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Luke isn’t entirely sure how he expects Leia’s and his lives to progress when they first move into the apartment on Coruscant. Most of the time, he feels like he’s watching things unfold on their own without him playing much of a part in them – like it’s not decisions being made, but rather just happening. For Leia, Coruscant is simply the most practical place to live now that the provisional council is seated here, and as for Luke himself – if he’s completely honest, he needs a break. So they settle in, quietly assuming that they’ll stay, even if they never get around to replace the cardboard boxes in their rooms with actual shelves.
It takes a few weeks for old Ben and Luke's dad to stop by for the first time, almost as if they’re hesitant to do so. Luke figures that their first encounter that doesn’t take place in the middle of a dramatic or even life-and-death situation should be awkward, but somehow he can’t bring himself to worry about that. His dad, who once again barely looks older than Leia and Luke themselves, awkwardly compliments their living room furniture (which is utterly mismatched, albeit at least complete), then dinner (which consists of an assortment of three different types of nutrient bars), and then nervously asks whether they'd be okay with him and Ben stopping by from time to time.
Luke sets about agreeing without a second thought, but Leia frowns ever so slightly, so he shuts up and lets her install a quick policy on when they're allowed to visit. Wherever they are the rest of the time – inside the Force? Is the Force itself a dimension? Somewhat astonished, Luke realizes he has no idea whatsoever how this works. He also feels no qualms about admitting he’s not in the mood to try and wrap his mind around it.
In any case, for the time being, all available Force ghosts are scheduled for an hour and a half on Leia's free Friday morning to tell her all about the old Republic and the Clone Wars. It doesn't take long, though, to establish it's mostly her chatting with Ben for hours while drinking copious amounts of tea whereas Yoda and Luke's dad excuse themselves most of the time.
Luke for his part finds himself trying to listen in quite often – but concentrating for an hour or two without moving around or doing something with his hands turns out to be almost impossible for him. Increasingly frequent, he finds himself something to tinker with instead. He leaves the door to the living room open so that he can catch bits of the conversation while he's working and promises Leia to read her comprehensive notes to catch up.
There's not much to keep himself busy in an almost empty apartment, though. When he wakes up to Artoo rapidly going in circles and loudly complaining on a Friday morning just a few weeks into their new routine, Luke is almost glad there is something to fix. Removing a sticky substance that looks suspiciously like Han's cereal from a wheel might not be the most thrilling job, but it's a nice, peaceful activity – at least for Luke. Artoo having to lie on his side for an extended period of time is of course an audacity. However, Luke finds that he can distinguish real complaints from those brought forward as a matter of principle by now and just makes sure to say “is that so?” or “I know, it's rough, buddy” dejectedly from time to time. Seeing that he's not too absorbed in his work, he is actually a bit surprised how long it takes for him to recognize the feeling of a familiar presence and to turn his head to find the blue-ish shimmering image of Anakin Skywalker sitting next to him.
“I think you need to disassemble the wheel completely”, his dad says as soon as Luke acknowledges him. He's almost stumbling over his own rushed words. “There's – it's going to take ages otherwise.”
Artoo, obviously but also a bit disappointingly not Force-sensitive, doesn't react to this outrageous statement. Luke's dad shuffles closer to inspect the astrodroid by himself. It takes a while since he has to cover about half a meter and apparently refuses to move in any other way than shifting from one side of his butt to the other. Once there, he contemplates him with a curious expression. “Didn't think I'd see him again”, he mumbles, poking Artoo with the index finger of what appears to be a mechanical arm which Luke didn't notice before and which looks eerily similar to his own. “And then with Leia and you, too. How weird indeed.”
Luke, if he's being honest, hasn't really thought about how much of a coincidence that is, so he just humms noncommitingly. It makes Artoo perk up and beep inquiringly. He turns his head a full 360 degree to scan the room, appalled and slightly offended to find no one else inside.
Luke coughs. “I'd try to explain it to him but I do think he needs some time to get over his wheel first”, he says, causing his dad to burst into a broad smile.
“He's always been concerned when something was out of place. Always running his own diagnostics. One time –", he snorts and needs a moment to compose himself, "one time he electroshocked Obi-Wan's leg because he dared to suggest we have him checked up before a mission.”
“Did you?”, Luke asks.
“Nah”, his dad says. “He almost flew us into a small moon, though. Turned out there was something wrong with his wiring. Something minor, though.” He's still smiling fondly, apparently reliving the memory of him and old Ben almost being crushed on a rock in space. Luke isn't entirely sure he understands the sentiment, but he supposes it's alright.
