaos and is just now putting something into motion for himself, or he really did disappear during the transition, permanently. In that case," she said, finally glancing to her food and stabbing into the traveled piece, "we're back to not knowing who we're dealing with." 

   "What about the tie to the undermessage?" Luke asked, taking a bite of his own food.

   "Another bit of technology that I thought may be connected," she explained.  "That undermessage was attached to a program file that ran when the sublight ship signaled for help; it self-destructed just after that."

   "A doomsday program."

   She nodded.  "This was someone who had done his part and wasn't going to become a liability for it."

   "Something you recognized?" 

   "A little-known piece of Imperial espionage technology," she identified with a slight nod. "Unfortunately the same rule applies to it as the shielding files."  She shrugged. "Anyone on world could have gotten access to it during the chaos of the transition."

   "And Gerent? Is he tied to it?"

   "Not as one of its creators. It dated back before his tenure as an officer, but he was listed as contributing an update to the design."

   He nodded. "Still a connection then." The silence settled for a few minutes as they ate.

   "Well, we may not know who," Luke started, "but I think we may know why." 

   Lara looked at him, waiting.

   "Did you have the impression that the Aci base wasn't what it seemed?"

   She was thoughtful for a moment. "Yes.  There was that ensign I spoke to, said they'd never had such a large shipment at once, and he made it sound like they'd been out of serious action for a while." 

   Luke nodded. "They knew we were coming; they could have managed to set up something extra for us to see."

   "You think that shipment we saw arriving was just there for our benefit?" 

   "When I was on the ground, watching you and Dangin from the edge of the hanger, I saw a line of ships still under construction.  They were covered, back in the forest, pulled off to the side where they could be hidden from sight." He paused for emphasis.  "They wanted us to think that they've got more firepower than they really do, and to make it look like the ships were being produced somewhere else."

   "That would also explain the deserted locations NRI found when we backtracked their shipping records."

   Luke nodded. "The ships were never being produced on those worlds; it was all part of the show."

   "Not a bad setup," she nodded. "Add to that the possibility of getting you captured, and they've got Coruscant in a major state of turmoil."

   He nodded, serious.  "That goal definitely seems to be at the top of their list of priorities."

   "It's a good move," she conceded, "one that gives them the advantage.  All of that chaos makes it hard to put all your resources on a problem." They returned to their meals for a moment, then Lara looked up.  "The last time after they stirred things up, they went into hiding for a while."

   Luke nodded. "To let us wait, and worry, and second-guess ourselves."    

   "This is definitely a serious player.  Whoever's behind this thing is working from a long-range plan; every move is calculated to achieve the greatest overall effect."

   That sobering thought hung in the air and they finished the rest of their meals in silent thought. The decor had already moved into darker reds, and was starting to show the first hints of dark purples by the time Luke and Lara exited past the gathering evening crowd.  Lara stopped back by the archives to pick up the data cards she'd left stored there. While she was inside, Luke was detained in the Grand Corridor by some of the local politicians filing out from the first round of late meetings.

   He had been watching for Lara to step out of the archives, and she restrained a grin when Luke managed to politely break away from them so that he could catch back up to her.  She fixed him with a mischievous smile, which made Luke grin in return as he began walking with her to her quarters. 

   "I'll admit, I enjoy having a good secret as much as the next person," Lara began, "and this one is special," she added softly, turning to him.  "But I don't think we can keep it a secret," she teased, "unless you're planning for a very long engagement."

   He laughed, looking down as they stopped just outside her door.  "No," he smiled back up at her and moved to put his arms around her waist.  "I love the way things are now," he admitted softly.  "I guess I'm just trying to ignore anything that might, rock the boat."

   She grinned, trying hard not to laugh at his purposely awkward turn of phrase, and she rested her hands under his elbows.  "I know.  But we've got to keep moving forward, right?" she smiled, watching him.

   He nodded in return, and took a breath.  "I want to investigate those leads you found."  He stated that resolve softly, and a little cautiously. "It won't change how I feel, how sure I am of you," he assured her gently, worried for a moment that she might think that, "but I need to know everything I can about me, about what my life is going to be and all that it means to be a Jedi, before we take this step."

   Lara nodded slowly; then she smiled, drawing closer to him.  "I understand," she assured him.  "I want that for you too.  I know how much it means. And I know that your feelings for me are solid; you never have to worry that I'd doubt that," she smiled, "or you," Lara whispered. 

   Luke looked in her eyes for a long moment, simply amazed at her, and at how much he loved her. He smiled and kissed her gently.  "Now we just have to make it official," Luke whispered conspiratorially, leaning his forehead to hers.

   "When will you tell your family?" Lara asked.

   "We'll tell them.  Tonight."

~

   The living area of Luke's modest suite was crowded with immediate family: Han and Leia, and Chewie, and the droids.  He had assured them all that it wasn't urgent, just important that they be here, and now they sat waiting. 

   Luke and Lara stood outside, taking one more deep breath.  Lara was more nervous than he'd ever seen her.  Luke was briefly tempted to point that out to her, but instead he just took hold of her shoulders and smiled at her, feeling his own nerves fade a little against the light in her eyes. He kissed her forehead.  "I love you, Sweetness."  

   She closed her eyes and smiled; that smile crossed her face slowly, at him, and at the unexpected term of affection.  His hands slid down her arms, rubbing them reassuringly.  Lara nodded and lifted her eyes back to him. "I love you too," she whispered, feeling that smile cross her again. Feeling ready.

   Luke keyed open the door and found all eyes upon the two of them as they walked inside.

   "Well Kid, you've got us here. What's the bad news?" 

   Luke grinned.  Leave it to Han to break the silence. "No bad news," he corrected as he looked over each of the faces he had come to call family, and Luke realized suddenly that Lara was that too, to him. They only had to make it official now.

   "First, I wanted to tell you that Lara came across some things in the old files that might be related to the Jedi.  I'm going to take some time away so that we can investigate.  Han and Leia cast cautious glances at each other, and Chewie made an equally cautious rumbling sound before Luke continued. "With any luck, I may be able to find some long-awaited answers," he added slowly. "And I have good news," Luke said softly.

   He reached an arm to encircle Lara's waist, asking her to step forward and stand beside him. "I know this will sound sudden," he conceded, "but for me, it's not. It's been coming, really, for almost a year now."  He glanced to Lara and looked back to the waiting faces. 

   "I love Lara.  I've asked her to marry me."  He smiled to her again. "She's said yes." 

   Chewie was the first to rumble a mild congratulation.  Then Han stood; looking a little stunned, he followed Chewie's line of sentiment with an equally mild smile and a numb nod of agreement.  Still, he moved to hug his friend and looked Luke in the eye, holding him at arm's length. What he saw there made Han's smile come a little easier.

   Luke turned to Leia next, who had not yet moved from her seat. Before he could speak to her she stood and pushed past him. Luke cast a worried look between Lara and Han. Each wore the same quiet expression, one of hoping for the best, as Luke stepped between them to follow after his sister.

   They each watched Luke leave, then Lara looked back to Han, who was suddenly looking a little out of place.  He recovered from the bout of awkward speechlessness by reaching a hand to rub the back of his head, and he mumbled a congratulation to her. 

~

   "Leia."  Luke called out quietly to his sister. 

   She looked down. She'd stopped already; just a few steps outside the door, Leia had realized that all the distance in the universe wasn't going to make this make sense to her.  She had to try to talk it out with Luke. 

   Leia turned back to him, shrugging.  Her confusion was obvious as Luke stepped closer. "You really love her," Leia half stated, half questioned.

   He nodded, not knowing where to begin.

   "When did that happen?" she asked, mystified.

   "I don't know. A little at a time.... I've always cared for her," he offered quietly, "but I didn't expect this either."  He shrugged behind the edge of a light smile that tried to explain his feelings.

   There was a light in his eyes and a lightness to his sense.... Leia realized with a pang of hurt sympathy that she hadn't seen those things in him for a very long time....  "And her?" she asked. "You're sure of her?" Leia stated in that same half-and-half tone.

   He nodded again. "Completely."

