Beyond - Legends Saga - OT We Shall All Hang Separately - (Luke and Leia Decathlon for the Summer 2023 Olympics)

Title: We Shall All Hang Separately

Author: DarthIshtar

Genre: Will range from humor to angst to poetry to family relations, both before and after the Skywalker twins find out that they're related.

Timeline: The Saga, Beyond the Saga (Legends)

Characters: Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and probably a lot of Han Solo, Chewie, Mara Jade and (because it's me) General Rieekan. Also, assorted OCs.

Summary: All of these entries into the Summer 2023 Olympics will look at the ways in which the Skywalkers found family in each other without anyone having to make it official.

Index of Entries:

1. 100 Word Sprint: Intensive Care (Post #2)
2. 3x3 Basketball: Synergy, Toil, Dauntless (Post #7)
3. Synchronized Swimming: Scars on Our Hearts (Post #15)
4. 400 Word Cross Country: Such Sweet Sorrow (Post #19)
5. Tennis Match: Write a story of 100 or more words that is dialogue-only to create a true volley of words: Untitled (Post #24)
6. Judo: In Japanese the word "ju-do" means "the way of suppleness", referring to the story of the tree branch "bending" under the weight of the snow and not breaking. Write a story of 100 or more words where your character shows "the way of suppleness.": Of the Future (Post #29)
   
7. 4x100 Relay: 4x100 word drabbles of exactly 100 words each on the four types of love (affection, intimacy, friendship, and charity) as experienced by your character, family, friendship or couple in one post: Affection, Intimacy, Friendship, Charity (Post #35)
8. 1500 Word Dash: An exactly1500 word story about your character, family, friendship or couple with any theme.

 

Entry #1: Intensive Care
100 Word Sprint: A 100 word drabble about your character, family, friendship or couple using any theme.


They found each other in disaster and healed in that companionship.

No one expected a princess and a moisture farmer to be the closest of friends, but no one had expected a man who might as well have brought his bill to General Dodonna to save the Alliance either. It was just one of those war-time miracles.

Leia gave Luke the space to find a home in Rogue Squadron, while Luke made sure the former High Princess of Alderaan was seen as a person with ordinary needs like friendship and empathy.

The two recent orphans healed in each remembered tragedy.

 

" Luke made sure the former High Princess of Alderaan was seen as a person with ordinary needs like friendship and empathy."

I can't remember if this has ever been touched upon before, but I love this part where Luke essentially humanizes Leia to the others. Great work!

 

A perfect view on Luke and Leia and how they should be seen by the others

 

Lovely bit of character and relationship insights as Luke and Leia forge a deep empathic friendship.

 

Ooooh, I like this! I especially like the fact that you're making them "family" before they find out that they're actually family. Like whiskers above, I particularly appreciate the idea that Luke is the person who can make Leia be a person, not a status or a symbol. And that last line is a poignant reminder that Luke and Leia have been orphaned together twice.

 

Replies:

@whiskers Thanks! I actually started exploring that in a Dear Diary attempt called "No Perfect Way" about Leia's first year after Alderaan. It's a major theme there.
@earlybird-obi-wan *blush*. Thanks. It's not often I get called perfect.
@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha The empathy is why I really never 'shipped Luke and Leia except out of exasperation with Han Solo. . But also, love through psychology is a big thing I believe in. Thanks for liking this.
@Chyntuck There's a wonderful story called "Luke's Girl" from back in the days of fanfix.com about that journey from Han's perspective. Thanks for appreciating this.
*
Author's Note: Here is my 3x3 Basketball: Write 3x300 word stories. Use the prompts Synergy, Toil, and Dauntless for your triple drabbles. Each story should be exactly 300 words long. One scene for each movie of the OT.

Synergy

Princess Leia Organa, respected diplomat and formidable politician, could not remember the last time she had wandered as though lost.

While everyone was thrilled with her delivery of the plans and her survival, with the plans in the right hands and a strategy coming together, she was no longer immediately needed.

“I beg you to rest,” Commander Willard said quietly as he escorted her to the door of the briefing room where they’d been examining the plans.

“I have had enough time to rest,” Leia protested. “We have precious little time before the Death Star arrives and you need–”

“Sir, we have yet to replenish the squadrons that were involved in the Battle of Scarif,” a voice broke through the buzz of conversation. “Blue, Green, and Red Squadrons are all down pilots. Before we plan the assault, we must remedy that.”