After that, it becomes a habit for his dad to randomly pop out of thin air and hang out with Luke during political tea times, therefore effectively preventing him from ever listening in again. His dad claims it's because he “just can't concentrate on Obi-Wan talking for so long” and Luke doesn't find himself complaining. He's curious, after all.
Somewhat unexpectedly, it turns out his dad can go on seemingly endless rambles until he cuts himself off and apologizes, which turns into embarrassed smiles and fidgeting. He also has a burning passion for HoloNet telenovelas. Leia and old Ben both roll their eyes exasperatedly when they find Luke and his dad yelling at the screen the next time the visit is over, but they don't say anything. It's almost eerie, given that Luke's dad is urging him to throw popcorn at the screen “because I can't do it myself, but I swear I would if I could!”. Rightly so, Luke thinks grimly – after all, the bad writing has forced the main character and her girlfriend to break up and reconcile for the fifth time in the span of a week.
“Don't you ever feel like it's weird to have him hanging out with us like that?”, Leia asks on one evening when they're lounging on the sofa in Luke's room themselves. They're watching a romantic comedy mostly for the attractive bounty hunter with the pretty hair, even though neither admits it. It's been a lazy day, mostly spent by thoroughly ignoring the wall paint they've bought weeks ago with the intention of making the living room more homely and Luke, half-asleep already, needs a moment to gather his thoughts.
For him, he thinks somewhat slowly, it's nice to be able to make new memories, ones that don't involve having any hands cut off, or dramatically plunging into an abyss to avoid certain conversations. He supposes it must be odder for Leia, who has never had the chance to talk to their father while he was still alive and who has her actual parents to grieve for, whereas for Luke, in a way, mourning his family was always interwoven with wanting to connect to his dad.
“I even get angry at Obi-Wan and Yoda, though”, Leia says when he tries to put this mess of his thoughts into words, “for lying at you. Where am I supposed to start forgiving him?”
“You don't – have to”, Luke says. “It's – I suppose for me it's simply alright to focus on the good that comes out out them being here now.”
Leia is quiet for a moment. Then she asks: “But how do you reconcile it? Vader and your father as you see him now – are they, like, separate entities in your head?”
“Ugh”, Luke says, “I don't really think about that a lot? I mean – no, they're the same person, but I guess if you want to go there, it's probably difficult to say how much Vader he is now, same as it was difficult to say how much of himself he was before?” He flails his arms in a helpless gesture, almost knocking a can of water off the cardboard box that serves as their side table. “I just don't think it's helpful to pore over this for too long”, he finally says.
Leia sighs.
“The essential of one's character one does preserve if a Force ghost one becomes”, Yoda explains in turn when she asks his opinion a few days later. “An essential part of his character your father lost when Darth Vader he became. His Force ghost more like Anakin Skywalker appears to be, therefore.”
That makes sense to Luke, despite the grammar, but Leia shrugs and says, “You'd think that if someone terrorized the galaxy for twenty years it would count as an essential part”, to which no one can really object.
In any case, Force ghost apparitions in their apartment become increasingly frequent and Leia blames the fact that even Yoda seems to have forgotten about her policy entirely on Luke. Luke, who has closely been following “The Young Doctors” together with his dad lately, kind of sees her point. Judging by how often they have company for breakfast these days, there's at least no denying that the ghosts are beginning to feel at home. Yoda, for example, ever-so-annoyingly hums cheerful tunes that loop perfectly and get stuck in everyone's heads for days. There's even a new, mysterious, bodyless voice that might have been frightening if it wasn't so passionate about flavoured tea. Old Ben, on his part, looks like young, concerningly attractive Ben now more often than not, which annoys Luke to no ends because never in his life has he wanted to think about the phrase “attractive Ben”, thank you very much. He also takes regular digs at their food (which still mostly consists of nutrient bars) and develops the habit of dramatically dissolving whenever he can't bring himself to deal with a situation. “Luke”, he says on one notable occasion when he involuntarily witnesses him getting stuck in his rainjacket for a minute straight, “I'm dead and to be quite frank, I've run out of bantha ticks to give.”
“It's like in one of those stories about haunted buildings”, Leia complains when breakfast once again takes twice as long as it used to and involves a discussion about “which lightsaber colour is the best”. “Once you invite them in, you're farkled.”