   Leia nodded back, acknowledging. "I don't know if I can be, Luke," she told him honestly, with no apology. "But I can see that you're happy," she admitted. "That's obvious. And I won't stand in the way of that," she said, feeling suddenly how very long it had been, how much pain they'd seen each other through, and how very much she wished happiness for him.

   He nodded, unable to speak for a moment. Luke was grateful for her sentiment, but even more grateful for the unselfish love behind it. "Thank you," was all that he could say. 

~

   Inside, Lara found herself directing traffic and, oddly, trying not to laugh as Threepio inanely argued some minuscule point with Chewbacca. The latter, possessing all the patience one might assume a Wookie to have for pointless debate, was quickly tiring of the exercise. She pulled herself away from the attempt at refereeing their debate to smile down at Artoo, who had trundled over to her and was beeping happily. She was relieved that someone seemed to be happy, genuinely, and she was flattered by that as well; Lara had grown to like the little astromech droid who showed such fierce loyalty to his master. 

   It was a start.  Lara looked over Artoo's domed top as he swirled around, beeping again. She wondered exactly what the proper protocol was for preventing an angry Wookie from deservingly disassembling a thick-circuited protocol droid.

~

   Han watched Lara take in the turmoil around them for a few moments before he edged outside. 

   "I know I'm asking a lot," he heard Luke saying, "that you put your own doubts aside and trust me."  Luke smiled a little, and looked past Leia as Han came out.  Leia, too, looked up to glance toward her husband as he stepped to her side. "But I'm asking for even more than that," Luke said quietly. "You're my family."  He looked between them. "That means everything to me.  But Lara is my family too now; I love her that much."

   He glanced away, his discomfort showing at what he felt he needed to say.  "Not even your disapproval would change that," he stated cautiously, his eyes resting on each of them for a moment, "or keep us from marrying."  He swallowed hard at having said it.  "But I want your blessing," Luke continued more strongly, "and I want you to be able to accept her as family – in time," he added the cautious concession.

   "Luke," Han said, fidgeting a little uneasily, "you're a big boy.  I'm not gonna try to tell you how to feel," he said shaking his head. Leia suppressed a smile. "But this new search–" he started, "it bothers me.  You've looked before – we've helped you.  But every time it's ended the same. Vader and the Emperor wiped out everything about the Jedi."  Han hesitated.  "I thought you knew that it was time to move on," he suggested carefully.  "Now all of a sudden, that's changed. And what about Leia's training?" he asked a little defensively, looking to his wife. "Shouldn't that come first?"

   "No, that's my fault, Han," Leia interjected.  "Even when Luke is here, I just don't have the time to dedicate to it."

   "It's not that I'm putting other things first," Luke explained.  "And it's not Lara."  He glanced between Han and Leia, his gaze settling on his sister as he looked for the words.  After a moment he decided just to say it. "This has everything to do with me, and my responsibility to you. 

   "There's still a lot I don't know, Leia."  He gave a glance back to Han. "And I know that the answers I need may not exist," he admitted. "But there are too many questions that aren't going away.  There are too many things that I've been trying very hard, for years, not to let myself see. Now, if there's even a small chance that these answers are out there, then I've got to find out... for me, for everybody who depends on me," he said, and paused, "for everybody who will," he whispered.

   Leia nodded. "I understand, Luke," she said quietly, and she hugged him.

   Han nodded too.  "Then I hope you find what you need, in both cases."     

   Leia laughed out loud, not ever remembering seeing her brother turn quite that shade of red.

   "I'm gonna head back in, make sure Chewie hasn't dismantled Threepio," Han said, motioning to the door, excusing himself to leave Luke and Leia a few more minutes to settle things between themselves.

~

   "That went better than it could have," Lara admitted wryly.  It felt like all the air had been deflated from the room now that the tension had passed and it was just the two of them here, seated on one of the comfortable sofas in Luke's suite. Luke took a deep breath, and then started to laugh, remembering her description of Chewie; Luke had already seen Threepio's characteristic combination of confused and offended when Han had ordered him out into the hallway, loudly insisting that it was for his own safety.

   "Are you sure you want to marry into this family?" he kidded her. 

   Lara laughed too.  "I know it's an understatement to say that I've started out strangely with them.  But I like the idea of having a family again." Her smile stayed light, but her voice strained unexpectedly over the last couple of words.  Luke reached his arm around her.  "That really was supposed to be a happy thought," she insisted sheepishly, shaking her head at herself. 

   The attempted cover didn't quite chase away the shadow.  "It will be," he whispered. "Just give yourself a little space, let it come."

   She smiled, feeling a little of his resolve along with his arm around her. "What happened with Han and Leia?" she asked.

   Luke took a cautious breath. "They're a little unsure," he admitted heavily.  "But they see that I care for you, and I think they see that you're good for me."

   She smiled.  "Yeah?"

   He nodded, his chin brushing against her shoulder.

   "I like that," she said softly.  "I hope they do too," she added quietly.

~

   Leia and Han walked in silence to their own suite and looked in on the twins; Winter had just put them down for the night.  After assuring herself that her children were tucked in for the night, safe and sound, Leia crossed to the living room and sat down heavily.  Han emerged from the kitchenette and sat beside her a moment later, handing her a cool drink and taking a deep sip of his own drink.

   "What are you thinking?" he asked her.

   "That I hope Luke knows what he's doing... that I hope all my instincts are wrong...." She took a breath and let it out slowly.  "But mostly, that I want so badly for him to be happy." She looked at her husband expectantly.

   "I was thinking that too," Han admitted, "at least two of the three," he amended with a half smile. 

   "Do you really think...?" she asked carefully.

   "You saw it," he prompted her.

   Leia met his eyes and nodded.  "He was happy," she said. "That weight that he's always worn..." she trailed off. "I just don't know," Leia finished, frustrated by her own indecision.

   "If it can last," Han suggested, his voice grim.

   "If she can give him that..." Leia agreed. "For almost as long as I've known him, Han, he's carried this weight.  The weight of the galaxy on him, I used to kid. But I stopped kidding when I realized how true it is.  Luke is one of the strongest people I know. Strongest, wisest, clearest, with the biggest heart. But there's always been a side of him that was very sad.

   "I only saw it from time to time.  On Endor, then when we moved things to Coruscant and I was pregnant with the twins....  It felt like there were things he just couldn't say to me, no matter how much he wanted to, or how much it hurt him to keep it in." She paused.  "I saw a hint of that tonight when he said he needed answers."  Then she sighed.  "But he was also happier than he's been, in a long time."

   "I saw that too," Han echoed, and she watched him, waiting for the opinion he still hadn't given. 

   Han stayed quiet for a moment longer.  "I watched her, after you and Luke had gone, in the middle of this crazy scene with Chewie and the droids – and any semblance of civilality had just left when you and Luke walked out." 

   "And?" she prompted him.

   He paused. "She didn't change when Luke left the room.  She didn't try to put on some act that would impress me or win me over. That puts her on the level," he decided. "Smiling at Artoo and trying not to offend Chewie by not letting him dismantle the goldenrod." Leia smiled at that description. "That shows that she sees things clearly, and reacts cooly." He paused again. "I saw someone who has strength and is unflappable, but who carries it easy, not bold or flaunting."

   Leia listened carefully, knowing that Han Solo didn't mince words or give complements lightly.

   "Don't hit me," he joked, "but it reminded me a lot of watching Luke.  Sometimes you almost take him for granted because he's so solid, and he makes it look so easy."  Han paused once more. "You know, Princess," he thought out loud, "sometimes, it's easy to think that when you've known somebody for so long, through so much, that you must know everything that's there – seen it all by now – but maybe we don't see things deep down, or if they're changing right in front of us. Maybe she sees something like that, something deep down that Luke needed to get seen."

   Leia waited as Han looked at her for another moment, measuring his thoughts, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. 

   "I think that she could be the match for him."

~

   The following day Luke sat in Leia's office scanning over a data pad.  He was reading through the last of the information that Mara's sources had provided on the mystery fighters. Then he looked up, exchanging glances with Leia.  "It looks like we've hit another dry spell," she said to Mara over the transmission divide.

   "What do we do now, just wait for them to make their next move?" she spat in reply.  Mara knew that that was their only choice, but she was clearly not in favor of it. 