Leia spoke before the thought formed in her head. “Pardon me, but I can personally recommend a new recruit.”
*
As a newcomer to the Alliance, Luke figured the best thing was to fly under the radar and wait for someone to officially need him. He was here to volunteer for the cause, but he wasn’t sure yet what that meant.

With nothing to do, he lent a hand to Han and Chewie, replacing melted wiring near the repair bay and checking out a fault in the gunnery equipment that let him get rid of his first TIE fighter.

He clambered out of the repair bay to find Leia sitting primly at the gaming table. He immediately ran a hand through his matted hair and grinned.

“Leia,” he greeted. “What can I do for you?”

Her smile was obviously hard to come by, but it was pretty motivating. “Luke, just how good of a pilot did you say you were?”

Toil

Luke had been lured to Bespin by pain and he had no idea that coming to the rescue would hurt everyone more.

Leia had recognized his clammy skin and difficulty breathing not as the trauma of facing Darth Vader, but symptoms of him going into shock. He had recognized her own trauma response from the days after they rescued her from the Death Star and a part of him was grateful that he left Bespin with someone who had also been harmed by Vader.

Because of the difference in what that harm meant to each of them, he couldn’t tell her that his hand was the least of his injuries.

Hyperspace entry knocked him physically back and he heard Artoo’s smug whistles and Leia’s shallow breathing. Luke hadn’t paid much attention to the man who had pulled him into the Falcon’s airlock, but he suddenly registered one vital thing: Han wasn’t flying the Falcon.

Before he could ask a single question, Leia pried her hand free of the hyperdrive lever and stood so suddenly that she nearly stumbled.

“Luke, you shouldn’t…”

She turned and attempted to storm from the cockpit, but ran into a solid wall of Wookiee. Luke, having stood to follow her, was stunned by the way that she clung to what she used to call the walking carpet.

A minute later, Leia headed back to the crew bunk where she’d left Luke mid-escape. Sitting on the edge, she looked at him directly for the first time since he’d come to the cockpit.

“Han made him promise to take care of me,” she whispered.

And then the torment that he’d only seen in vision came pouring out and all thoughts of what to tell her about Vader fled his mind.

“I won’t stop until we get him back.”

Dauntless

“Ask me again sometime.”

Luke had never been one for secrets, so his evasiveness was a matter of concern. Leia didn’t ask why he couldn’t join them on the trip back to the Fleet or what had taken him away for over half of a week. She had instinctively known that he wouldn’t miss the briefing led by Mon Mothma herself, but it had somehow felt like a minor miracle for him to make it in time.

And then, when the anguish coming off of him was as tangible as the tension in his shoulder muscles, he dodged her question.

A week after Bespin, he’d come back to himself and she recognized that same detached sense of purpose now. He was in need of healing, but he thought he could put it off for a while.

The command crew and team met briefly to discuss departure time and requisitions within minutes of the main briefing, but when Leia extended a hand to Han by way of invitation, he grimaced in some kind of pain.

“I was trying to remember why I’d never accepted leadership before,” Han grumbled. “I have to stay behind and take charge of some things. There’s the answer.”

She had poured admiration and appreciation for his sacrifice into the kiss she gave him on the way out the door, then joined Luke and clasped his hand affectionately.

“I wish Rieekan were here,” she said with irrepressible joy. “He owes me fifty credits for doubting that we’d see the day when someone would salute Han Solo with his consent.”

“I didn’t realize he’d come back at full throttle.”

“Of course he did. None of us excels at grace periods. We’re indomitable.”

“We’re stubborn,” Luke corrected. “Definitely stubborn.”

Recalling the proof of that, Leia grinned. “The word is dauntless.”

 

Superb use of the prompts. In Synergy, I can totally tell that rests is one thing Leia feels she cannot afford just from the time crunch but also from the fact that she doesn't want to be still too long on a personal level.
Toil: I love this from Luke's POV as he observes Leia with astute compassion and how each of them has experienced a life-changing circumstance on Bespin.

Dauntless: Love this bit of preparedness and camaraderie. But especially:
“I didn’t realize he’d come back at full throttle.”

“Of course he did. None of us excels at grace periods. We’re indomitable.”

“We’re stubborn,” Luke corrected. “Definitely stubborn.”

Recalling the proof of that, Leia grinned. “The word is dauntless.”

