this is a disclaimer.

AN: So, I... think I'm done writing immediately!post!Endor!fics? This one takes place shortly after all the lights are changing, but before saturday i'm running wild (and mentions just try not to worry) but should, hopefully, stand on its own for the most part.

sunday all the lights of London

Luke really, really didn't have time for this. There were skirmishes on the edges of the Rebel encampment, the Rogues were flying patrol without him around yesterday's battlefield in orbit, there were still three Star Destroyers meandering around the system who hadn't been able to make the jump to lightspeed when the Imperial commander had sounded the retreat yesterday, High Command had some aide or other hanging on his comm demanding sworn testimonial that the Emperor hadn't escaped the destruction of the Death Star, he'd promised to meet Wedge when he got back and finally explain everything, and here he was being hauled through the woods to a medship by his little sister.

"Whaddaya want me to do – say no to her?" Han had shrugged when Luke had asked for backup, and dodged off to check on the Falcon as soon as it had become obvious that Luke wasn't getting out of this one.

"Look, I'm fine," he said, stumbling over a tree root looming out of the brambles. "Really, I am. I don't need a medship."

"Well, then, you won't be in there for very long, will you?" Leia said, putting a hand on his lower back to steady him.

"Leia –"

"Luke, you were up there for hours. And so far all you've told me is that he died to save you. Which sounds to me like you were in pretty immediate danger."

"There's not a mark on me," Luke declared. "How would you know?"

"I lived on Coruscant for two years, remember? I've heard all the rumours about what he was capable of."

She meant the Emperor now; she never put that silly emphasis on any pronoun but one indicating their father. It was as if she couldn't quite bear to think of it just yet.

Luke knew exactly how she felt.

"I've been fine so far," he tried again.

"Yes, and I'd rather that didn't change while you're flying patrol with the Rogues in space at the system fringe and hours away from any kind of help."

"Artoo –"

"Doesn't count," Leia said flatly. "Not for this."

Luke smiled. She was right, and he knew it: even if there was nothing else wrong with him he was absolutely exhausted, wrung out, hungover, and run down, but arguing with her like this was making him feel: right. Whole.

Brothers and sisters argued like this, didn't they?

The medship was sitting on the landing pad of the otherwise-destroyed Imperial facility; Luke shivered as they stepped into the elevator. Leia glanced at him, but didn't speak.

Then my father is truly dead –

Tell your sister you were right –

"What about your arm?" he said suddenly.

Leia pursed her lips. "It's fine."

Luke crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh no. Absolutely not. If I have to get checked out –"

"Luke..."

"Leia."

She threw up her hands in defeat and he smirked, triumphant, when the unconscious gesture made her wince. That wound was still paining her, then.

The elevator doors slid open, and Luke told himself firmly that he hadn't been half-expecting to see Father standing on the landing pad waiting for them.

He hadn't realised, under the trees, just how bright a day it was, nor how hot a one, comparatively. The sun pounded down on them enthusiastically, their shadows black and sharply delineated on the floor as they hurried across the platform back into shade by the medship. Luke glanced over his shoulder as Leia went up the ramp ahead of him: just over there he'd had the only civil conversation with his father that he would ever have, unless you counted the bit where Father had died in his arms, which Luke didn't, because that... didn't count.

The medship doors slid shut in front of him, and a harried-sounding voice said, "Commander Skywalker?"

It didn't take the doctors long to check Leia's wound: she answered the obligatory questions, let them take a blood sample, received a compliment on Han's bandage-tying skills which she did not intend to pass on, and was wearily passed a pill for her headache with a look that said the doc had done this bit hundreds of times that morning alone and told to drink lots of water.

Luke's examination was taking longer. Electrocution, the doc explained, but mostly just plain old exhaustion, and lots of it. Was she his CO?

"No," Leia said, and smiled. "His sister."

Behind the doc, a nurse did a double-take, and Leia grinned to herself. The news would be all over the fleet in hours.

Perfect.

When she reached Luke's room, the door was open, and she could see him sprawled on a bed, left leg hanging down, head turned to the side, eyes shut. His tunic had come off, and they'd put an IV in his arm, but they hadn't removed his glove, and Leia was oddly grateful, as if he would be more naked without it. There was a doctor bending over him, a human man in his twenties or so with blond hair. His back was to Leia, and he was wearing unadorned black much like Luke himself, except that his pants were leather and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

He reached out and brushed a stray strand of Luke's too-long hair off his forehead, and that was when Leia knew.

Anger was the first thing that jumped into her throat, get the hell away from my brother, but: he died saving me, Luke had said, and so: curiosity, shameful emotion, to be curious about that monster, and yet:

Your father used another weapon, Sabé had told her once, but he was also a fighter pilot, so yes, he was an excellent shot...

Leia wrapped her arms around herself and swallowed hard. This was Vader, this young man with the shaggy haircut and the deft hands that touched her brother's face so gently?

You know, in your bones and heart and soul, what you're doing. Listen to your instincts, Luke had said last night in the trees and so Leia closed her eyes reached for that sensation again connectedness and found:

Peace hard-won, safety, sense of loss unimaginable, deep but muted, and lo-

She opened her eyes and found her Father looking directly at her.

His eyes were the same blue as Luke's, and they had the same chin, but distantly Leia thought that she'd inherited his nose, and there was a scar across his right eye she hadn't expected at all, as if Anakin Skywalker was supposed, somehow, to be completely free of that kind of thing.

He smiled at her, slow, tentative, and anger tightened her throat again: how dare he? After everything he'd done to Luke? After everything he'd done to Han, how dare he?

After he'd tortured her, and aban-

How dare he?

Grieved tilt to his smile now, shadows in his eyes. Glance down at Luke: look after him. He needs you.

He needs you. And look what you did to him!

Uprushing of remorse bitterselfrecrimination forced back: I know. Believe me, I know.

Leia hadn't moved; she was clenching her fists, she realised.

Father broke her gaze to bend over Luke again, kiss his forehead, tired slow as an old man. Be safe, my loves.

Leia bit down on her bottom lip to help hold back the burning behind her eyeballs, and when she looked up again, he was gone.

She stumbled into Luke's room and dropped onto the bed beside him, shaking. He sighed, opened his eyes.

"Father?"

"He left," she said steadily. "I didn't want to talk to him."

"Well I do," Luke said petulantly. "Why'd you do that?"

Leia bent forwards and peered into his eyes. "Did they drug you?"

Luke tried to wave a hand, but it flopped instead. "Probly."

She laughed helplessly and kissed his forehead the way –

Kissed his forehead.

"Go back to sleep. I'll sit with you till you drop off."

"Ha'en't tol' Han yet."

"We will," Leia said. "It won't make a difference."

"No," Luke agreed. "Thin' he s'pects."

"Shh," Leia said quietly. "Sleep, remember?"

Luke sighed.

Be safe, my loves, he'd said.

Oh, damn him anyway.

Leia made to laugh, choked on a sob instead, coughed for a moment and then shook her head at herself.

"We'll sort it out later," she whispered to her brother, and curled her fingers through his. He squeezed her hand once as his breathing evened out and he slipped into sleep, looking about seventeen if that:

I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you!

Leia laughed in spite of herself. "What a mess," she said, and grinned.

They would sort it out later. What had Han said to Luke this morning, when he'd thought she'd still been asleep?

We've done this before.