   "Looks like that's all we can do," Luke admitted.

   "I hate waiting," Mara grumbled. "I'll keep in touch," she said, wrapping up her end; "let me know if there's anything else." 

   They both nodded to her, and Mara signed off. 

   "We knew this was coming," Leia said wearily, though she was still frustrated by the prospect. Then she looked to Luke and smiled grimly.  "This would probably be a good time for you to get moving on your own project."

~

   Leads were growing similarly thin in the archives, as the dead end that Coruscant had been dreading and expecting started to stretch over the investigation. Lara sighed, at a loss as to where to start next; she had already exhausted every lead she could think of. She sat back in her chair for a long moment, herself, pretty near to exhausted. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to face Luke.

   From her downcast face and the heavy feel in her sense, along with the hunch that tensed her shoulder under his hand, Luke knew that she was also at a dead end. He looked down at her for a moment, prompting Lara to shrug a tired confirmation of her lack of progress

   "There's nothing else we can do here," Luke stated.  "What do you say we start at the beginning of those leads?"

   Her eyes rested steadily on his, and Lara gave him a determined nod.

~~ ~ () ~ ~~

   Their determination was to be put to the test....  Today they had already spent hours pouring over tedious written records in the archives of just one of the planets on the list Lara that had confiscated from the dregs of the d files.  This place had provided one of the more solid leads that they had been able to trace over the past month and a half.  For that reason they had persistently surveyed the ancient archives here since arriving about a week ago; before coming here, the first few leads of their search had been attributed false starts, but the feeling that anything was possible had kept them looking ahead to the next lead, the next possibility... and that hope had eventually brought them to this place....  Now, as Luke sat staring at the written sheet in his hands, he tried to fight down the hope that this time the lead would pan out. This could be the place they had been looking for; this path could be the one to take him to the knowledge he needed.

   Lara felt the change in his sense, and she walked over to him. She was comfortably aware of Luke's familiar sense all the time and she easily recognized the change in his cautious emotions. Luke had found something, and she didn't hesitate to prompt him to share that knowledge with her. If the past month and a half had been short on leads that had paid off, they had been rich in partnership. Lara and Luke had found a new degree of comfort in their partnership, learning to lean on each other and to know each other's quirks and complements day-to-day. They had already left the narrow boundaries of infatuation behind them, growing into a new state of love – one that was not only giving, true, and honest, but also throughly grounded in the reality of what this life shared between them would bring.

   They found ways to support one another through successes and failures, and ways to remain hopeful in the challenge they shared. That support and comfort made it easy for Lara to place her hand on Luke's shoulder now, prompting him to share the object of his attention.  He was clearly concentrating hard on something; she couldn't make out what until she drew close enough to look over his shoulder and see the written page that was so intently holding his concentration.

   "Can you see it?" he asked her softly.

   Lara dropped down into a crouching position by his side, glancing between Luke and the page he held in both hands. "What?" she asked softly, curiously. All she could see was a familiar list of names, another shrouded message that was very similar to the message she had first found in Coruscant's archives.  She was glad for that; it was a good sign that they were still on the trail, but the cause for Luke's fascination escaped her.

   "Don't look with your eyes," he explained.

   The paper he held started to shift in his hands, almost before he had finished the thought. 

   "I do see it," she breathed, realizing that it was the writing on the page that was shifting, shifting to reveal something not otherwise visible.  "It's some sort of undermessage."

   "Using the Force," he finished softly.

   "Can you understand it?" she asked. 

   Luke shook his head. "I don't know the script," he answered, glancing back to her; "we'll have to look it up." 

   Lara nodded.   "Let's get back to the ship then; Artoo can check it out."

~

   That mysterious message written in a strange script lead to another foreign message written in a different strange script, but they each used the same Force-reliant style of underwriting. "What do you think the point is?" Lara asked conversationally from the copilot's seat as they prepared to make their third hyperspace jump in as many days.

   "Aside from making sure that only someone who is Force-strong can interpret the message, and find the location it leads to?" he returned, equally conversationally.  "Maybe the script was intended for someone specific.  It could have been used as a tool to muddle the way for anyone else."

   "It wasn't locally based," she considered. "Maybe these Jedi were in hiding from a local threat."

   "And leaving instructions for their comrades to find them, maybe after the threat had been faced.... Could be," Luke agreed, pulling his imagination away from visions of brave Jedi preparing to face hopeless odds. He was reminded of the assault on the first Death Star.  "Red Leader... keep half your group out of range for the next run...." Hopeless odds, but somehow they had succeeded. Luke got the final coordinates from the nav computer and entered them manually; he was hoping that these Jedi had been as fortunate as he and the Rebel Alliance had once been. 

   "And the two messages together have a new meaning."  Lara's voice broke into his thoughts. She was still considering the string of clues, thinking out loud.

   "With one piece of the puzzle missing, the trail goes astray," Luke confirmed, looking over to her as they both strapped in for the jump.  "Someone put a lot into this; it had a purpose," he conceded, his cautious voice almost masking the hope beneath.  "Such a complex trail... there must be something at its end." 

~

   The combination of those two messages led them to a moderate planet, in size and in population.  It's entire population was centered around several cities, and they quickly discovered that the planet's terrain made it less than profitable for those seeking to settle other areas of the planet.  The archive records here were limited in fact, however they found a persistent mythology woven throughout the written records depicting an "ancient bastion protected by the heart of the wilderness".

   Luke and Lara exchanged suspicious glances the first time it came up, attributing the story to popular folk lore, but it seemed the deeper they dug into the archives the more references they found. The same mention kept reoccurring, and what started as folk lore gradually began to carry a hint of possibility. 

After their inquiries into several other cities' local data bases proved unsuccessful, Luke and Lara found themselves preparing to travel deep into the planet's unprofitable terrain, to search out a fabled mythic structure amid the unmapped wilderness. 

~

   They soon found that the terrain's reputation as unprofitable was no exaggeration. Great black marble rock formations towered above them as soon as they left the protective niche that the cities had carved out for themselves, and heavy metallic foliage consumed the forest floor, slowing their travel.  The foliage of this world was less vegetative than even Myrkr's had been, making it all but impossible to scout the planet from the air, for life or technology.

   It also provided much more likely a place to hide something that was not to be disturbed than the cities would; at least that was Luke's reasoning as they continued onward.  As they moved steadily deeper, the trees began growing higher and the forest canopy became thicker until it completely  blocked the sky from view. That combination created an unnerving premature darkness along with a strange feeling of openness, almost like being under the protective cover of a large tent.  It also cut down the plant density of the forest floor, which eased the way for their speeder.  They were able to cover the ground more quickly, and within another hour Luke sensed something that brought them to a halt. 

   Lara watched as he concentrated on finding their next direction. She stretched her own senses to the Force as well, reaching out curiously with her own strength, but the small clue he searched for was well beyond her reach.  She let her gaze move away from him, slowly wandering across the surrounding trees; a strange sensation tickled at the edge of her mind. It drew her attention and she stepped away from Luke and the speeder, cautiously taking a few paces to one side.

   With her next step forward, she felt herself gasp in shock.  It was as though she had unexpectedly stepped on something.  Luke was at her side hardly a second later.

   "What is it?" he asked.

   Despite her desire to draw back, Lara stood frozen in place, staring down at the featureless ground. She didn't answer him; she just shivered, looking down at the ground under her feet with a startled and troubled expression etched into her face.  Luke reached out to her, trying to understand what had just happened.  Through her emotions, he could feel a very real sense of intense pain and fear – and death.

The turmoil was beyond her, a residual stain of emotion, living on in the place upon which she stood.  Luke put an arm around her, responding to the grim realization and gently pulling her away from the spot.  Someone had died, horribly, here. 

   "C'mon," he whispered. "We're not very far away now."

   There wasn't very far to go, and there was no mystery to be solved at this trail's end; they both knew what the outcome would be well before they reached the remains of the black marble structure.  Both could sense the darkness permeating this sight.  There was no emotional outburst attached to this place, just the darkness, the death it implied, and the obvious destruction that was left in its wake. 

