In retrospect, maybe the group could have been a little smaller. Imperial shuttlecraft weren't designed with comfort in mind, or with fitting four humans, two droids, and a full grown Wookiee. Thankfully, they weren't all needed in the cockpit, Han and Chewie could fly anything spaceworthy and most things that weren't, no matter Chewie's complaints about the seats. The droids were well trained experts at making themselves unobtrusive. Which left Leia to try and concentrate on the mission at hand, the imminent landing on one of the moons of Endor. And to try and ignore Luke and Vader, who were being oddly secretive, huddled up in the opposite corner. It wasn't that she wanted to overhear their clearly private conversation… well, maybe she did, but it wasn't like it was her fault they were so easy to overhear. Particularly when it seemed they were talking about her.

"You should tell her," Luke said, his tone indicating that he was repeating himself, to which Vader responded with a brief but firm shake of his bald head.

"We've worked well together, and I think she finally accepted that Alderaan wasn't my fault, but that doesn't exactly mean she's ready to hear something like that from me. She would take it better from you, she likes you."

Leia certainly wasn't spying on the pair, not at all, they just weren't being properly circumspect, and she just happened to catch the look on Luke's face in the corner of her eye, a look of sudden disgust.

"Yeah, maybe a little too much. Remember when she kissed me on Hoth? Because that scene has kept repeating in my mind ever since Ben told us, it's all I've been able to think about."

Well! Admittedly that spur of the moment kiss with absolutely no ulterior motives, certainly not in relation to the overly cocky smuggler that had been in the room with them, had felt a little weird, but it's not like Luke had women throwing themselves at him every day! She ought to stand up, march over there, and give him a piece of her… right, eavesdropping, erm, mission prep, yes that was certainly what she meant to think about. Plenty of time to unload on the unappreciative Jedi later, sometime after this mission was done. Speaking of…

"…I already told her I had something I wanted to talk about after this mission is over. Plenty of time to talk about it then, ease her into the idea. Dumping the whole thing on her at once is asking for trouble, but she still deserves to hear it all. From both of us."

And wasn't that just maddening, if Luke felt there was something he and Vader both needed to tell her so badly.

She probably would have lost the battle with temptation and spoken up if Han's voice hadn't suddenly broken in, telling them that they were approaching Endor, and the Imperial Fleet.

Okay, mission now, working the Force-users over for secrets later. Leia had her priorities in order.

But she still really wanted to know!

Of course, even Leia's desperate curiosity could be put aside, in favor of their nail-biting communication with the Imperial flagship, requesting access and transmitting clearance codes had never felt so tense before. Even when the Imperial voice responded granting them access, and the force shield opened for their shuttle, something still felt off, as if the massive Star Destroyer had eyes following them the whole way down to the moon's surface.

Leia had no way of knowing how right she was, had no idea of the black-robed figure standing on the bridge of the Star Destroyer, just behind Admiral Piett, watching the shuttle fly down to the moon. The shuttle known to have been missing for some time, the one that transmitted older clearance codes, still valid, but old. The shuttle with two presences that stood out in the Force like spotlights in darkest night to those with the vision to see.

The newly minted Darth watched the shuttle for a moment longer, before wordlessly leaving the bridge. This was no mere Rebel strike force. This was something that must be reported to his master in person. He would go to the Death Star. He would report to the Emperor. Hopefully, his master would allow him the honor of destroying the traitor and the last Jedi personally.

The Darth himself had no way of knowing, and certainly wouldn't care to know, of the events on the moon's surface. The rebels evading their storm trooper pursuers would only annoy him, as would the Ewoks if he ever had to see one.

It was nighttime on the small moon when Leia finally managed to corner Luke and Vader, as Threepio told stories of previous adventures to his admiring furry fanbase.

She should have let it wait, should have been helping Han and Chewie prep supplies and weapons, or been going over a battleplan, or something mission related. Instead, she wanted to get some answers.

Her immediate attempt to take control of the conversation, to catch the pair off guard by admitting outright she knew they had been talking about her on the shuttle, was cut short as Luke immediately spoke up at her approach, not giving the princess even the chance to open her mouth.

"Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"

Leia's head spun at the seeming non-sequitur. How did Luke even know she was adopted, Leia had never told anyone that, nobody outside the Alderaan royal family knew. She spoke, almost without thinking.

"Just… images, really. Feelings."

"Tell me." Luke's voice was insistent, a cord of steel running through it as though what she had to say was the most important information in the galaxy. Vader didn't speak, but the older man's eyes bored into her, harder and hotter than any lightsaber.

"She was very beautiful. Kind, but...sad," Leia had frequently dreamed of the woman with the sad eyes, ever since she was a child, the woman she knew must be her birth mother.

Vader spoke, his voice so low that it could have been mistaken for the wind.

"Far too many reasons to be sad in those days, and not enough happiness…"

Leia switched her gaze to the ex-Jedi, wondering if he was just speaking generally of the time period… or had he actually known her mother, but before she could ask, Luke spoke up again.

"The Emperor's new right hand Darth is here. They must have sensed our approach, Vader and I sensed them on the flagship as we passed. Our presence is endangering the group and the mission, so we're going to split up from you, and go face him."

Leia nodded, still a little confused by the abrupt change in subject, but Luke's logic made sense. He continued speaking, not giving her the chance to weigh in one way or the other."

There's more. It won't be easy for you to hear it, but you must. If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance."

Well that was just absurd! Sure, Leia was a more than competent administrator, had proven capable of handling the logistical side of the war effort time and again, but compared to a real live Jedi…!

"Luke, don't talk that way. You have a power I-I don't understand and could never have," she tried to explain to him, but Luke just shook his head.

"You're wrong, Leia. You have that power too. In time you'll learn to use it as I have. The Force is strong in my family. I have it...and...my sister has it."

Oh? Oh! That suddenly made a great number of puzzle pieces click into place! A thousand tiny things that never quite made sense suddenly did. She and Luke weren't just birthday twins (a fact that had amused their compatriots year after year across the various Rebel bases they had sheltered in), but actual siblings! Of course!

"I know," she half-whispered. "Somehow...I've always known."

Vader, nearly forgotten, suddenly spoke up.

"Does 'always' include that time you kissed him in the hospital?"

Leia blinked, then went cross-eyed as sudden realization hit her.

"Oh really, was it necessary to remind me of that in the middle of the moment?"

Vader only grimaced at that.

"I felt it was worth mentioning. But keep listening, there's more, we flipped a coin for who had to tell you."

More? Something more surprising than Luke being her brother? Something Luke wanted so badly to not have to be the one to say that he felt Vader was the better person to say it? She looked back at Luke, expectantly.

"Erm, yeah. Like I was saying, the Force is strong in my family. I have it, my sister has it… and… my father has it."

Well that made sense, all of the old stories about the Jedi indicated that Force sensitivity tended to be genetic. Even though Jedi didn't have families or relationships, it was an open secret that Force sensitive children tended to suddenly spring up nine months or so after some Jedi visited. And for Luke to be such a powerful Jedi (and she felt in her heart that of course he was!), it would make sense for his father to be a powerful Jedi as well, maybe even one of the heroes of the Clone War. Probably not General Kenobi, although that would make sense. But there was that other Jedi who was in the stories with Obi-Wan, she had never learned his name, it had been scoured from all the recordings and books about the war, she might never have found the name if she hadn't asked her father, who had worked closely with the Jedi during the war. She'd always wondered why he was so recalcitrant when talking about the Jedi Knight named… oh.

Leia's train of thought stopped short has her gaze passed over Vader again. Vader, with his bald head and/ scarred features, could never be said to actually look like Luke, unless you looked at the eyes. She'd been surprised to learn, when she first saw Vader without his helmet, that he had blue eyes, it was such a minor thing, but something you would never expect from the former Dark Lord of the Sith. But they were blue. Luke's eyes were also blue, identical in color and shape to Vader's eyes.

Anakin Skywalker's eyes.

Her birth father's eyes.

Han had no idea later why Leia was crying alone behind the Ewok huts, and was a little hurt that she wouldn't tell him what was wrong. But he did his simple, bumbling best to comfort the distraught princess.

But by then, Luke and Vader were already gone.