“Not how the Force works, that is”, Luke's dad, who is lounging on their kitchen counter, retorts in a very bad Yoda impersonation. “I think?”, he adds, half shouting, craning his neck to where Ben is floating in the hallway, seemingly in a meditative pose.
Leia gives Luke a pointed look. Luke shrugs helplessly. He likes the company.
It gets even more confusing when Han moves in with them. (It also gets a lot easier because they have lived on nutrient packs and restaurant visits for almost three months now because Leia can't cook for the love of her life and while Luke might be able to prepare a few Tatooine dishes, he strictly refuses to ever do it again. Thus, Han being able to make three different kinds of stew is definitely an improvement.)
Han, bless his beautiful heart, of course can't see any of their extended family. Leia and Luke make an effort to act as interpreters and warn him whenever they have company, and Han and Luke's dad spend quality bonding time together that's just Han gushing over the Millenium Falcon for an hour straight. Any further questions are passed on by either of the twins. They don't pay much attention because there's a sequel to that bounty hunter movie now and his hair is still as nice as before, but Luke supposes it's an immense display of trust that Han doesn't question once if his dialogue partner is actually still there.
“So...what do you do, actually, when you're not here?”, Luke asks when Ben joins the three of them on board game night for the first time. His dad's there too, obviously, but he appears to be napping with the Loth-kitten the three of them recently adopted and which Leia insists they are not calling “Mon Lothma”. Curiously, he looks like an older, albeit less burnt, version of himself, possibly to match Ben's rare old man attire.
Ben bids Leia to move his piece on the board, bumping Han's for the fifth time in a row, before he considers the question.
“We just...float, I suppose”, he says, stroking his beard contemplatively. “Listening to the Force. Getting...impressions of what's happening around the universe. It's – hard to explain, really.”
“You make it sound as if we're constantly high, Padawan”, says the bodyless, tea-enthusiastic voice, causing Leia and Luke to jump and Han to literally jump (to his feet, where he looks around frantically). “What's happening?”, he demands.
“It seems that – Obi-Wan's old master is here?” Leia looks at Ben questioningly. Luke, usually a human disaster when it comes to names, is proud to find that he still remembers this one from what Ben told him. “Wait, Qui-Gon Jinn?”
“What does he look like”, Han asks somewhat flatly. Luke wonders if his reluctance has anything to do with the time he asked for a description of young Ben and it admittedly turned into both him and Leia gushing over his hair, which caused Han to cover his ears a few minutes in and Luke's dad to dissolve into a fit of laughter.
“He, um, appears to be a bodyless voice”, Leia says.
“I didn't manage to maintain a physical form”, the voice explains in a thoughtful tone. “Not enough time to study the art. I had a Padawan that caused me way too much trouble.”
Ben rolls his eyes; Luke is intrigued. “I always thought you must have been an exemplary student?”
“What's happening?”, Han asks.
“Qui-Gon is about to spill the beans about young Obi-Wan”, Leia replies with an excited grin.
“We're talking about Obi-Wan?” Luke's dad perks up for a moment, looking around the room disorientedly, then attempts to hug the Loth-kitten closer with his prosthetic arms and dozes off again immediately.
Ben rolls his eyes again, but he's hiding a smile.
Guided by Qui-Gon's voice, Luke takes up cooking. He sometimes wonders if Force ghosts are secretly hooked up to HoloNet because the amount of recipes Qui-Gon can recite from the top of his head is incredible. And the food tastes amazing. Han gets a little offended when Chewie is the first to admit that Luke's creations have surpassed Han's own stews, but he quickly concedes and doesn't hold back the indecent noises of content they inspire him to make. Over time, Qui-Gon becomes a somewhat permanent installment in their kitchen and does a pretty good job on putting Luke at ease with his new tasks. The more advanced Luke becomes, the more often he retorts to semi-helpful instructions such as “we don't have enough time, just wing it” and to whistling Yoda's tunes while Luke is racing through the kitchen, juggling four bowls at once.
Leia works long days for the provisional council these days and finds herself appreciating the warm food; Luke, in turn, finds himself feeling good about being productive. After all, Leia has an occupation (and Han does, too, in a way, occasionally) whereas Luke mostly...hangs out.
“I guess something good did come out of this after all”, Leia grumbles when they finish Luke's first three course menu on one of her rare days off, half a year after Qui-Gon discreetly instructed him on how to not burn toast for the first time.
“Besides Obi-Wan”, Luke teases. Chewie roars in agreement – ever since Luke told him that Ben thought he looked impressive and that he was honoured to meet him again, Chewie fully approves of all things Kenobi.