My new favorite descriptor for any team. Dauntless.

 

I can imagine how each opens the subject with the other, tentatively and slowly, not wishing to spill his/her guts or lose complete control, but needing the camaraderie.

Yay Chewie!

 

A wonderful opener for this fic and this challenge.

I love this. Leia has a position of power and authority and can use it to put Luke in a place where he can thrive, and he influences his peers just by the fact that she was his friend before he was under her command in the Rebellion. And I really like that you're highlighting the fact that they have lost their homes and have become each other's family.

I like that he has this sense of community and humility that would be in keeping with his upbringing. He has a lot of confidence in himself as a pilot and a lot of drive, but he knows that he has to learn what these people need before he can tell anyone else what to do. I can really see how Padmé's temperament comes through in him and keeps his ego in check.

I like that his default way to be useful is to look for things to repair-- totally consistent with the environment he grew up in, and a nod to Anakin's talent for tinkering.

It's so much harder for him because he has to go through this alone.

These are wonderful details for showing how Luke would put together what had happened. It feels very authentic.

I love that you show how easily he puts his own difficulties aside and focuses on helping others.

I really like this subtle nod to Leia's sense of the Force, and how she could attribute it to intuition for all these years.

Ooh, I like that this implies that there is a vulnerability that Vader and Palpatine can exploit when he faces them.

I love that we get to see the kind of love that forms a stable foundation for Han and Leia's marriage in Legends canon.

I'm excited to see more as this challenge progresses!

 

What a great way to write about the relation between Luke and Leia. Dauntless indeed

 

I love how you spread the three triple-drabbles over the three movies of the trilogy to show the evolution of Luke and Leia's relationship, but also how you made Han an inextricable part of their lives. In Synergy, we see how they already know each other's strengths and find common purpose, and Han is mostly a connecting link. Toil shows how, by the end of TESB, their experiences and priorities align, and Han is a valued friend. And in Dauntless, they reunite as they enter the endgame of their adventure, and Han taking on a role of leadership becomes a metaphor for how far they've come. It's just a beautiful progression!

 

Liked this paragraph most of all, but this whole story is such a gem of a character study in so few words. I really enjoyed the insights into Leia and Luke at this early point in the trilogy.

Ouch. The bitter irony of the fact that they both have some of their worst traumas caused by their own father, and Leia and Luke don't even know they have that part in common yet... just oww. Luke thinks it's just him, but it's actually worse -- though better in the sense that they at least have each other for support.

These were both such fun moments -- classic Han (and the whole trio dynamic).

 

Replies:

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thanks! In my Sunday School class, I quote a religious leader who says that all believers need a friend, an assignment, and spiritual support. With Synergy, I wanted to bring that to mind for Leia. And I think the “Dream Three” as some people call them are the epitome of dauntless.

@pronker I went on a walk with a friend recently and took her to a cemetery because I know she’s had a hard time with loss that’s acknowledged in one part of that cemetery. We talked more about it than we ever have before because she felt the compassion meant by it. This reminds me of that. And Leia and Chewie as gradual friends is my favorite thing.

@devilinthedetails Thanks, mighty leader. Thanks for the kind words on that phrasing. I’ve been podcasting about Tolkien for three years now and the “war-time miracles” is shorthand for my oft-cited eucatastrophe theme. I feel like all victory is some kind of miracle for someone in war. I have grown to love Rogue One more in the years since I got to watch it with my own opinions. (I used to be subjected to someone who only focused on one character and it irritated me a lot.) The space battle and how it sets up so much is so poignant. And I need to find a really soft carpet and call it my Wall of Wookiee. Dauntless is really why I do love the Skywalkers.

@UltramassiveUbersue Thanks. I’m very fond of that line. I feel like there are hundreds of these stories in the Alliance, where because of the long defeat that they faced, they had to rely a lot more on each other and possibly never see family or home again. To a much lesser degree, I have that kind of relationship with the people I worked with as a missionary because it was such an insular and tight-knit community in California. I 100% didn’t think of Padme’s temperament when I was writing Luke in that part and I delighted in you finding that. On the other hand, “Life seems so much simpler when you’re fixing something” is exactly what I was going for. Luke having to spend so much time with the burden on his own is so heartbreaking to me. His setting aside of torment is what I think of as “harm reduction.” I’m a volunteer crisis counselor on a suicide hotline and a lot of training went into us being able to find ways to bring someone from the brink to where they can take small steps for themselves and trying to reduce their risk of suicide in that way. Leia’s sense of the Force there was another 100% unintentional moment. Kateydidnt has a running list of things I didn’t mean to be dirty jokes and I think I need to start one of things I didn’t mean to be that deep. I feel like Vader would have been aware of Luke’s pain in some way through a connection and Palpatine would have enjoyed it second-hand. Thanks again.

