leia organa (leiainthesky) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2018-03-13 21:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *lena, *sarah 2, leia organa, luke skywalker |
20 February
characters. Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
time. MORNING | location. LEIA'S APARTMENT
rating. LOW | status. COMPLETE
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Leia's head hurt, not in a bad way, but in a disorienting way. She often had a dull ache behind her temples or at the back of her neck from the strain she put on herself, all that hard work, long hours, anxiety, and stress from helping to lead a Rebellion while also juggling her own personal life and its problems. Her first thought upon waking up, even as she listened to the holo tell her what was going on, was that maybe, just maybe, now she might be able to sleep through the night. This bed was more comfortable than any of the standard-issue Alliance bunks and more comfortable than her bunk on the Falcon, empty as it had been for close to a year without Han there with her. The pieces of her life were finally coming together, she felt, at least the salvageable ones. Han was alive, working out his carbonite poisoning, Luke was being as mysterious and evasive with this whole Jedi thing as ever, and she was - well, she'd just gotten rid of one of the worst crime bosses in the galaxy by strangling Jabba the Hutt. And yet now here she was. She felt at peace in a way she hadn't expected, knowing that she had one week to decide if she was going to remain here or if she was going to return home. Her instincts were at war with each other over it. While she knew she needed to be back home, she also felt, very deeply and tangibly, that it was all right to be here. A familiar presence, along with unfamiliar but not unwanted ones, slid in against the back of her neck, and Leia sat up and looked to the door even before the knock came. Finding Leia’s room hadn’t been difficult at all for Luke and he hadn’t needed the alerts on the network to tell him she was there. After just over a month of being wholly unable to feel her in the Force, her sudden presence was like a brightly shining beacon to him and a welcome respite from the conflicted and confused feelings that had consumed him for the past several days. Rising from the spot where he’d been meditating, Luke had sought her out, finding her assigned quarters easily and trying to keep some of the excitement tucked nearly below the surface. That cool facade shattered, however, when he found himself face to face with his sister at last. “Leia!” he cried exuberant, immediately engulfing her in a warm hug. Even before his arrival in Atlantis over a month ago, it had been awhile since the twins had seen each other and he was more than pleased to be with her now. It wasn't the embrace itself that was a surprise to Leia - she hugged Luke back equally as hard and was thankful to see him - but it was the wave of emotions that washed over her. Emotions that she knew instinctively weren't hers. She didn't fully understand how it was possible, but then again she still couldn't be certain how she'd felt so connected to Luke in the first place. "Hi, Luke," she said as she stepped back. "I'm glad for a familiar face." “As am I,” he said with a smile. “It’s been over a month, with no one from our timeline here. I’ve missed you, sister.” It probably should have occurred to him that they weren’t from the same point in their own timeline or even that she might be from the other one, the one where he would ultimately marry Mara, the one that the younger generation of Solos here in Atlantis was from. He should have thought of all of that, but he was so happy to see her that he wasn’t thinking rationally. Leia was about to say something when it occurred to her that he used the word 'sister.' And not in the sarcastic way that Han used to use it either. She straightened a little and looked at him suspiciously, not quite sure how to respond to that. "Two things," she said quickly. "One, what do you mean 'our timeline?' and two -" She broke off because she had no idea what to ask, really. "Did you just call me sister?" she finally blurted out. Luke looked confused for a moment before understanding dawned. Of course. He shouldn’t have assumed he and Leia would be on the same page here with when they were from and what they knew. “You’re from before we knew,” he guessed. “Leia, you are my sister. We’re twins. Obi-Wan separated us when we were born to protect us from [...] our father.” She stepped back a bit, more confused now than she was before. "I'm not sure I'm following," she said, even as the truth in his words settled in close to her. It made sense, in some strange way, this pull she'd felt toward Luke over the years. It had never actually been romantic, but it was there. She didn't think she would have ever necessarily pinpointed it as them being siblings. No, twins. "I - protect us