Chapter Ten

A Little Late On The Uptake

"So, you…don't want me here?" Luke asked from where he was sitting on the window sill.

"Does anyone want you anywhere?" Han demanded, yanking at Luke's feet to get him down. "Get the hells out, kid."

"No one's ever said that to me," Luke grinned, stacking his feet on the frame of the bunk above Han's, out of Han's reach. "They just shoot at me."

"I'll shoot you if you don't get outta here," Han said - and, frack, he actually reached for the blaster at his belt.

Well, kreth.

Luke threw his hands up in surrender. "If you're gonna shoot me, I'll go! Damn!"

"Thank the Eldest," Han said.

"…but I think I'll stay instead," Luke threw Han a grin.

"Dammit, how can I get you to leave?" Han ran a hand irritatedly through his hair.

Luke leaped off the window sill and leisurely slunk around the barracks. There was pretty much nothing in the room - there were six bunks, some decorated with holos or flimsies or with stacks of school work like Han's, pushed against gray permacrete walls. It totally wasn't an excuse to get a look around the first year dorms, or to figure why Han wanted him gone so badly.

Then again, it may've had something to do with having a galaxy-feared thief (named Phantom, dammit) in your bedroom.

Huh. That probably wouldn't go down well.

(It probably wouldn't go down too well if Luke was caught, either…)

" - can I pay you? No, wait, why the hells would I give you money - "

"Hey, they don't lock their airshafts here," Luke said from where he was checking out the screws on a vent.

"Why would anyone - no, I don't care," Han growled. Luke did not let out a manly yelp when Han grabbed him under the armpits and tried to drag him back over to the open window.

"Hey!" Luke protested as he caught his ankle around a bedpost and held on. Han kicked it away and managed to get him over to the wall with the open window as Luke flailed, putting an elbow in Han's stomach.

"Shut up, kid," Han wheezed as Luke took advantage of it and scrambled up to the sill to avoid being smashed into it by Han, who had gotten back up to his feet, "you'll make me late!"

"Kreth," Luke ducked Han's fist. "What about guests? Where are your damned manners?" Luke demanded (without a tint of a dramatic howl, thank you) as Han tried to push him out the window.

"Sitting with the bolts to my blaster!" Han snarled - and, hells no, was he trying to put a hand over Luke's mouth to shut him up?

Luke slapped his hands away with one hand and used the distraction to reach - yep, that was a paper or three, right next to Han's weird arts-and-crafts model thing. Luke threw out a foot that Han had to duck and switched the papers from Han's bed with some receipts that were probably not important from his pocket.

Luke may or may not have cackled in triumph a little and Han may or may not have used this to his advantage and clamped down on Luke's arms.

"Why the frack are you here?" Han demanded, trying to wrestle Luke out the window as Luke cursed to the hells and back. "You don't care, you don't care about anyone, you lazy bastard!"

…what?

Han shoved Luke straight out the window and, tumbling over himself and landing hard, Luke staggered to his feet to see Han slam it shut.

Luke dusted himself off and slunk off into the shadows of a nearby barrack. He scuffed the ground with his boot, watching little dust clouds rise from the ground, and suddenly shook himself.

Right, he needed to back…through the Academy again, those electrical fences looked just as bad as they did before.

Yeah, he needed to go - but Luke just stared blankly and scuffed his boot against the ground some more.

He didn't care.

Not at all.

Just like Han said.

The three of them must look odd, Obi-Wan thought.

Ahsoka, Anakin, and himself stood to the side of a darkened corridor; empty for the night except for the flashes of Coruscant's speeders in the distance. The two were blankly staring at each other, evaluating how the other had changed.

"It's been a…hells of a long time, Master," Ahsoka suddenly said with something like a smile.

Anakin nodded, crossing his arms over his chest, and didn't respond. Anakin was usually such an imposing figure - far over six feet and all muscle with an unchanging, fierce glare and crossing his arms would only add to it. But, now, it just made him seem to draw in on himself even more.

Ahsoka, too, was so different, seemed so lost - what would happen that, after leaving the Jedi Order, would cause Ahsoka - strong and passionate as her master - to simply collapse and stop?

Perhaps it was the same thing that stopped us all, whispered a voice in Obi-Wan's head.

"Call me Anakin," Anakin ventured, "you aren't my padawan anymore."

Ahsoka nodded and the three lapsed back into silence.

This couldn't possibly get more awkward, Obi-Wan resisted the urge to grimace. He was lost on how to bring the three of them back to where they used to be.

