"Nice dress."

Han smirked at her as she met him by the bonfire, clad again in her Ewok finery. Leia rolled her eyes, but something of how fragile she was still feeling must have shown in her face, because Han reached out and pushed her hair gently aside, curving his hand around the back of her neck. His fingers were warm and steady, and she let herself lean briefly into the touch. She still wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and sleep for several days, but she braced herself to be gracious.

Threepio descended upon them first, expressing fulsome relief at her safety and the success of their mission. The droid was quickly followed by Wedge Antilles, still in his orange flight uniform, shaking her hand in awkward congratulation. As soon as she could manage it politely, she handed him over to Han, who was impatiently waiting to hear about the space battle. She drifted in and out of their conversation, catching snatches here and there. It seemed to have been a near thing all round, she thought with curiously detached gratitude.

"General Calrissian kept telling us not to give up, that you'd have the shield down," Wedge was saying. "And just when I thought we couldn't hold on any longer – you did it."

Han shrugged uncomfortably. "Lando always was a hell of a gambler – nerves of steel. Anyway, we almost didn't get the damn thing down."

That led to an enthusiastic recap of the bunker mission, which attracted a small crowd of Rebel troops. She smiled and laughed in the right places, but she was only half listening. The rest of her was waiting, and she wasn't even sure for what until – at last – Luke and Lando emerged out of the darkness nearby.

Chewbacca roared jubilantly, and heads turned all across the clearing. Han pulled Luke into a rough embrace that twisted her heart with love for both of them, and then it was her turn to grab her brother in a tight hug.

"Are you all right?" She pulled away and searched his face.

"Yes. I am. I really am." His eyes were shadowed with remembered pain, and he was pale with exhaustion, but he looked…peaceful. "You?" he asked.

"Fine. Well, I will be, anyway. I think."

He smiled, a real, bright Luke grin, with that tinge of eerie certainty that always reminded her of General Kenobi. "You will be."

After that, she found that she could relax a little, enjoy the party the way Han had said she should: the flickering light, the music, the incongruous sight of R2-D2 dancing - or approximating dancing as closely as a short, stubby droid could manage - with Teebo. She ended up sitting with Luke between the roots of a huge tree, a little apart from the crowd. Luke was quiet, and she didn't want to guess what he was thinking about – she figured it was probably along the lines of everything she was trying so hard not to think about – so she concentrated on the happy faces of her friends, the warmth of the fires…and the completely different warmth of finding Han watching her from across the clearing, over the shoulder of the rebel soldier he was ostensibly talking to. She shook her head at him: I'm fine, don't worry. His eyes narrowed a little and she could tell he wasn't entirely convinced, so she tilted her chin and let her smile widen, and hoped he'd get the rest of the message: carry on, flyboy, I like to look at you. Han's mouth curved into a small, cocky grin, and he sketched her a lazy, two-fingered salute.

Beside her, Luke chuckled. Leia turned her head and saw that he was looking between her and Han with amusement. She flushed.

"Shut up."

"What?" Luke was the picture of innocence. "I didn't say anything." Then he took a deep breath.

"Han knows, doesn't he? About –

She cut him off. She didn't want to hear Vader's name. Didn't want to hear Luke call him father.

"Yes. I told him earlier." She pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging the memory of that conversation close. She thought of Han, stubbornly refusing to let her withdraw, making her laugh through her tears, telling her that he loved her with such naked feeling that she couldn't help but believe it. Then she thought of Luke, how he had turned in on himself after Bespin. She had known something was haunting him, but he had refused to talk about it and she – preoccupied with trying to find Han, juggling that with the needs of the Rebellion – she hadn't pushed.

Dear gods, he has been alone with this for months.

She pressed her forehead into her knees and breathed in carefully, and then she turned her face towards her brother.

"I'm sorry," she said steadily. "Tell me. What happened?"

Luke shut his eyes. There was a long pause. Then,

"He's dead. He and the Emperor both."

"I know," she said. "Did you - ?"

"No. All I wanted was for him to renounce the Dark Side. He wouldn't. He and the Emperor threatened you, all of you – told me they had laid a trap for you down on Endor. Then I did want to kill him. The Emperor tried to make me do it."

"The Emperor wanted you to kill Vader?"

"He knew it would make me into a servant of the Dark forever. And I almost did. I came so close, Leia. I was so angry, and so afraid. I hated them both, so much, and – that seemed to make me stronger." He shuddered. "I fought my father, and I cut off his hand the way he cut off mine."

Inadvertently she looked down at his artificial hand, and saw that he was clenching and unclenching it spasmodically. She uncurled her arms from her knees, feeling stiff and frozen, and slipped her fingers in between his. He was staring out into the darkness, his face pale and strained, and didn't appear to notice her touch.

"Then – I don't know. I realized what the Emperor was doing. And – I thought of Ben. Remember when he fought Vader on the first Death Star, and at the end he just…stood still and let himself be cut down?" She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"I never understood that. I always thought it was – giving up, or something. But now – now I see. It was my only choice, too. I couldn't do anything to help you or the Alliance – the only thing left was to make sure I didn't turn into someone who might end up hurting you."

"So I told Palpatine I wouldn't do what he wanted. And he – I don't know exactly what he did. I tried to resist it… but my shields, the mental as well as the physical ones I mean – he cut through them as though they didn't exist. He almost killed me."

"Why – why didn't he?" Her voice shook.

He looked at her finally. "Vader stopped him."

"What?" It was the last thing she had expected to hear. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.