from our father? What do you mean?" Sucking in a breath, Luke looked down at his feet for a moment. He hadn’t wanted to tell Leia this the first time. He hadn’t wanted to know it, himself. Yet, here he was, in the position where he needed to tell her once again who their father really was. He wasn’t looking forward to doing that, especially in light of what he had done to her, to Han, to so many others. “Maybe we should sit down,” he suggested. That sounded ominous, and Leia knew herself and Luke by now well enough to be concerned. She almost protested, said that she didn't want to know, but then remembered that this world wasn't like theirs. Other people might know who she is and information about her like whatever this is Luke was going to tell her. And she'd rather hear it from him, whatever it was. Leia nodded and gestured for him to come into her apartment. "All right," she said carefully, taking a seat and folding her hands in her lap. "Better to just get it out there, if it's that bad. Like ripping off a bandage." Luke nodded. There wasn’t going to be any easy way to tell her this, no matter how he went about it, so he might as well get it over with. “Darth Vader was once a Jedi named Anakin Skywalker,” he explained, “and Anakin Skywalker was our father. He became Vader around the time we were born and Ben Kenobi hid me on Tatooine, knowing he would never come to look for me there. Vader knew about me, but he didn’t know I had a sister. Not until shortly before-” He paused for a bit, taking another breath. “He’s gone now. He turned back to the Light to save me from The Emperor, but he didn’t survive long after that.” Everything Luke was saying to her fell on deaf ears after the real bombshell - that Darth Vader was her father. Their father. Whatever. Every memory she had of him, from her early days in the Senate to the Death Star interrogation, to Han in carbonite - "No," Leia said. "That can't be true." She might have been talking about him being her father but she also might be talking about the sliver of possibility that Vader had ever been good. “I know how unbelievable it is,” he offered. He hadn’t been too keen on believing it, himself. He’d wanted to deny it, but had know deep in his heart that it was true. “I tried to deny it, too, but it’s true. Darth Vader was our father.” A chill raced through Leia, and she thought to push down the urge to argue with him again. After a long moment, she shook her head. "Well, it doesn't matter. Especially not here." An afterthought, or more because she realized how that sounded, she touched his arm. "But I guess it's okay that you're my brother," she teased. “Only okay?” Luke couldn’t help laughing softly at her teasing. Being Leia’s brother had felt like the most natural thing in the world, even if it had also been surprising. The connection between them had only grown, forming a stronger bond between them. A literal bond. These weeks in Atlantis without her had felt like missing an appendage. It was comforting to be able to feel her in the Force again, even if they were from different points in time. “What was happening for you?” he asked more seriously after a moment. “If you’re from before we knew [...] the truth, I must be at least two years ahead of you, but I don’t know exactly how far behind me you are.” "I guess I could see it being more than okay eventually," she said, a smile settling on her face. She bumped his shoulder with hers. It did feel comfortable that they were siblings - twins - and having him here was going to make everything easier for her. She looked at him, surprised at his question, but she realized it made sense for him to ask. "We were on Tatooine," she said. "Getting the Falcon ready to return to the fleet. We'd just rescued Han from Jabba's palace." Luke nodded. He remembered that day, even if it had been a few years for him. “That was a few years for me, Leia,” he admitted. “The Battle of Yavin was about six years ago for me, if that helps to give you a frame of reference. The war with the Empire has been over for a couple of years now.” He left off there for the moment, unsure how much she would want to know about her own future. She started to shake her head again. "This is giving me a headache," Leia told him. "I'm not sure I understand how it's possible to be here, let alone how it's possible that we're not from the same time." Not to mention everything that he had told her, about the two of them, about Vader, about - She sat at the edge of the bed, swallowing. "I'm going to need some time to get used to this," she said. Luke nodded, reaching over to squeeze his sister’s hand. “It’s a lot to take in, I know,” he assured her. “Take all the time you need. All of this is going to take some getting used to.” Perhaps he should insist on telling her the rest - about the other timeline, about Rey and everything else that was different here, but he let it go for now. There would be time enough later to fill her in. |