Four Months Later

The bustling spaceport under cascading waterfalls at the bottom of the cliff didn't prepare Luke for the city on top of the cliff or the abundance of water. The buildings were human-scaled compared to Coruscant, rounded beige towers topped with blue-green domes were interspersed with blocky buildings. Trees and shrubbery grew out of planters or patches of ground left free of paving material filled in the spaces between the buildings. Flowers and green vines wrapped around the countless columns decorating all the buildings, creating railings between the streets and the river branches, and holding roofs over walkways between buildings.

Their hotel suite faced the Solleu River that ran through Theed. The bedroom and living space were warmed by the wooden floors and trim that framed the transparisteel wall between the rooms and the sun-drenched balcony. Korora bounced off the lounge chair and ran to the balcony railing before climbing into the chair for the small dining table. Luke watched her go with a smile on his face. Apparently the small luxury shuttle he had bought for the trip still hadn't had enough room for Korora to run off her energy. They didn't have to keep it; Mara had nothing but complaints after piloting it.

The comm unit signaled for attention. Luke sighed as he turned from the window to the machine on the wall behind the indoor dining table. He felt Mara's pique through the bond before he heard it in her voice along with the unspoken accusation that it was his fault. "If that's Coruscant tracking you down, I'm answering it and defining personal leave and vacation to the idiot on the other end."

Artoo swiveled his dome, watching Luke's progress to the comm unit next to his dome, but didn't detach from the dataport.

"It could be for you just as easily as me." Luke frowned as he looked at the indicator screen. It was addressed to him.

"No," she said with a false sweet note in her voice as she stepped out of the walk-in wardrobe the suite had. "I explained to everyone I deal with that they wouldn't like the consequences if they interrupted this trip. Plus I worked my ass off during the last four months so no one will have a reason to call."

"Huh, I didn't miss your ass last night." He smirked at her approving amusement, even though she couldn't see it. "It's originating from Naboo." Luke accepted the comm, hoping it wasn't local news correspondents. A young boy's voice spoke. "Please hold for King Moicas." Luke straightened in front of the comm unit but shrugged at Mara's confusion.

The face that appeared in the projection was a young teenage boy. His face was caked in white paint with a red upper lip and a red line bisecting the lower and swirly black lines decorating his cheekbones, temples, and brow above his eyebrows. His hair was hidden behind a golden and jeweled headdress. "Welcome to Naboo, General Skywalker. I hope this visit is fortuitous and not portentous."

It took Luke a second to parse that. "I've come to Naboo for personal reasons, not for Jedi or New Republic concerns." He left unexplained that the mother of his daughter blackmailed him into it.

King Moicas nodded gravely. "I do not wish to intrude upon your leave, but I do have a matter of concern that is best discussed in person. Are you familiar with Naboo's naming tradition?"

"No, I haven't heard of it."

"Children who are born on a Name Day are given a second name to reflect that. Most of the Name Days honor our former monarchs. Only one did not, the one we had to deny to keep the honor hidden from the Empire. I wish to see this honor restored during my term, but the name does not belong to just Naboo, but to he who carried it and his family and to the Jedi Order to which he belonged."

Luke's eyebrows drew together as he used everything from Leia's speech writing to understand what the King was hinting at. What he comprehended had to be confirmed. Mara braced him mentally. "Naboo gave Anakin Skywalker a Name Day?"

"Yes," King Moicas' voice brightened. "The Thirteenth Day of the Fifth Month, the Battle of Naboo when his heroics saved our planet from the Trade Federation. May I impose upon your personal leave for a private meeting to discuss this?"

There was no disagreement from Mara. "Tomorrow is free for us, as long as my family is welcome to come."

"Of course. We shall expect you at the Palace at 1000 local time. Thank you for your consideration, General Skywalker."

"May the Force be with you." Luke blinked at the comm unit after the holovid winked out. "I knew Leia should've come with us."

"You can't blame her for wanting to spend this pregnancy at home." Mara settled into the red, oversized circular lounger and swiveled it to face him as he moved around the dining table. "And she's been as busy as we have been cleaning up Sidious' mess."