   There were two large rooms on the ground floor (anything that had been built above those two rooms was unintelligible now). One of the two surviving rooms appeared to be a living area and the second seemed like an archive library, though little of anything was left of it all now.  The blackened rubble and the blackened stone crumbled under their footsteps, adding to the eerie, dark quiet that surrounded them.  The whole experience created a greatly disturbing sensation, just in moving through the wreckage, but without a spoken word both set about the unpleasant work that needed to be done here.

   After several minutes of trying to sort though the remains of the place, Lara stopped and stood up straight.  Luke winced as he looked up to her. "It's okay," she said, meeting his eyes before she turned away.  "I just need a clean breath," she assured him, moving away from the debris. She looked pale, and her voice and sense were strained.

   He watched her for a moment more before going back to the job, wanting even more for it to be finished.  It was hard – hard just to see past the darkness in this place, much less to try to reach past it enough to sense some small thing that had existed here before....  He imagined it was worse for her, to actually feel the residual emotion in it.... Luke could easily sense the feelings of anger and hatred in the motive that had brought this awful destruction.  He had sensed it all before in other sites where he had searched out the Jedi, only to find that the hatred and violence which had destroyed them was all that remained in their place... but it was something very different, he realized, to bring it inside himself. To feel the residual emotion in it rather than simply perceive its horrid existence... that went beyond difficult and disturbing, to personal, and painful.  Luke pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated harder on finishing this. 

   When he walked outside to the place where Lara stood waiting, Luke carried with him a few recovered pieces that had once been written materials, but he put his thoughts of those things and what they might hold aside as he neared her.  Lara stood quietly, watching the trees with a bit of a faraway look on her face.  He remembered how strongly their earlier discovery had affected her... now being in this place had strained her senses and emotions even further; Luke was worried for her.

   She turned back to him, glancing down at the pieces that he carried.

   "This is it," he explained softly, as her eyes returned to his.  "C'mon," Luke offered easily, motioning her back to the speeder, guiding her with a supporting arm. 

   "Are you okay?" Luke finally asked, having traveled a good way in silence.

   Lara nodded heavily and swallowed hard.  "Who do think it was, who tried to run?"

   "I don't know; someone trying to escape, or to get help."

   "But not a Jedi," Lara said. It wasn't really a question. She was just trying to understand what she already knew.

   "No," Luke answered.

   Jedi had certainly died at the site they had found; the darkness imprinted upon the remains of that place proved that much.  But that other death, with its intense emotional residue... that being had likely been an innocent bystander, or someone who had befriended the Jedi living here.  Maybe even someone who tried to warn them, who wanted to protect them....

   Luke was waiting for her to speak again; Lara knew that; she could feel his worry. It still took a moment before she found her voice. "I haven't felt anything like that – in a long time," she breathed softly, "the darkness or the death."

   He reached out to her, and Lara moved close against his side in response; she turned her head to his shoulder and closed her eyes against him.  Gratefully, Lara held close to him and shut her eyes against the memory of so many things that she only wanted to forget.

   "I'm sorry," Luke said softly, nothing else he could say. 

   She shook her head.  "It's just so powerful," she whispered, and she struggled with herself to draw another cleansing breath.  "It's hard to shake off," she admitted regretfully, pained.

   "I know," he assured her.  "I know," he repeated more quietly, to the parts that she didn't speak. He knew that the worst of the darkness and the death hadn't been in that cold place, but elsewhere, in her mind and her heart. 

~

   Once back on the ship, they analyzed the remains that Luke had recovered as best they could. The remains themselves had revealed little, and Luke hadn't been able to sense any more of the Force-based clues on that world. Whether that meant that this had been the end destination, or that another clue had been lost in the destruction of that place, he couldn't tell.  But this location had overlapped with another of their leads, which meant a connection, a trail. At least he hoped that was what it meant.  At the start of another hyperspace jump, they were both starting to worry that this whole thing could turn out to be a wild chase. 

~

   In his mind Luke returned to the hope that the trail would lead to something.  He rolled over restlessly in the ship's bunk.  Sleep wouldn't come.  His thoughts kept going back over the search: the clues, the possibilities... and he tried again to skirt the specter that it could all fall out from under them. The worry that he managed to overlook during the days threatened to ambush him as he lay still, staring into the dark.  What would they do next; what would he do, if this was all for nothing?

   He sighed and rolled onto his back again, the covers twisting around him. 

   There was a knock at the doorway.  Reflexively, he grimaced. But then he waited.

   The door slid open and Lara looked in on him cautiously, giving him a shrugging half smile. 

   Luke smiled slowly, moving to sit up a little against his pillow.  She didn't want to barge in, but she knew he needed the company.  Sometimes it still caught him off guard, how well Lara did know him.  She walked over and knelt by his side. Luke reached a hand for hers and she took it with a smile.

   "Is this what the rest of our lives is going to be?" she teased him lightly. "One of us always fighting a sleepless night." 

   He grinned easily, and then it passed into mischievously.  "I could think of worse things." 

   She laughed at him, but then she grew serious. "It'll work out, Luke," she shrugged, "one way or another, it will."

   He smiled a little more easily and nodded, realizing that just having her near made it easier for him to believe... and that he didn't want her to go.  A strange look crossed him, as if just realizing the circumstances; he was just now vaguely noticing that it was a little strange and a lot presumptuous for him to be reaching out to her this way, from the middle of the night, under covers, something less than fully dressed.

   Lara laughed a little as she understood the look, and she touched him. The comfort in her own emotions reassured him that none of the awkwardness of presumption applied to them. 

   His fingers moved around her hand and, with a shy smile, Luke hesitantly pulled hers toward him. She followed his gesture without asking his intention or questioning it herself. He wanted her to be near him.  She wanted that too, and she moved to his side.  Love and intention was no more complex between them.

   He released her hand and shifted onto his side, making room for her as she lay by him, a familiar soft smile on her face. He wrapped an arm around her and lifted his chin to rest against the top of her head, feeling her breath against his collar, her contentedness just to be near him... holding her close.

   Lara closed her eyes and breathed him in as he pulled nearer to her; she could feel a curious touch of restlessness in his emotions.  His arm curled around her to touch her hair, her face, and he dipped his head to hers.  She felt that restlessness again; this time she recognized it as conflict, impulse. Luke kissed her. He wanted to kiss her, and the motion was impulsive.  

   She kissed him back, gently, and he pulled back to look in her eyes. Lara touched his cheek, smiling; she was wondering what he was looking for as he smiled back at her.  The conflict had vanished; she had already forgotten it.  Lara closed her eyes and felt his kiss, the touch of his breath.  Everything else started to slip away.  He felt the brush of her arms around him as she kissed him, as they reached to hold each other, as her body lay back.  Their lips parted slowly as he bent over her, and Luke kissed her again, lightly, as he held above her, feeling his heart beating.

   For a long moment they just breathed, forehead to forehead.  Lara opened her eyes slowly, and Luke smiled, watching her.  The moment grew long as he took another breath, lay feeling the soft touch of hers upon him.  So close to her, he wanted to be closer still....

   It made him forget the rest.

   It gave distance to the needy feelings that had prompted him to ask her to his side, for the comfort of her presence, and it made light what had been a distinct discomfort: the implied presumption in that request, that a simple intention could become something different, more complex and not as pure.

   He touched her softly. She was so beautiful.  Her kiss was so tender and giving; that alone betrayed her comfort in being here with him.  Her eyes were clear, so soft and bright that with every second he could see her love for him... and he wanted to show her all the tender emotions he didn't have words for, to reach even deeper into this love he felt for her. He wanted very much to make love to her.

   He released a breath that he hadn't realized he'd held as the full weight of that realization sank in. He wanted to give himself over to that, and forget the rest.  He wanted to somehow let himself forget that he didn't want it to be like that, that he wanted more for them than something born of need, more than a moment of passion in the ship's cramped bunk.... Even if he could somehow forget himself, she deserved more than that consideration from him.  

   She touched him, and Luke lowered his forehead further against hers, his eyes closed.  Lara was coming up for air now too, remembering, feeling things other than the physical intoxication of their nearness.  Her lips brushed against his. "I love you, Luke," she whispered. "I don't want there to be any regret in this.  It means too much."