"He was wounded – I had wounded him – I don't know where he found the strength. But he dragged the Emperor away from me. Threw him down the shaft into to the power core. He almost fell over the edge himself. He saved my life, Leia."

"Why would he do that?" Her voice, harsh with disbelief, didn't sound like her own.

"Because, at the end, there was good in him," Luke said quietly. He caught her hand back when she tried to turn away from him. "Leia, I saw it happen. He renounced the Dark Side, even though it killed him to do so. He got free of it – he was Anakin Skywalker again when he died. I know it. And – he wanted you to know it too."

"Me?" She was having trouble breathing again. "He knew about – about me?"

"Yes."

She snatched her hand away, unable to understand how Luke could be so calm about this. Just sitting there in the centre of his blasted Jedi poise, delivering news – for at least the third time in two days! – that made her feel as though someone had punched her in the stomach. Hard.

He continued steadily, "He said to tell you – to tell my sister that I was right about him."

"Well, and did that make you happy? To hear Darth Vader say you were right? Congratulations!"

She watched him recoil and hated herself for hurting him, but couldn't seem to stop the bitter words from spilling out.

"No – Leia, that's not the point –

"So Anakin Skywalker resurfaced at the end. Good for him. That doesn't change anything, Luke! You can't erase all the terrible things he did just because you want our father to have been a good man."

He flinched. "I wasn't –

Then he stopped, took a deep breath – and she realized that his calm was costing him much more than she had thought.

"I never meant that we should forget about any of it," Luke said sharply. "I just thought – it might make it easier for you to deal with the fact that he's our father, if you knew that he tried to make some recompense at the end."

He leaned his head wearily back against the tree trunk, exhaustion and grief clear in every line of his body. Guilt washed through her, all mixed up with the strange, protective tenderness she had felt for Luke almost since she met him. She'd never been able to figure out where it came from. Now – it occurred to her distantly – at least one thing made more sense than it had before.

"Luke – I'm sorry." She touched his shoulder. "I'm just – I'm having a hard time dealing with all this. I don't know what to believe right now."

Talk about your understatement of the year.

Luke smiled wanly. "Yeah. I understand."

She could tell he was disappointed, though. He wanted to talk to her about it – wanted them to face this together, brother and sister. But she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't be a lie, so she wrapped her arm around his and leaned her head on his shoulder, and they sat in silence until Chewbacca materialized out of the shadows, growling to Luke.

"He wants me to come and have some –

"– Ewok ale," she finished, grinning in spite of herself. "Go on – but be careful, it's potent stuff."

He rolled his eyes. With a dizzying flash of familiarity, she recognized her own favourite expression of annoyance.

"Gee, thanks, Leia. You make me sound like a teenager who can't hold his liquor," he groused, picking himself up off the ground.

She blinked back sudden tears, feeling that sharp twist of love and gratitude again.

"Luke, wait."

She pushed herself to her feet and faced him.

"I know I haven't figured out how I feel about most of what you've told me in the past couple of days. But no matter what – I'm really, really glad to know that you're my brother."

The preternaturally calm demeanour of the Jedi Knight vanished, as he blushed right up to the roots of his hair, and his face collapsed into a shaky smile. Then he pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.

"Likewise, big sister," he muttered into her ear.

They had forgotten Chewbacca, who roared happily at their embrace – and moved to join in, wrapping them both in long furry arms and lifting them right off the ground.

"Chewie!" Leia sputtered, her feet struggling for purchase.

"Great," said Luke disgustedly. "A minute ago I was fifteen again, now I'm five." But he was laughing helplessly, and so was she.

*The bonds of family are powerful magic. You are lucky to have found each other,* said Chewbacca, depositing them gently back on their feet.

"I think we're all lucky to have found each other," said Luke with quiet emphasis. He was looking over her shoulder, and when she turned to follow his gaze she saw Han there, leaning against a tree trunk, watching them. She reached for him, and he stepped in close, taking her hand.

"Best thing Chewie and I ever did, taking Ben's offer," he said, and she could see that his eyes were bright, the line of his mouth soft. "Even if it did get us all mixed up with the likes of you Skywalkers."

Chewbacca growled softly.

"I agree," said Luke. "That deserves a toast. Lead the way."

And so Leia found herself sitting in the circle of Han's arm beside the biggest bonfire, watching Lando, Chewie, Luke and the droids carousing with some new Ewok friends on the other side of the flames.

"Did you tell Chewie to get Luke drunk on that awful Ewok ale?"

"Yup," said Han cheerfully, stretching his legs out in front of him and settling her more comfortably against his side. He turned a look of injured innocence on her when she poked him. "What?! The kid needed something to loosen him up."

She couldn't disagree, watching her brother. He was talking and gesturing animatedly to Chewie and Lando, smiling widely, his face flushed and sweaty. He looked more relaxed than she had seen him in – months? Years, probably. Like the impossibly young, enthusiastic farm boy he had been when she met him. Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?

Gods, that felt like several lifetimes ago. Certainly far longer than she'd thought she – or any of them, for that matter – would survive, back then. She hadn't cared much either, at the time. But now she did; she cared about all of them, herself included, she realized with a feeling of surprise. She cared so much she thought her heart would burst sometimes. She couldn't decide if that made her weaker or stronger, in the end.

And yet, here we all are – safe, relatively undamaged. Together. She felt triumph bubble up from somewhere deep in her soul, and all of a sudden she laughed out loud. Powerful magic, indeed.

Han looked at her curiously. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," she said, smiling into his eyes, knowing she was going to kiss him in a second. "I'm just – enjoying my victory."

THE END