@earlybird-obi-wan Thanks! They certainly are.

@Chyntuck thanks. And yes, I wanted to highlight each of those periods. It’s reminiscent of a project I’ve long wanted to do in which I told the ending of a Harry Potter book from someone else’s perspective. I was rereading a great H/L fic (The Not-Quite Love Letters) and Han thinks of Luke as the hero and himself as the sidekick and what the heck does that make Chewie? Han is the tie that binds, whether he wants to be or not. I think of ROTJ as the “smile fondly at each other” acting movie and a lot of that happens in this very time period. I’m glad it’s hitting home well.

@Kahara I’m glad to see it working well. I second the “Just oww.” I’m working on another entry for the decathlon that explores that “just oww.” And of course, I had to bring Rieekan at some point.
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Synchronized Swimming: Write a story between 230-500 words in length inspired by a song of your choice.

Author’s Note: It took a lot of effort to keep this to 500 words, but it’s the long form of an anecdote I mentioned in another fic about Leia holding a vigil for Alderaan. This is inspired by part of P!nk’s “Just Give Me a Reason.” Usually a romance song, but it’s more about relationships hitting snags:

“I let you see the parts of me that weren’t all that pretty
But with every touch, you fixed them.
…
Just give me a reason, just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken, just bent
And we can learn to love again.
It’s in the stars. It’s been written in the scars on our hearts.”
—
SCARS ON OUR HEARTS

Leia had naively thought that she was getting off easy. The Alliance had scattered to a few outposts for security and Leia, in the spirit of camaraderie, had volunteered to be the High Command liaison for the small unit on Kirgek.

The people here hadn’t been at Yavin, but stood up to the Empire when some of their friends survived early battles. Many cited Alderaan as why, but they didn’t see her as some kind of tragic hero.

Except for Luke, that was. He’d used his new rank to get assigned here with her and for the most part, she was glad for that.

Tonight, she opened her quarters door to find him holding a bottle of green wine and wearing a nervous expression.

“This isn’t like you,” she said in greeting.

“No, but Han said it should be.” He lifted the bottle. “I hope this is the right kind.”

It took her a heartbeat to realize what he meant by the gift. “No.”

“He said you weren’t doing that great last–” He broke off, belatedly realizing that he shouldn’t have intimated how much Han had noticed. “He said you shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

“That isn’t his business or yours,” she snapped unexpectedly, reaching out to slam the old-fashioned door in his face.

Luke got his foot in the way, then stuck his arm through for good measure. “Today’s hell for you,” he said, probably quoting Han directly. “Can I help?”

“No.” She shoved the bottle more firmly into his hands, starting to feel the sting of tears in her eyes at his stubborn attempt to be compassionate. “I have my own plans.”

“You don’t have the right stuff to drink to their memories,” he protested. “Han made sure this got to us.”

Abandoning attempts at civility, she shoved him backwards with one arm and slammed the door with the other.
-
The following morning, she found Luke in the hangar and approached with an empty bottle in hand. He glanced at it and wisely kept his mouth shut before reaching for a tool.

“It’s tradition to drink to the memory of every person lost on the anniversary of their death,” Leia explained. “I can’t drink to the memory of eight billion people and it feels disrespectful to lump them together.”

She didn’t have to say that, with full access to the censuses and listings of refugees on Alderaan, she knew how many people she had rounded down in that figure.

“Last year, Han didn’t know where to find Alderaanian green, so he brought me anything Alderaanian and it was hell to drink with something a lot stronger than wine.”

“Which is why he found the real stuff for last night,” Luke guessed.

Lowering one more guard, she handed him a hydrospanner, clasping his hand when he accepted it.

“I needed to keep vigil alone last night,” she said quietly, “but would you mind coming to dinner and hearing about some of those eight billion?”

His smile reappeared. “I’ll be there.”

 

Alderaan destroyed. To drink to the memory of everyone would be hell

 

Very poignant and heart tugging. Luke is wonderfully persistent at getting beyond the barriers. Han's keen observantness is very telling.