Dinner, for some reason, ends with Chewie fast asleep on the kitchen table and the rest of them getting very drunk on red wine. Fast forward two hours and Luke is lying on the balcony wrapped in a blanket, gazing at the lines of the skyscrapers higher than their own that almost seem to meet somewhere far, far above him. The soft background noise of Threepio quarreling with Artoo is drifting outside through the open glass door – apparently, Artoo wants to unlock Luke's room which Threepio thinks is unacceptable. “It's fine, guys”, Luke shouts softly to resolve their argument. Immediately, he can hear Artoo take off. Luke smiles to himself, then turns to see if Leia and Han, who are cuddled up on a cot, are still awake.
“It's surreal, isn't it?”, Leia says when her and Luke's eyes meet. She's slurring a bit, smiling unfocusedly at him. He thinks he knows what she means, though – it's surreal to be able to afford this, to let down their guards like this. To not be waiting for something. For him, it's even surreal not to want to wait for something.
He's still struggling to put the sentiment into words when Leia abruptly sits up and says, “We should play a party game”.
As if on a cue, Han sits up, too – so fast that he almost knocks their heads together. He's beaming at Luke, literally clapping his hands together in excitement, and Luke is lost. Who is he to refuse his two favourite people in the world anything? He might have never played a party game before, but the rules seem easy enough when Leia tries to explain them.
“Never have I ever”, he says hesitantly, holding up five fingers, “ever – um – crash-landed a ship?”
Leia cackles as Han begrudgingly puts a finger down and takes another swig from the bottle. (They've abandoned glasses an hour ago, sue them.)
“That's a low blow”, he says and, after blinking rapidly for a few times, “brace yourselves, I'm next.”
“I can't wait to hear what you've got”, Leia says smugly. “Bring it on, Laserbrain!”
“Shhh, let me think”, Han grumbles. Curiously enough, he's squinting at his own feet with a highly concentrated expression.
“I wasn't given any time to think and this is my first time playing this game”, Luke complains half-heartedly, only for Han to shush him, too, with a very dramatic gesture.
“...accidentally kissed my sibling!”, he says triumphantly. Now both Leia and Luke glare at him, but he seems unphased.
“That was a low point in everyone's lives”, really-not-old-at-all Ben says next to Luke in a tone that sounds as if he's been alive for a million years. Luke is beginning to suspect that he takes pleasure in jumpscaring them by sneaking up like this. He looks around automatically and sure enough his dad is close by as well, age matching Ben's, leaning over the handrail to stare into the depths of the street canyons. Luke thinks he hears him snort, though.
Han reads their momentary distractedness correctly. “I suppose they want to play, too?”, he asks. “It's a tie now, anyways.”
Luke shuffles closer to Leia to make room for his dad, who ends up lying halfway in Ben's lap nevertheless. Han demands to know where they are seated and to be regularly informed about the amount of remaining fingers “because kriff knows I won't be able to keep track otherwise”. Just as Luke opens the new round stating that he never dispensed his cereal on the entire kitchen floor to get back at Han, Qui-Gon shows up as well, “but just to watch, it'd get too complicated otherwise”. Obviously, he's met with the combined persuasive power of the whole circle trying to convince him that it's absolutely crucial that he join in. Luke, in his fuzzy state of mind, tells him very seriously that “Hands aren't essential for this game! I would know!” and isn't sure why Ben and his dad find that so funny.
“Having a physical form isn't essential! Launch me into the kriffing void any day!”, Han agrees, dramatically raising the wine bottle to him before realising it's empty. Luke Force-lifts a new bottle from the kitchen, and then they finally play.
As the evening progresses, the calls become an increasingly wild mixture ranging from “won a podrace” to “left someone to burn in a lava field”. The Force ghosts complain that they're not physically able to drink every time they have to put a finger down (or announce a new count, in Qui-Gon's case), but most ardently when Leia eliminates all three of them at once with “never have I ever died”.
“That's just –“, Luke's dad says, “that's –“, he gives up and pokes Ben's forearm as a prompt to complete his sentence.
“Insensitive to the dead”, Ben says.
“Insensitive to the dad”, Anakin says, cackling. Ben makes a great effort to keep a straight and disapproving face, but loses it when Qui-Gon's voice snorts next to him.
It sets the tone for the rest of the night. Leia wins the next round again by eliminating Luke, his dad and Ben at once by announcing that she has never chopped anyone's hand off.
“Kissed a Wookie”, she instantly says at the beginning of the next round.