Then again, maybe he couldn't - they couldn't go back, but all of them - not just the three, but every Jedi - could go forward. How did one go forward? No Jedi teaching could tell Obi-Wan that.

"I should go," Anakin said, after a moment's pause. "I have patrol tomorrow."

He turned and left without goodbye, leaving Obi-Wan and Ahsoka alone in the dark corridor.

Then again, it occurred to Obi-Wan, that maybe they were all lost.

But what purpose could they find to bring themselves forward? There was no Jedi Order left, not really, and while that had never been Anakin's sole purpose, Anakin…

Well. Anakin's Luke was long gone.

"I trust that you find your chambers to be suitable?" Padmé asked Leia, a nervous sensation fluttering in her stomach.

Leia paused before answering to dab at her lips with her napkin. The two sat at breakfast in Padmé's private dining room, bare stone walls and floor as everything else in her palace, but furnished with an excessively long table with carved wooden feet that would seat about twenty, despite the fact that Padmé usually ate alone. Currently, it was playing host to a large variety of breakfast foods from brazened fish to wheats for Leia to choose from.

"It's wonderful, Your Excellency," Leia beamed. "Thank you for your hospitality and kindness."

"Of course," Padmé said, nearly sighing in relief. "Please, call me Padmé."

She knew she shouldn't be so worked over something so simple, but she couldn't help it - her original plan for the apprentice had been to house said being in the chambers farthest from her own, but still on the same floor. Padmé had quickly ordered her handmaidens to switch all of the amenities of the pre-prepared room to the one closest to her own.

Padmé frowned behind the glass of herb-flavored milk she was sipping at. When she told Leia, she would have to convince Leia - who, she had already taken note of, was fiercely proud of her own achievements (Padmé tried to banish the voice that sighed like her father) - that she hadn't rigged the tournament in her favor. Padmé hadn't, of course, Leia had won it by her own merit - while being Padmé's daughter may have contributed in another universe where Leia was not so good of a politician, it hadn't here.

The Emperor would have to be disposed of before she told Leia, of course, but that was much easier said than done. In the meantime…well, her job was not conducive to raising children. She would make time, Padmé assured herself. She had just found her daughter, and wouldn't lose her to her work.

Padmé's frown turned to bemusement as she watched Leia eat a sort of flat cake topped with sesame, honey, and cheese.

An Alderaanian dish? Padmé wondered as she turned to her own cheese and olives.

There was, of course, another factor that she wanted meet head-on before the week was over.

The Organas.

Wedge Antilles knew his roommate was a little eccentric.

To be fair, Wedge Antilles had a lot of eccentric roommates and he was sort of forced to develop a tolerance for people like that, considering he had to room with Wes and Hobbie.

Of course, where Wes was a prankster and Hobbie was…um, Hobbie, Han was…well. For some reason, he still thought that his other five roommates hadn't yet picked up on the fact that he was a space pirate - including Corellia-born Wedge, who had seen more than a fair share of wanted posters with Han's face on them.

Needless to say, Wedge had seen stranger things than this, but Han trekking all the way out to the commercial district of Coruscant to look for his homework still was ranked pretty high on that list.

"So," Wedge ventured as Han hissed in triumph when the two caught sight of a sort of rundown looking place that read Dex's Diner in blue neon. "Remind me again how you lost your navigation homework out here?"

Han snarled something under his breath about receipts and thieves, which Wedge decided to ignore. The Eldest knew his sanity would take a steep downturn if he listened to his roommates too much.

Han flung open the door to the diner and Wedge dutifully followed him inside, only to be greeted by every pair of eyes in the place watching him covertly from behind raggedy menus and dirty tankards.

Well, at least he knew it was one of the higher-end places Han frequented. Otherwise they would've been shot when they walked through the door.

Wedge did take a careful note of the contents of his pockets as Han stalked up to the bar, where a blonde kid who looked strangely familiar was lazily manning the cash register, but he looked more likely to steal anything anyone put in there than count any money.

Wedge's hand drifted to where his blaster was concealed, vaguely wondering if he should step in as Han pulled a stack of receipts from his pocket, slapped the kid upside the head with them, and then held out a hand as the guy grudgingly handed over - Han's homework? You're kidding me.

Well, Wedge mused as he and Han exited the diner, leaving Han smug and the cashier with a strange look on his face. It's not like I needed any proof he was strange.

Obi-Wan watched warily as Ahsoka paced around his quarters, ready to duck another flying tea cup if need be.