 

Again, Han as the tie that binds! So much great stuff here. I'm inferring from the text that this takes place two years after Yavin and therefore one year before Hoth/TESB. The first thing (chronologically in-universe) that was great here was to see that, for the first anniversary of the destruction of Alderaan, Han had already been thoughtful towards Leia – although bringing the Alderaanian version of moonshine to drink to 8 billion people probably led to the worst hangover of all times The second thing (chronologically still) is that this year, he went to the trouble of finding the right stuff – and I'm guessing that, two years after the destruction of Alderaan, proper Alderaanian wine is getting difficult to come by – and he schooled Luke to spend the evening with Leia, which is a lesson Luke clearly took to heart (maybe even a little too much).

The third thing – besides Leia being her own person here, and choosing to mourn at her own pace – is that she kept the empty moonshine bottle!!! It reminds me of that conversation with Bail and Breha in Given in Love about the "informal union"

 

@earlybird-obi-wan In Doctor Who, there’s a heartbreaking conversation in which one doctor asks two others if they know how many children died in the destruction of Gallifrey. One dodges the question and you get the impression that he knows, but can’t dwell on the number. The other answers with the exact number as if it still haunts him every day. I felt like that with the eight billion figure. (I based it on Alderaan being a lot like Earth.) I also went to a synagogue in Greece where they had a plaque listing the family names of people who died in World War 2 as well as several large two-sided plaques that listed every single name of those deported to the camps and sometimes only a few stars by the names of people who had survived. Both were very hard to look at, but the memorial was very poignant.


@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha I’ve always felt like Han was on the lookout in different ways. One was so he could tease Leia, the other was because he could pick up on things that would let him either steer clear or keep close when he wanted to be a friend at first. Luke is just naturally lovable and loving.


@Chyntuck You are right in that inference. I invented hrashi back in high school, when I was writing really crappy Alderaanian OCs infiltrating CorSec and other such nonsense. Yes, she kept the bottle. We all have quirky ways of self-soothing, even if it’s “I remember when we sucked at doing this in a way that helped.”

400 Word Cross Country
Such Sweet Sorrow

When Han headed off to inspect the Falcon and Chewie dozed off surrounded by Ewoks, Luke heard his bench creak slightly and Leia took his hand. He immediately latched onto her fingers and tugged slightly so she knew she had an invitation to come closer.

“How are you doing?”

Earlier in the celebration, he might have grimaced at the very loaded question. The grief of last night was still too fresh for him to answer honestly, but he had been able to accept it as part of this victory instead of something he couldn’t face. Leia had wisely waited until now to ask the vague question.

“I’m still standing,” he admitted.

She inhaled deeply and let out a sigh. “I’m going to have a medical droid ask you that in a few hours,” she said. “You probably don’t want to tell me why you smell like ozone, but they’ll have opinions on the cause.”

“Yes, ma’am.” In other words, he had spent most of the previous day on a battle station and shouldn’t have smelled like the aftermath of a lightning strike. That was a story for another day. “As long as you get someone with better medical skills than Han to look at your arm.”

“Yes, sir.”

He felt a tightening in his stomach muscles, almost like he was about to laugh. “I don’t think we have to be that formal.”

“Well, once we explain where you went during the battle, someone will want to give you another promotion,” Leia pointed out. “And technically speaking, I don’t think I’m allowed to be on a first-name basis with anyone as of the vote.”

One of the first acts of the New Republic was to elect the Chief of State. Mon Mothma had been the natural selection and so had the exhausted Princess of Alderaan who was named as her second-in-command.

“I’d say Han is the exception, but he’s always thought your first name was Your and your last name was Worship or Highnessness.”

This time, both of them managed a quiet laugh. “We’ll discuss that after dawn,” she decided more quietly. “And I need him to know who our father was.”

He was grateful that this was on her to-do list at all. “Have you decided how?”

“No, but I don’t need to rehearse right now. Until he’s back, I’d just like to spend some quality time with my family.”

 

Luke and Leia, interacting like siblings on Endor. Han with his Your and Worship or Highnessess A sweet and funny post

 

Wonderfully teasing and caring blend there.

 

She's right to mourn alone and then allow others in afterwards, good self care depicted.

It's taken just the right amount of time for her to state 'my current family,' since the Alderaan family is no more.