“Babe”, Han says softly, offended.
While she is clearly not taking any prisoners, Luke's dad and Ben seem mostly interested in taking each other out, prompts famously including “had my Padawan save my ass ten times”, “had the high ground”, “flirted with a cyborg general”, “Force-choked anyone”, and “You want to go there? You really want to go there? Okay, fine. Become a Sith Lord, for kriff's sake”. Luke wakes up with a vivid memory of Leia shouting “No one wants to know if Force ghosts have sex, Han!”, but he can't quite seem to remember the context of it.
Luke takes up training Leia during the summer. She seems hesitant to express serious interest at first, so it happens gradually – her asking casual questions, then joining him for meditation, then picking up the exercises he suggests. Soon, not only Luke is instructing her, but as Ben sardonically puts it, also three-and-a-half former Jedi masters who clearly can't imagine a better pastime than watching Leia and Luke train together. Since his own education was rushed at its best, Luke is glad about it. He really has nothing against Yoda, but compared to being stuck in a swamp, it's definitely a lot more fun to go through the lessons together with Leia in their apartment. Each session begins with his dad manifesting a second before Ben, shouting “I SENSE A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE” to announce him (which earns him a spectacularly disappointed look every single time) and is interjected by discussions about the Jedi order that range from fond bickering to fully blown arguments. The only disappointment he has to face is that Leia doesn't see the appeal in being able to levitate objects. If Luke is honest with himself, he takes some personal offence in that – it's just kick-ass, okay, even if Yoda still bothers to make an appearance from time to time to mumble something about appropriate and inappropriate uses of the Force.
“It's too show-off-y for me”, Leia says, rolling her eyes. “I'm not going to start throwing boulders on people.” Both she and Han take to liking meditiation, though. Han, who starts out joining the lessons as moral support can be found increasingly often meditating on one of the Millennium Falcon's bunk beds. Chewie claims to be joining him and no one has the heart to tell him that it's called sleeping if you snore.
During the winter months they set about building a lightsaber for Leia as it turns out the possibility of arming away blaster shots is appealing to her, no matter what she has to say about the so-called “extraness” of Jedi. Obi-Wan gets melancholy contemplating that the new Jedi will be able to train during peace time once again. “I didn't quite realize before how stark the contrast would be”, Luke overhears him saying to Leia, “but back then I was always hoping the war would be over soon and they see how the Order was really supposed to be...”
It gets dark early now and the ghosts seem to glow more radiantly, to the delight of Luke's dad and, surprisingly, Yoda. “A beautiful sight this is”, he mutters one evening from where he's hovering in a meditative pose, regarding how the room is dimly lit by their presence alone, “at peace with the universe it makes me feel.” Naturally, during the weeks following up to that Leia, Han and Luke take up quoting him whenever something mildly appealing is in sight (the list ranges from a well-prepared meal to Han in underwear).
Han develops a stoic acceptance to everything invisible. After a little while, when either of the twins laugh or roll their eyes at thin air, he barely looks up and just asks “what is it?” in a mildly intrigued tone. Luke suspects that if he told him his dad was sitting in the fridge making Wookie noises at everyone opening it, he wouldn't bat an eye. (Although part of that might be to blame on who Anakin is as person.)
Threepio, on the other hand, needs some gentle readjustment of his wiring under the supervision of Luke's dad to stop him from being constantly bewildered about everyone's tendency to converse with thin air. Unfortunately, the general public is less easily appeased. After a particularly unpleasant situation where Obi-Wan accompanied Leia to a Council meeting and they got caught up in a discussion about cake during a break, Leia grudgingly establishes a new policy: Force ghosts are to remain inside the apartment unless differently discussed and are to be quiet outside unless there's an emergency.
At least Threepio seems relieved by the changes. “I was beginning to think everyone had lost their mind”, he tells Artoo very seriously on a quiet morning where they hang out in Luke's bedroom for no apparent reason, waking him up from a dreamless sleep. “Now everything seems to be back on track again although I personally cannot see who they are talking to.”
Artoo beeps too rapidly for Luke to make out his answer, but he's struck by a sudden realization nevertheless: He always assumed that Threepio's memories had been wiped, but couldn't it be that he was only ever programmed not to access any of them? If that were the case, Threepio would be save to get them back now.
His findings are, well, a bummer. Anakin, who naturally showed up as soon as Luke got to work, is crestfallen.
“Well, we couldn't exactly have him running around telling people about his Master Skywalker and his wife”, Leia says sharply, including herself in her parents' narrative as she does so often these days.