"I don't blame her. It'd be easier to make a decision about what to say if she were here."

"She brought up going public first."

Luke nodded. "But we didn't set a time frame."

"You can't comm her now; it's the middle of the night on Coruscant." She smirked. "You aren't getting out of our deal that easily."

"I agreed to your blackmail."

"Oh, stop calling it that. You want me to teach at this Jedi Academy you want to start and this is my price."

He moved to the chair and braced himself on the armrests as he leaned over her. "You drive a hard bargain, Trader Jade."

"I'll let you start introducing me as a Jedi too." Luke gaped at her. She had been adamant about not announcing that to anyone given who she works with. "I've been laying the groundwork for it." She said before pulling him down for a kiss.

They gathered Korora and Artoo and left for today's destination before they got distracted physically. The streets of Theed had vehicle-only routes, limiting the narrow avenues in the historic core of the city to pedestrians. The townhouse wasn't too far away to tire Korora. She caught Luke's right hand and Mara's left and swung between them instead of walking.

Artoo beeped for Mara to check her datapad. She pulled it out before Luke prompted her. "Ah, details on your property here."

Luke frowned. "Visiting King Moicas will push back scouting it."

"We have the rest of the week on Naboo to get there." She read off her datapad. "Varykino was rental property until the beginning of the Clone Wars when Senator Amidala bought it. Her will and testament left it to one Anakin Skywalker."

"And when Darth Vader showed up to claim the property, nobody argued." He mentally nudged Mara so they both lifted Korora's swinging body higher between them.

"That transfer went through the Moff's office, but by that point nobody argued over an estate that the Imperials wanted."

Luke twisted to let a passing pedestrian have more room. Korora dropped her feet on the ground and pouted. "We're almost there." Korora sighed and swung their arms instead, trying to create a wave pattern. "Master Oligard said all he has ever done was approved keeping the same family on as caretakers. He doesn't like leaving Coruscant."

Mara tucked her datapad away. "This is the street, right?"

Artoo whistled affirmative as they turned onto a narrower avenue. They passed under an arch supporting a walkway that connected the buildings on both sides of the street and found a small flight of stairs up to a door set with a view up the avenue. Flowerpots holding colorful blooms were set on the steps and the ledge shielding the stairs from the avenue. "I'll get it!" Korora dropped both their hands and dashed up them, hitting the door annunciator before Luke reached her.

"We missed a button to tell her not to push," he muttered to Mara as she joined him a few steps below the door landing. Before Mara could answer, the door slid open before a fair-skinned woman with dark brown hair. She was older than Aunt Beru when she had died but didn't look as worn as the Tatooine woman had. He tucked away the pain of the past before speaking. "Sola Naberrie? I'm Luke Skywalker and this is Jedi Mara Jade and our daughter Korora Jade-Skywalker. We believe your sister Padmé Amidala was my mother."

The End

Author's Note: This Epilogue gave me fits! First off, I reached it just when the busy time started at my paying job. They're okay with me writing as long as my job duties are done but my amount of free time shrank. Second, once I figured out how to expand what will happen on Naboo without a trip out to Varykino and got the chance to write it, I set it all on the ship. I did realize that wasn't working so I moved the first scene to their hotel room. I really don't get why the last scene of the whole story is the one that gave me the most fits after Anor.

General Skywalker - Yes, Luke re-enlisted. Partially inspired by Dark Empire canon and partially from my own developments. Luke would do it to spare Mara and Kam from dealing with scanning for and fighting with Dark Side users and the New Republic military.

Naboo's naming tradition was born out of another fic idea, which will become Unexpected Consequences when I get around to writing it. When I reached this scene I thought I wouldn't write it, so I incorporated it here. The monarch's birthday becomes their Name Day. If it was already a Name Day, it now belongs to the new Monarch. The second name can be anything that honors the Name Day person: the birth name, the regal name, a shorter version of either are the most commonly used. The second name is a lot like we treat middle names, and it's up to the family and individuals how they want to use it on official identity paperwork. Anakin Skywalker is the only non-Naboo to ever be honored with one, and Queen Amidala never informed the Jedi Order that she was doing it.