   He nodded against her, his eyes still closed, before his crystal blue gaze quietly flickered up to hers. He took one more breath, seeking some final reconcile for the physical demands that lingered behind the emotional ones; remembering, through the temptation to forget. He felt the same.  He wanted no regrets attached to their lovemaking.  The physical should be just as deep, and binding, and amazingly beautiful as the rest of this love they had found... and wanted to share for the rest of their lives. 

   He moved back, lowered himself to lay at her side. His head still rested against hers and his arms stayed around her as Lara lay still, for a long moment feeling the unfamiliar strain of Luke's breathing at her ear. She knew in that moment how easily desire could become rejection, and rejection, hurt. And she wanted desperately to keep anything from hurting him, especially her.

   Lara gave him the space of another few heartbeats before she turned her face toward him. She was cautious of his emotions and aware of what he needed from her, but she wanted very much to keep the closeness between them too, to offer him reassurance.  She forced herself to wait, again letting him lift his eyes to her. Her gaze stayed on him for a long moment before she touched him, just as she had a few moments ago. She recognized the struggle still within him, body, mind, and emotion. But the worry faded as she saw understanding; she knew that he, too, would rather let go of what he wanted, what he had needed just a moment ago, rather than foolishly risk what they had begun to build together. 

   The difficult choice was a small sacrifice, for each of them, but it was one they could each afford. They were building a future, with each moment, every decision, and each sacrifice of self. There was trust in that, and there was reverence for it. Their goal was worth the sacrifice.

   She looked to that goal now, as her hand cupped his cheek and her eyes searched his again. "We've got the rest of our lives, don't we?" she finally prompted, softly, easily.  "Time for everything to be right."

   Luke felt himself smile in answer. He could feel her love for him, in the softly spoken words and the strength of the emotions behind them.  And he could feel just a glimpse of how it would be to have the rest of his life to offer to her, with no shortcuts, no excuses, no regrets....  An amazing sense of peacefulness came to him in that, giving new strength to difficult resolve. 

   "The rest of our lives, together," he echoed, "in every way. I love you, Lara," he whispered, and he kissed her lips once more. Then his lips touched to her forehead as he let his arm uncurl from around her and reached to softly push her hair back from her face.

   She sighed as he traced a fingertip along her temple.  The small motion came as he leaned back from her to lay down again, and Lara smiled at herself, realizing rather suddenly that it wasn't any easier for her than it had been for him.  As soon as he moved away, she wanted to move close to him again; suddenly she found herself craving the comforting feel of his arms around her, the intoxication of forgetting herself in his kiss....

   "Goodnight, Luke," she whispered instead, smiling as she closed her eyes.

   "Goodnight, Lara," he answered, watching her, a feeling of awe coming over him.  He was awed by the amazing beauty of this woman; she stood with strength at his side and sought out his embrace with the same strength, matched in love.  She had been close enough for him to feel the incredible depths of that love; in a fleeting glimpse of tenderness and passion, he had felt her love for him... and when that same love had asked her to put herself aside, she had accepted that request too, with no trace of hesitation or resentment in her.

   The strength of that love was amazing; it was still growing between them, and it would only grow stronger in time, with care and patience.... Luke curled his fingers around hers and brought her hand to softly touch his lips. He smiled at himself as he closed his eyes, and with his last waking thought he wondered, unfathomably, how he could possibly have needed for more.

   This time when he closed his eyes, sleep came to him easily.

~

   The alarm set above the bunk woke him and Luke reached up sleepily to cut it off.  Lara had stirred a little when the motion shifted his weight but she didn't come awake; Luke hadn't moved very far. The control for the alarm was only an arm's length away, straight over his head, and the ship's bunk wasn't much wider than that across. The space clearly wasn't designed for two people, and Luke found that somewhere in her sleep Lara had rolled over onto his arm.  He carefully shifted his weight, trying to offer his pillow to her as a substitute, but Lara only rolled over again, turning toward him as he moved a little closer to the wall. 

   This time her arm managed to snake around him, and Luke smiled.  He whispered her name as her head nestled against his shoulder, but she only moved closer against him; hardly a sound in answer, protesting the continuing possibility of having to wake up.  His smile widened, and he wrapped his free arm around her shoulders as he lifted his chin to rest against the top of her head.  He didn't really care that the feeling was slowly coming back to his right arm; he felt the warm touch of her breathing against his collar and the contentedness in her soft sigh....  That familiarity made him smile again.

   Luke dipped his head to hers, this time to whisper in her ear. "This is what the rest of our lives will be," he said softly, smiling at that thought, at the imagination of many mornings like this one, stretching lazily into their future.

   Lara leaned against him as she laughed gently, sleepily. "I like your version," she murmured.  

~

   The next leg of their search started with a long jump, the first of many.  They found several written records that kept them jumping throughout the system, piecing together one small bit of information after another, and when they finally found the common link between the leads which led them to a final destination, their search abruptly dead-ended.

   That final destination turned out to be a former Imperial-occupied world.  Luke and Lara searched out the archives and data bases and spoke to many of the locals, but all ends pointed to the same conclusion.  The Empire had wiped out the local government, along with all of local history and record, when it had taken over this place. If there ever had been anything of the Jedi here, it had certainly been destroyed.

   In the following days, they walked through the older cities and toured the older surviving structures, hoping that something might still remain.  Lara stood on the steps outside one such building, speaking to a few of the locals there while Luke stayed longer inside the huge, old building.  It had once been a place of worship and meeting for the citizens.  The Empire, they related to her in harsh detail, had put an end to that.  The building only survived today because they had chosen to use it as an operations headquarters.

   Finally, having to admit that there was nothing to be found in this place either, Luke emerged from the building with his gaze downcast. He stepped outside into the dim sunlight, making an effort to lift his eyes to the world around him as he passed slowly through the heavy doors. Lara parted from the locals to join him.  Luke managed a smile, but it didn't hide the heavy weight of disappointment within him.

   Neither of them spoke, or acknowledged the grim fact that this had been their last chance for finding something here, and possibly anywhere. She had sensed his struggle throughout the past few days, as it had become more and more apparent that they had nowhere else to go with this lead. The trail had been so illusive, so hopeful, and so certainly tied to the Jedi.... Neither of them knew what to do or say in the wake of this puzzling defeat. 

   They returned to the ship to prepare to lift off.  But this time there was nowhere left to go.

~

   Late that day, they were still on world.

   Lara returned from the spaceport's decidedly limited hardware sales with a part that she hoped would reverse the malfunction that kept them here. It wasn't the exact model they needed, but it was as close as they would find here. She handed it down to Luke as he leaned into a service shaft, and then she stepped back to watch the systems' readings in case the replacement started to short them into a burnout. 

   Part of her emotions remained uneasy as Luke gave half of his attention to the small ship's malfunction. She felt miserably responsible.  Lara told herself that it was mostly the frustration of being stranded here that was making this dead end hit them so hard; she insisted to herself that things would be easier once they could get moving again, but Lara was beginning to wish that she had never found those files in the Coruscant archives, never gotten Luke's hopes up.... No application of calm logic would make her feelings of guilt recede, and the distraction of a ship in need of repair did nothing to displace the deep disappointment that hovered over Luke.

   The ship seemed to take the replacement part without any fuss, and a moment later she heard Luke walk back toward the ready room. Lara went over the readings one last time and powered the systems back to standby. She realized that something was off. She had been able to see Luke's discomfort and distress easily over the past few days, but she wasn't feeling him as clearly as she usually did.  Lara took a deep breath and walked back to the ready room after him.

   He stood quietly, but his sense flickered with uncertainty when Lara entered the room. So he felt the distance too.... Lara winced. With an effort, she pushed away her own painful emotions and the heavy distance that they had placed between the two of them, and she reached her arms around Luke.

   He released a short breath as he turned to hold her, and he seemed to sink into her arms, relieved for something real to reach out to.  Lara held on to him for a long while, feeling his uncertainty echo against her own, feeling the sadness and the doubt in the painful unknowns that twisted around them. This time she resisted the temptation to look away from those things, to somehow guard Luke from the pain that she was feeling. It was still difficult for her to do so, to give up that source of safety for herself, but she knew that Luke needed that from her; he needed more than the feel of her arms around him; he wanted and needed the kind of unconditional comfort that could only be found when two people were willing to belong to each other with nothing held back.