“He wouldn't have”, Anakin mumbles, and, “He could have told you about her.”
Leia regards him for a long time. “I guess Obi-Wan and you will have to do on that account, then”, she says.
It's two years after the end of the war when Leia addresses the elephant in the room, once again over dinner, namely if Luke wants to start training Jedi again. Luke, who really just wanted a break, supposes that he has got it and takes over Leia's schedule to have Obi-Wan, his dad, Qui-Gon, and Yoda explain the old Jedi order to him. Leia listens, too, and gives helpful advice. It's underlined by her extended knowledge about the fall of the Republic and contains an ongoing list of what she thinks is “complete, utter dwang”. She still hangs out a lot with Obi-Wan to whom her Force ghost policy doesn't extend at all (despite the cake incident) and who she has referred to as “the best of us all” on at least one occasion.
Luke stays up late every evening trying to map out a curriculum and not to think about the fact that he's going to be a teacher of sorts. He tunes out the low-volume bickering in the background that has become a weird constant in his life and only goes to bed after Artoo repeatedly pokes his stomach.
The three of them put together a to-do list that starts with “find a replacement for the Jedi temple” and “find Force-sensitives???” which inspires Han every few weeks to polish and upgrade the Millenium Falcon in expectance of a quick departure and the need to impress Luke's future students. Other times, he sarcastically deems it “not intimidating at all”. If present, Chewie supports that sentiment with a long-drawn-out whine.
In a dire lack of solutions for these crucial points, they set about planning how to organize the temple instead. Luke, feeling like he's already in need of a break again, writes “three-month holiday each year” on the top of the list.
“Don't start out too motivated, kid”, Han mumbles, but Leia chimes in immediately. “It's not about the teachers”, she says (and Luke thinks it's nice of her to assume that it won't just be him alone), “it's about the children – they need to have the possibility to visit their families. Or –”, she turns to Luke with a new glint in her eyes, “we could offer the families to come with them and”, she vaguely gesticulates to the other list, “give them a stipend, integrate them to the, uh, community – let me think about that for a bit! You guys can work out the rest in the meantime.”
“Sure, the rest will be a cakewalk”, Han calls after her when she runs off to barricade herself in her room, but Luke finds he's feeling optimistic about the whole endeavour for the first time in weeks.
Once they have pieced together something that resembles a plan, Luke puts off heading out to search the galaxy for Force-sensitives far too long. He puts off asking Leia and Han to help him, too, but it turns out that he doesn't need to – Leia has already arranged to hold her office in abeyance for a year and Han just looks at him in confusion, saying: “How were you supposed to travel otherwise?”
Nevertheless, they delay departure one more time, this time officially, for Han and Leia to get married. Luke realizes that he's not heartbroken at all and that apparently he managed to get over Han before figuring out he had a gigantic crush on him in the first place, which he supposes is a skill in itself.
“I'm just so very happy for them”, he tells his dad when they're both standing at the edge of the dance floor after the ceremony, watching Leia and Han twirl around in headspinning speed. Just as rest of the guests, they don't seem to notice the blue shimmer of Obi-Wan and Yoda engaging in a dance-off next to them. “And I'm happy that we're leaving together.”
“We know this, and we love you”, Anakin says, smiling broadly.
“So who's currently with us?”, Han asks as they're all stuffing their backpacks into the Millenium Falcon's luggage racks. Luke looks around to find Obi-Wan curiously inspecting the cockpit as if he hasn't accompanied Anakin to hang out there for a billion times already.
“H – young Obi-Wan's there”, he says, silently cursing his and Leia's Official Chart for Categorizing Various Bens that ranges from Pada-Wan to Old Ben and lists a very specific appearance of him in Jedi robes and with long hair as “hot Obi-Wan”.
“I'll be gone in a minute, though”, hot Obi-Wan says. “We'll meet you there. Figured that it'd be difficult to maintain our form during hyperspace travel.”
“He won't travel with us, though”, Leia interprets. “He says he doesn't like flying.”
Obi-Wan doesn't even bother to roll his eyes. “Skywalkers”, he sighs, before dramatically dissolving into blue mist yet again.
“He's gone”, Luke informs Han and Chewie.
Han smiles at his three companions, fond crinkles forming around his eyes. “Let's get going?”, he says. “I think your future Padawans are waiting for you, kid. And I can't wait to see those hyperspace lines.”
Chewie roars in approval, and Luke grins, takes his seat, and fastens his safety belt.