 

Just your gentle authorly reminder that these two are twins

More seriously, one of the things I loved about this story (and this series in general) is how it highlights both how similar and how different Luke and Leia are. They are both in roles of authority, even if it's a different brand of authority; they are both deeply compassionate people, but Luke's mind dwells on his father while Leia's mind dwells on Han. And of course, they're family – not found family anymore, but proper family, and now that the war is (almost) over they can have proper family time together.

 

ANNOUNCEMENT: THIS IS MY 50,000TH POST EVER! Of course I wrote L/L fanfic for you. My first fic on the boards was supposed to be a series of vignettes about them and then it turned into a trilogy.

Replies:

@earlybird-obi-wan Thanks. I love Han and his awkward nicknames until the end of time.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the encouragement.

@pronker Self-care is something I think Leia would have developed for her lonely and strenuous service in the Senate, when she couldn’t get as rebellious as she wanted, but still had work to do. Your comment on current family is why this next fic was written.

@Chyntuck When I read The Courtship of Princess Leia, one of the lines that stuck out to me was Leia claiming Luke was one of the most gentle people she knew. I try to bring that out in writing the two of them because there’s a whole dynamic of them caring for each other in ways that no one else would think of throughout the movies.
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Tennis Match: Write a story of 100 or more words that is dialogue-only to create a true volley of words.

“Who was he?”

“You’re the one who called him General Kenobi. I thought you knew him.”

“I knew that my father trusted him. I knew him briefly when I was young. I mean, who was you to you?”

“I knew him when I was young. Uncle Owen didn’t like him coming around, kept saying he was a crazy old man. I think Han would agree he was kind of crazy, but that wasn’t always a bad thing back home and I think he even saved my life once, years ago.”

“Yet you traveled with him.”

“He… He told me I needed to come with him to Alderaan, that I would learn the ways of the Force. He was the only one who would answer my questions about my father. Said my uncle said I’d go off on some crusade with him someday, just like my father.”

“And your father is…”

“I never knew him. Ben said he was a Jedi Knight, murdered by Vader.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know we both lost our parents to that monster.”

“I never heard of him until Ben Kenobi decided I needed to be talked into running away from home. My uncle wouldn’t talk about my parents and I always figured it was some family scandal that he’d stop holding against them someday.”

“The Empire criminalized Jedi potential, to say nothing of Jedi training. If your father was a Jedi Knight–”

“That was a death sentence. I guess that’s why they let a couple of farmers in the middle of nowhere raise me.”

“You know your father was a Jedi Knight. That is more than I know about either of my birth parents.”

“You were adopted and they still let you be a princess? I’m sorry, I know how that sounds. It’s just, there are stories about rightful heirs to thrones.”

“And when I was Named, they made sure to close the loophole that said I was someone else’s daughter first. I never knew my parents’ names and I only remember a few things about my mother, but I was the daughter of the people who ruled Alderaan until…”

“Vader murdered your parents, too.”

“Tarkin gave the order.”

“I didn’t… I’m sorry, I thought…”

“I hate Vader just as much for allowing it, for holding me in place to watch it happen. I’m glad all of them burned over Yavin and I hope they are burning in some sort of hell for their crimes. Tarkin ordered the shot, but Vader committed a crime of permission.”

“I feel stupid saying I’m sorry when you’ve lost a lot more.”

“We both lost everything we knew. Compassion is never stupid. You lost more than family, though that is an incalculable loss. I think when we both left home, we expected to be able to return someday. There’s a grief to be felt for that as much as for the people we lost.”

“Then we’ll have to make our home wherever the Alliance goes.”

“And we can stand in for each other’s families as needed.”

“I think that’s been how I felt for a few days now. I didn’t want to step into anyone’s shoes, but if you ever need an annoying older brother, I can do my best.”

“I’ll be the level-headed sister who won’t stop steering you back onto a sensible path.”

“You sent us into a garbage chute. How was that level-headed?”

“It was the only escape plan on hand. Of course it was level-headed.”

“What about Han? Do we want to adopt him, too?”

“Han and Chewie can be the quirky cousins who show up late for family reunions and eat all the food.”

“So long as they stick around for the long-haul.”

“I think they can be talked into it.”

“So, we have a deal?”

“We do. I’m sorry, but I’m not shaking your hand over this.”

“Right. I think a hug’ll work better.”

 

Great discussion about families lost and gaining cousins.