   "Doesn't it have to exist? It was so close, just a few days ago." Luke pulled her nearer, and this time she felt the needful sigh in the brush of his breath and in the hold of his arms as they moved even more tightly around her.  "After all this, and coming so close... I can't believe that something I need, so much, just doesn't exist.  I don't know how to accept that," Luke whispered.

   "It's not over yet," Lara answered him softly, fighting against the lost edge of defeat in his voice.  She paused, reaching out to his emotions again.  "You don't want to stop, do you?" She asked the question softly, considering that possibility for the first time. He had always been so determined before... now she wondered if maybe Han had been right.  Maybe the best thing for Luke would be to accept this reality, accept his place as the last surviving Jedi Knight and start letting go of the need for answers that he might never find.  Whether the answers were there or not, sooner or later he would have to simply believe in himself.

   Luke was quiet for a moment before he shook his head in answer.  He had let his emotions get the better of him, Luke thought to himself ruefully. This dead end changed nothing. He still needed these answers, and if there was any chance they existed... he couldn't stop searching.

   Lara squeezed him tight in response, letting go of her own hesitations.  Luke had made his decision. She would do everything she could to help him find what he needed. "Then if it's there, we'll find it.  And if it's not–" she trailed off.

   "We're stronger for having looked," he finished for her, fresh certainly emerging in the unexpected realization.

   She knew that he was right.  "No matter what, we're stronger," she agreed. Lara held on to him, and knew that they would see this through together.  No matter the outcome they would both be stronger, and they would be stronger together. She eased back enough to look him in the face and give him a smile. Then her eyes wandered from his, her thoughts quickly shifting.  "We'll go back and retrace ourselves," she decided. "We just need to find the common ground between these leads," she trailed off thoughtfully.

   Luke nodded. "There's got to be common ground," he insisted softly, the words giving way to deeper emotion behind them. Luke shook his head, looking for the words to fit. "Between responsibility and family, between my service as a Jedi and how much I feel I'm meant to share my life with you. 

   "I feel it, Lara.  I know it's there."

   She nodded.  "I know.  I feel it too, Luke.  We'll find it." Then she grinned at him, lightening the heavy mood between them. "If you still think I can find common ground with your family, then anything's possible," she decided, her voice and her smile teasing him as she searched his face for a trace of a smile.

   The smile she had hoped for spread into a laugh, prompting him to pull her close again. 

   "Thank you," Luke whispered. He was grateful that she cared enough for him to make him laugh, grateful that she offered her strength for him to lean on, but most of all he was grateful because he knew that she would stand by his side through anything and everything, for the rest of their lives.

   Luke smiled at her, feeling sober and disappointed in the face of a grim reality, but the things he hadn't found no longer kept him from being deeply grateful for what he had found.

~

   Finally away to hyperspace, they spread the information they had gathered so far out on the ready room floor and started pouring over it.  They retraced their trail several times over before a small detail finally jumped out at them.  There was a gap in the information that they had missed before; it was a very small detail, but it was one that would take them in a new direction....

   They arrived in the new system a day later and began going about the now familiar routine of searching out local archives and databases, but this time they carried a fresh determination with them.  This time they felt as though they had already faced the worst possibilities and come through with faith still intact. They were ready to succeed or to fail, to follow this through to its finish.

   Midday, while still working through the planet's records, Luke was approached by some locals.  Lara didn't think much of it. Wearing his Jedi robes and carrying his lightsaber at his side, his identity was hard to mistake; Luke was duly used to that fact. The attention was of a different sort this time though.  She could sense the worry and distress in these beings as they began to tell Luke their story.

   "This is the first I've heard of this," he told them heavily after he had heard them out.  "Are you certain?" 

   Two of the beings exchanged cautious glances before one of them answered.  "The rumors have been constant for the past few months, but they are still rumors; none of us have seen it firsthand."

   Luke glanced to Lara for a second opinion. She lifted her eyebrows, recognizing the dilemma that this "rumor" presented, and he looked back to the worried locals. His voice held no answer for them, but echoed their worries with his own.

   "Thank you for coming to me."

~

   In the next nearby system, they encountered the same rumors: stories of a Force-strong person with incredible abilities, rumors that were varied and unclear. It was unclear wether this person was of the light or of the dark side, a possible survivor of the old order or an upstart in the years since. 

   They sat alone in another archive room, and Luke looked blindly ahead. This had been the most disturbing of the accounted rumors that he had heard so far. "I've got to see if I can find this person," he said quietly.

   Lara released a breath.  "With only rumor to go on," she pointed out quietly, "it'll be a long shot. You could find yourself chasing some local legend."

   "And if it's real," he challenged her. "How can I ignore it?"

   She nodded.  "When?"

   He looked to her.  "I want you to keep on with the search." 

   Her eyes flashed surprise, and she pushed back her first instinct – to refuse – giving him the opportunity to argue his position.

   "You know how much this means to me," Luke said quietly. "I want you to keep on."

   Her expression was serious, and her eyes stayed locked on his. "Are you sure? You want to track this thing alone – be it student, or teacher, or trap."  Her voice was tense with worry. "Be sure, Luke," she advised him warily, speaking with a slight shake of her head. 

   He nodded, equaling Lara's quiet intensity with his own, sure of his path. "I am," he answered.

   "Okay," Lara agreed softly.

~

   At the following day's dawn, Luke was headed for the last rumored location of the Force-strong individual, and Lara was headed for the next planet on their search list.  But before they parted from one another they embraced for a long moment.

   "Be careful," Lara said softly.

   "You too," Luke said, smiling softly in return as he pushed back from her. "I love you."

   "I love you too, Luke," she said, and pressed her lips to his in a goodbye kiss. "Steer the shore," Lara whispered, looking deep into his eyes.

   He hugged her again and kissed the top of her head before he moved away and climbed nimbly into a small, one-man ship that was very similar to an X-Wing.  Lara stood at the edge of her ship's ramp and pressed her forefingers to her lips, making a gesture to him that was something like a salute. Luke returned the gesture, and Lara turned to walk up the ramp, listening to the sound of powerful twin engines coming on line at her back.  She smiled, knowing that the former X-Wing pilot in Luke was feeling right at home in this turn of events, even if the Jedi Knight was not... and she hoped that he would be safe. 

   They parted, each of them a little worried, each feeling the other's absence already, but they were also sure of each other and certain of their abilities to handle what would come.

~

   Lara landed on a mountainous world at the end of a short jump. It was one of the most precarious landings she'd ever had to make, flying through a very narrow wind tunnel which was marked by beacons that she could see visibly shaking in the violent winds beyond her cockpit.  The spaceport where she put down was nearly deserted, and the groundskeeper told her flatly that this was the only civilization on the planet. 

   For a moment she was tempted to ask the unkept human if he meant life or civilization. "Nothing else?" she asked instead. 

   He shook his head, but then stopped in mid-motion as something occurred to him.  "You could try Bright Rock," he suggested.

   Bright Rock turned out to be an abandoned settlement about two days' travel away.  The settlement itself had nothing to offer, but it had been built on a curious rock formation.  With a little grunt work Lara uncovered the centerpiece of it, and she realized that the thing was not only curious but familiar. 

   She dug through her pack for the data-transcribed version of the records that they had found at the last planet's archives.  After a few keystrokes a  familiar design scrawled across her data pad, but with a pinpoint located at one corner.  Lara looked up, taking in her bearings and quickly comparing the landscape around herself to the face of the rock slab standing before her; then she looked back to the data pad in her hand. 

   The structure of the carved rock surface was a reflection of the surrounding terrain: a map, with markings made to indicate areas of safe passage in and out of the settlement.  Unfortunately, the pinpoint that was marked on her data display was centered right in the middle of an impassable mountain range.

~

   Luke jumped across several local sectors as he followed a string of disturbing rumors, but thus far there was nothing more than rumor to be found. As he sat alone in an open-air tapcafe on a water-based world, Luke began to wonder if all this could just be local legend.  He sipped at his hot chocolate and thought back over the stories he'd gathered. There still had been no concrete descriptions of the being, and he still didn't know, as Lara had put it, if it could be a student, or a teacher, or a trap.