Battle of Naboo - The events of the Phantom Menace begin on 3:4:14, Fourteenth Day of the Fourth Month 32 BBY, but I couldn't find how much time the events of the movie covers. So I gave it a month between the invasion and Anakin destroying the droid ship.

Varykino - I ignored the EU Legends bit about the mansion being the Naberrie family property. Mainly because it doesn't make much sense for Anakin and Padmé to hide there in Attack of the Clones if assassins just have to look up property records. And "the green place with all the falling water" that Korora was so insistent about going to?

She had a Force vision of Mara and Luke taking her to this meadow as her Mommy and Daddy, which happens on this trip. The Naboo nursery mural is also this location, which led to lots of fun conversation with Korora insisting to go there.

Korora Jade-Skywalker - Since my story is more about Mara and Luke's relationship, I didn't plot out the headache case for the New Republic Children Services bureaucrat. I'm sure you can image how this gentlebeing's day went. They're told the next case is a battle rescue with a celebrity attached. It happens, people get attached to a war orphan they saved, just had a major incursion with the Imperial Remnant, and most of the ranking military members are celebrated Heroes of the Civil War. In walks Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, and Korora. Yeah, celebrity didn't quite cover this case. And Luke insists on telling the whole truth, which doesn't start sounding crazy until he gets to the freed slave child having Force visions of the unmarried pair parenting her. Mara sees the poor non-Force Sensitive bureaucrat getting lost and attempts to put the issue in a less mumbo-jumbo area by presenting the bill of sale Artoo found and explaining how Korora told them her birth mother was killed by the Karazak Slavers Cooperative. There's no way to find any family to return Korora to, and as a Force Sensitive she needs protection since she was bought to have that exploited. Mara and Luke can protect her from that exploitation and raise her to a well-adjusted adult. That reminds the bureaucrat of how the Jedi Order would take in children, but both Luke and Mara protest that. "We want to be parents," Luke stresses. "And it has to be both of us because I will be re-enlisting into the military until this last crisis settles down. If something happens to me, she still has Mara." And so on. They don't use the mind trick, but the bureaucrat eventually decides it's easier just to give them what they want with scheduled check-ins to see how Korora is adjusting.

Future Ideas - Since I'm having so much fun changing things up in this AU and I don't have an issue writing children, Luke and Mara have a lot of future Skycrawlers coming along. Okay, my third reason for doing it is naming kids after more people. So Korora is adopted and in the following year (11 ABY), Luke and Mara have a wedding ceremony before they have their second daughter Padmé Jade-Skywalker. (Mara got too busy to keep her fertility blocker appointment and Luke's failed on them.) The hyphenated name was kept so Korora wouldn't feel alienated from hers. Talon Jade-Skywalker, their first son, comes along in 13 ABY. Beru, their third daughter, is born 16 ABY. She grows up to look a lot like Daisy Ridley. The adventure written up in "Jade Solitaire" happens. Biggs Jade-Skywalker is born 18 ABY. It was Mara's turn to name, but there were complications and by the time she was coherent enough to consider a name Luke had given the child one. She let Biggs keep it since everyone was already calling him that. Talon Karrde jokes that he's not sending Mara on Yavin 4 supply runs anymore because she keeps returning pregnant. Sansia Jade-Skywalker, their fourth daughter, is born 20 ABY. Han asks with all seriousness if Luke and Mara are trying to colonize Yavin 4 all by themselves. Owen Jade-Skywalker, their third son, is born 23 ABY. Ben Jade-Skywalker is born 26 ABY. Luke says he's named after Obi-Wan Kenobi. Mara says she knew a Ben who wasn't a complete shavit as a trainer. Lando sends the couple a medcenter package so Luke can have a free vasectomy as Ben's natal gift.

I have never liked Yavin 4 ruins being built by the Sith, so out that goes. I do like Yavin 4 being a colony and eventual home of one Poe Dameron, so the Jedi Academy and colonizing efforts develop at the same time. Families are invited to relocate with their Force Sensitive candidate. There are children everywhere (not just Jade-Skywalkers) and enough adult Jedi apprentices to keep an eye on them.