"You didn't tell him," Ahsoka finally accused, turning on her heel to face Obi-Wan, "I told you Luke was alive and you didn't tell him? What do you think was the point?"

Part of Obi-Wan wanted to shrink away from the accusations, wanted to turn tail and flee; to go back to hiding under the rock where the Jedi Order had been for the past twelve years, but the other part - the warrior, the Negotiator, the general from the Clone Wars - told him he had been running long enough and that there was a difference between strategic retreat and cowardice.

But Obi-Wan had long been Anakin's master and, after, the instructor of his rehabilitation. Not once, never, had Anakin said anything about Luke. Obi-Wan had gotten him to speak about Padmé, about Shmi, about Ahsoka, about himself - even about Leia, but never Luke. Luke was different; Anakin had lost so much of his family in so many different ways, all ways that fed on his fear and anger and drove him to the false sweetnothings the Dark Side whispered in his ear. But Luke…in the end, Luke had been all that was left and all that had rescued Anakin.

But Luke, too, was lost. By a dumb stroke of fate.

First in death, but now - Obi-Wan could not tell Anakin, couldn't, could not break Anakin like that again and tell him his son was alive but that his son was worse than dead, condemned to a fate that Anakin had barely broken free from.

"Why?" Ahsoka demanded.

"I know Phantom," Obi-Wan said, struggling to keep his voice steady, "and I know that Anakin wouldn't survive with Phantom as his son. Luke's gone."

Ahsoka made a sound that was a cross between a hiss and a snarl. "Phantom and Luke aren't the same thing! What are you talking about, Obi-Wan?"

"What?" Obi-Wan demanded, "Ahsoka, the Jedi Council has said Phantom is a Dark Force user - Master Kota said he watched Phantom kill a man with the Force before his eyes!"

"This isn't Darth Phantom, Obi-Wan," Ahsoka scoffed, one hand spasmodically clenching and unclenching. "Half of the Phantoms on the holonet aren't real, Master, Palpatine's trying to keep everyone terrified of Phantom so they stay on his leash!"

"Ahsoka, I'm well aware of that," Obi-Wan snapped, jaw clenching as he rose to face Ahsoka. "It doesn't discount the fact that Luke is the actual Phantom and the actual Phantom is a Dark Jedi!"

Ahsoka slammed her hands down on the table, making the teacups rattle.

"Luke knows nothing of his Force powers," Ahsoka said, lowering her voice and staring him straight in the eye. "I know it, Master, please believe me!"

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan stared at each other, eye-to-eye and nearly nose-to-nose when Obi-Wan suddenly broke eye contact, looking around his spare, spartan quarters. Most everything in it was simple and drab, except for the windowed doors that spanned the wall of his living room area, leading out onto a balcony that overlooked the gleaming skyline of Coruscant, flashing with every color imaginable, and even occasionally magnificent sunsets.

But that door had been locked for over seven years and the curtains shut for even longer.

"What…" Obi-Wan trailed off. "What makes you so sure?"

He turned back to Ahsoka, who had become so fierce-looking in her time away - her montrals reached up high above her head and her lekku swung by her hips and her blue eyes were sharp as the chevrons on her montrals, giving the impression of a dangerously beautiful warrior.

But Ahsoka's hands were still pressed flat on the table and her head was bowed.

"He can't be gone. He can't be gone," she repeated. She raised her head, "and Luke's not gone. Luke's coming here - he's coming to the Temple."

"Hey, kid," barked a Zabrak from his seat at the bar. "'Nother ale, will ya?"

"Sure," Luke waved him off, eyes on the holoprojector as he picked up a glass to wipe clean.

"Phantom has made another strike," the newscaster announced, making Luke's slow glass-cleaning stagger into glacial pace. "On the Mid-Rim planet of Naboo, Phantom has reportedly burned a village on the outskirts of the capital, Theed, to the ground with all the men, women, and children inside. There are no survivors so far."

The Zabrak followed his gaze. "Phantom's a real bastard, isn't he?"

"Yeah," Luke said flatly as he watched the houses go up in flames, "no kidding."

So, we're wrapping up Luke's time on Coruscant as a Galactic Naval Academy student (wow, that was a really short time, huh?), because next chapter he officially (somehow) ends up at the Jedi Temple! Also, Padmé starts to make a couple of questionable decisions.

Disclaimer: Star Wars does not belong to me; all material belongs to their respective owners; no copyright infringement intended; no money being made here.

EDITED: 8/2/2014