   He sighed warily.  She had left out "threat", and Luke added that possibility to the mental list with grim resolve. That was what had made him take this on. That last description had sounded dark and dangerous, and the fear in the messenger had been disturbingly vivid.  If there was even a possibility that a dark Force-user or a student of the Sith existed, he had to know.  He was probably the only person who could turn him... or failing that, stop him.

~

   It took Lara a few more days to return to the spaceport and find trade for a survival pack that would get her through this sort of difficult and unpredictable terrain.  She logged in with the groundskeeper to mark her start, and she headed into the low mountain passes. It was some of the most hazardous terrain she'd ever traveled, and with each new challenge it threw at her, Lara caught herself hoping again that there would be something of value at its end. 

   Several days later, as Lara arrived in the base ranges of the highlands, she came across a plow tunnel: an area that had been cleared by frequent snow slides. Not seeing any other place of passage, she carefully followed it through. The tunnel's path led her down into a deep mountain basin. It was there that she found the remains of a survival encampment, a cave cut into the mountainside. Immediately she could see that several written records, uncovered from the stone wall that had once hidden them, had been destroyed.  The sight caused her stomach to turn; she didn't know which of the twin blows hit her harder: realizing the irreplaceable loss of those records or sensing the lurking danger in their destruction.  She could only guess that they had been used in the need for heat by someone who had been trapped here. 

   She gave a cautious glance toward the conditions outside and then began her search of the encampment.  Lara hoped that there was still something to be found here despite this loss....  She also hoped that she would be able to get back into the open ranges before nightfall.

   But only a short while later Lara let go a worried sigh as she returned to stand at the cave's entranceway, gazing outside. She hadn't even had time enough to finish her initial search of the small encampment.  In that short span of time the conditions outside had worsened abruptly.  It didn't look like the elements were going to allow for her schedule, she thought dryly, watching as the thickening snow and ice swirled outside. She was stranded here, at least for tonight. Lara broke out her survival gear, and then set again to searching the place throughly.

~

   Lara sat down tiredly, leaning her back against a corner at the far end of the cave, trying to clear her mind.  She dreaded the weight of another dead end, and that weight had been steadily building on her for the past hour as her search of the cave had turned up nothing. After expending so much time and effort to get here, the lack of success was disheartening; the consequent thought of having to see Luke's disappointment made it that much more so.  Lara pushed that lingering, tangible source of hurt aside... and with her emotions clearer, she began to feel something. 

   Carefully, she turned and began prodding at the heavy rocks behind her until one of them moved.  She dislodged the rock from its resting place and pulled it away.  From the empty space behind it, she uncovered a device that clearly didn't belong here in the cave's interior. It was a mechanical device, partially disguised with a coating of the mountain's native grey stone.  Lara carefully turned it over in her hands, studying it at length.  Then, cautiously, she activated it.

   Lara jumped back in spite of herself as an unexpected image appeared from the device.  Now standing before her in hologram form was a humanoid being of considerable age, dressed in the familiar robes of a Jedi Knight.  Lara set the device down on the floor in front of her and stared in amazement as the hologram flickered and the image focused its attention to her.

   Her jaw dropped in complete astonishment.  That should not have been possible.

   The figure smiled kindly, ambivalent to her shock and amazement, and offered her a greeting. "Hello.  I am Jedi Master and Priest, Aury Neese."

   Lara was beginning to wonder if she would ever find her voice. "How is this possible?" she asked, motioning to the hologram and its illusion of conscious thought.

   It smiled at her and answered. "It is a device of my own design, meant to be a diary of my life and a partial record of my life's knowledge, a way for my spirit to live on – in some part."

   "I've never heard of anything like this," Lara managed. 

   He smiled again. "I doubt that it has ever been done before.  The Jedi did not believe in such artificial extensions of a being's natural progression; you see, as long as a part of my spirit remains housed here, in this device, the whole cannot exist either in this plane or in the next....  And certainly, the use of this kind of technology could be distorted if it fell into the wrong possession, to be used for the wrong motivations. For these reasons, I took great pains to insure that not only a very strong Jedi Knight, but one who possessed great faith and patience, would be able to find the way to this place."

   He spoke again after a moment's silence. "I can see that the Force is with you, but you are not a Jedi."

   Lara's surprise waned under his obvious disappointment. 

   "Do any of us survive?" 

   "Only one," she answered.  "The man who turned Darth Vader back to the good side, and saw him destroy the Emperor."

   The image flickered, and the old Jedi smiled.  "Who?" he asked.

   "Luke Skywalker," she answered.

   The Jedi's gaze showed no sign of recognition or surprise.

   "He was Ben Kenobi's apprentice, and Yoda's," she spoke, her words becoming rushed, "each for a short time.  Now he is all that survives of the old." 

   "And the past has been destroyed behind him," the Master finished for her heavily.

   Lara nodded as heavily. 

   "He very much wants to see the start of a new order," she hesitated, "but he recognizes the danger in his own uncertainty."

   "It is well that he should," the old Jedi acknowledged gravely.  "Already we have paid a terrible cost for our lapse of vigilance to the dark side."

   We.  The Jedi.  Lara felt oddly disconnected, like she was waiting for the bottom to drop out, or expecting to wake from an impossible dream.  All the Jedi had been destroyed, and yet she was standing in the middle of an arctic wilderness having a conversation about the Force with a Jedi Knight who, for all intents and purposes, had probably been dead for thirty years. This was all too incredible! It was everything Luke had hoped to find and far more.  Not only were there answers here, but a Jedi to ask the questions of... at least in part....

   "You said that your spirit exists here only in part?" she asked suddenly. 

   He nodded. "For most of my life this was no more than a diary of my life's experiences. When it started to become apparent that the Jedi would not survive, I modified my invention to take this step, in the hope that my life's knowledge could reach someone and that part," he said sadly, "of what the Jedi believed could be preserved.

   "With more time, I believe that the modifications could have allowed me to gather more information, and even much more of my own consciousness, within this small vessel, but time was what I lacked.  I had to get this record to a safe hiding place and rejoin my comrades while there was still time for a last stand to be made.  And certain of the precious memories stored here had to be sacrificed for the sake of the modifications." 

   Lara took a deep breath and felt the pounding of her heart.  She fell silent, afraid to ask; she hated to imagine what had been faced in that last stand; she couldn't fathom the darkness of those days... and she was hesitant to let herself wonder what knowledge could lie in that small device that the hologram of a Jedi Master's disembodied spirit now spoke to her from.

   "Might you hold the answers that he needs?"   

   The image flickered again.

   "Perhaps," he answered, looking strangely at Lara; his gaze cut so deeply that it made her uncomfortable. "I suspect that most of the answers are inside.  It is the doubt inside that is harder to face than the questions."

   He paused, that gaze returning over her again. "You," he said slowly, "do not doubt him.  But it pains you greatly that he doubts himself – so greatly that you would take these measures to help him," he offered the partial statement-question.

   "I do hurt for him, and for anything that would make him doubt himself," she answered honestly and unabashedly. "His strength is great, and his heart is big.  I don't have doubt for either."

   A silence fell.

   "Spoken by a woman who feels more than friendship for this man," he observed.

   "As does he. We are to be married," she answered strongly, with only the slightest hint of a question underneath. 

   The image rippled once more. "A marriage," he breathed, "between two who are strong in the Force. This is rare."

   "But not unheard of?" she asked the statement.

   "Rare," he confirmed.  "And for good reason. A Jedi's commitment to the Force must be absolute. It is rare that a union of spirits can complement this without leading either part to suffer."

   Lara smiled, determination pulling at her emotions.  "But not unheard of," she repeated quietly, her eyes focused on him.

   "No," he answered, again studying her very closely, "not unheard of."

~

   Luke pulled back the hyperspace lever and watched the stars around him move into starlines and then twist into the mottling of hyperspace, then he sat back heavily. Unsuccessful in solving the mystery, he was heading back to the rendevous point that he and Lara had agreed upon.  After following up on several more locations, he still had come no closer to gathering any concrete information on the rumored individual. 

   He was taking this failure for the best, Luke decided. If this were a real threat, or even a real being, there would have to be more to these accounts than the vague bits and pieces that he had been able to scrape together....  Perhaps Lara had had more success.  With a quiet smile, Luke realized that he wanted simply to see her, much more than to know if she had even the best of news to share.

~

   Lara packed up her survival gear and began making her way back down through the mountain terrain that was now made even more treacherous by the overnight storm.  In the early going, she was cautious and deliberate, but several times later in the day she had to stop and backtrack for better footing. The third time she had to retrace her steps, she realized that with each occurrence her thoughts had slipped away from the business at hand, and she scolded herself for it.  Still, it was hard not to dwell on the new knowledge of what she had found and her eagerness to return to Luke with it. And her eagerness just to return to him....  She tried to shake off the uncontrollable grin that came over her and turned her attention once more to navigating her way down the mountain.

~

   A little over a week and a half later Lara arrived at the rendevous point. Enlightening time, it had been.  She had several more leads to offer and had spent a great deal of time in conversation with the Master's hologram.  She had been so intent on finding Luke his answers, she had given no thought to her own unanswered questions.... It was something that had never crossed her mind; unlike him, Lara had assumed long ago that such answers didn't exist; she had put the questions out of her mind in favor of more urgent matters. But now, suddenly, answers did exist.

   "You're an empathic Force talent," the Master said to her, rather simply.  "I didn't notice it before. These intricacies of the Force are harder to see now.  But– " he studied her further, "you have had other training."

   She nodded, again finding herself speechless.  "What does it mean?" she asked.

   "You already know what it means," he answered her easily, "that your connection to the Force gives you insight into other being's emotions, the ability to feel what they feel."

   "Is it common?" 

   "No. It is a quality usually developed by a strong Jedi, out of an exceptionally strong connection to and concern for other living beings. A great gift," he added, "for one who realizes it."  He paused briefly.  "It is unusual when it manifests itself alone. Has it always been that way for you?"

   She nodded.  "Since I was a child. I knew nothing of the Force until much later, and even then it was nothing that felt like what I knew in myself."

   "It was the dark side."

   She nodded. 

   He looked greatly troubled.  "This is what I feared most in the future I saw coming so darkly, that the dark side would be all that was left for those who would feel the Force."  He set her with another probing stare. "You have come through," he stated heavily, "but I can see that it did extract a terrible price from you."

   She looked down, suppressing a shiver at the strength of the truth he spoke so clearly.  Lara nodded in answer, in acknowledgment.  "I was taken from my home, while still young, to serve the Empire.... It was something that very nearly destroyed me. Even after that, I lost my family and my home, and I nearly lost myself again to the grief and guilt that followed." 

   "But again, you have survived," he noted of her with a tone of quiet pride.

   She shook her head slightly. "No. I learned, just a short time ago, to stop surviving," she admitted.  "I live," she said softly, hopefully, and a smile crossed her at the slight difference in the words.  To most people the words were interchangeable, but realizing the difference between the two had changed her life.  Luke's teaching her the difference had saved her life, and given her a second chance at discovering what truly mattered.

   The Jedi Master nodded in concession to her and returned her smile.  "I see the difference."

~

   She put down at the small spaceport and stepped off into the chilly air of another wintery world.  But at the end of this landing Luke was standing there to meet her.  They smiled and moved to embrace each other, holding the embrace for a long while. Then she leaned back, looking his face over.

   "How did it go?"

   He shook off the question. "Nothing.  What about you?" he asked, already beginning to see the answer in her face.

   "I found something," she said.

~

   It was a long trip to the starting point of the final set of leads that they would seek out, but this was actually the best part.  Lara was watching Luke, hunkered down in the ship's open ready room listening to the Master's hologram, absorbing as much as he could of the knowledge and information offered to him.

   The scene reminded her of a child at story time, mind overflowing with imaginative questions.  Some, regrettably, there had been no answer for, and the Master's words about doubt came back to her when she saw his disappointment in those moments. But she could also see a closure of sorts happening for Luke, a catharsis, just in having someone to ask those things of, those things that had been eating away at him for so long. There would never be enough answers to settle all the questions, but Lara hoped that finishing this search would help Luke begin to put his doubts about himself to rest.

   Lara had been standing in the doorway, watching, trying not to intrude, but she smiled when she felt the slight change in Luke's emotions; he felt her eyes on him, and her presence was not unwelcome. Luke turned to face her and extended his arm toward the doorway to ask her inside. Lara smiled as she entered the room and sat beside him. The Master greeted her, and she returned his greeting in kind. For the most part she had tried to leave them alone; this was the first time since she'd first shown Luke the Jedi Master's invention that she'd sat with them. 

   The hologram flickered as Jedi Master Neese looked at them for a long moment.  "I have wanted the occasion to see the two of you together." 

   They glanced to each other, a smile shared between them.

   He was silent. "I can see that you love each other. That much is obvious even to my aged eyes. But," he weighted the word heavily, "a marriage of this kind is fraught with extraordinary difficulty and hardship.  It is a path that few beings are capable of following. For this reason, it is greatly discouraged.  Strengths far greater than love alone will be needed if you are to faithfully endure this journey.

   "Do you realize the great many challenges that await you in this union you seek?"

   Luke glanced to Lara and turned back to the Master.  "We do," he answered. "We have both been through great trials in our lives, Master, felt great losses.  Because of what we have experienced, we understand how deep the commitment of a Jedi Knight is, and must be."  Luke looked to her again, and Lara took his hand.  "But we've also found that we are much stronger together than either of us stands alone."  He paused, and looked deeply into her eyes. "We keep each other centered and focused.  We complement each other, and we make each other better," he realized softly.

   She nodded her agreement.  "We do," she said with a knowing smile.

   Luke turned back.  "The challenges are no greater than the resolve, or the commitment," he answered with easy assurance. Then he paused, a confident smile tugging at him.  "And they cannot outweigh what we have found between us.  We will endure the journey, Master."

~~ ~ () ~ ~~

   "Imago has reported in; he's found a new world where he can base ships' construction, to replace the one we had to abandon at Aci.  He expects operations to be back up within a month." 

   Laus nodded. "Good. We can't afford to be without a production line for those ships." 

   "And Imago?" Laus' aid questioned cautiously.  "Are you certain that he's capable of overseeing the new base?"

   "In some areas, as an informant for example, Imago has been greatly lacking. But his mind for technology is matched only by his greed to fuel those very inventions. For that particular brilliance," Laus considered, "he is still an asset to me."  The tough warlord stifled a laugh.  "That man would sooner cut off his own arm than jeopardize any of those inventions he holds so dear," Laus grated in approval, despite the threatening edge that had come into his voice. "For that reason alone, the base will be well-attended under Imago's supervision."

~

   Some distance away, Fasad Imago was just returning to his new office, weary after late hours spent working with his inventions. He was not prepared for the menacing figure that stood waiting for him when he entered the room. 

   "I've been waiting, quite some time, for you," the familiar voice intoned.

   Imago felt himself go cold. 

   "Tritis," he called the man he'd never met face-to-face by the alias he knew him as.  

   "Now, now," the man reassured, "it's nothing so threatening as all that."  He waited for Imago to relax, and when that didn't happen he smiled inwardly and continued.  "I've been watching your work here for some time too," he trailed off.  "And I'm very interested in your inventions...."  His voice lowered noticeably.  "In two of your inventions, particularly."

~

   "We're away," Luke announced as he returned from the cockpit and sat beside Lara in the ready room. 

   They had not found anything else of great value in the final handful of leads, and they were both a little anxious to get back to Coruscant.  This trip had been a success, in every way; they both felt that.  Curled up together in one of the ready room's oversized conforming chairs, it was easy to talk about the future in ways that they hadn't before.  There was laughing and joking as they discussed plans for the wedding and honeymoon, and their living arrangements after that. Then more seriously, there was talk reaching further into the future; they spoke of what they wanted for it, and eventually they spoke of their own family and all that it would mean to them.

   They had not found all the answers that they had come in search of, but the experience had strengthened them and taught them. There was a clear direction before them now, and they found themselves returning to Coruscant more sure of themselves and of their future together than ever before. ~@ ~ ~