Chapter Text
“It’s just that—he’s so angry all the time. Anything that happens, anything I do, or Han, or Chewie—he just lashes out. Lyren’s still in medbay with a broken leg, three contusions on his ribs, and a cracked skull from the way Ben flung him up against a tree. It’s only a matter of time before someone dies. Luke, he’s—he’s turning into another Vader. He’ll destroy all of the peace we’ve been working for, same as Vader did.”
“Even Anakin still had Light in him, Leia. You can’t give up.”
“I’m not—I don’t want to give up on him,” Leia’s voice scratches painfully in her throat.
“He’s my son, Luke. And I know there may still be hope for him. I know that Vader saved your life. But Vader didn’t turn until he was an adult, and he had so many reasons—his mother’s death, and the Council forbidding his relationship with our mother, and Palpatine’s influence—Ben’s only fifteen, and he’s already—”
Leia’s hands clench into fists. “Luke. I know you’re a good teacher, and a great Jedi, but—you’re only one man. You had so little time with Obi-Wan and Yoda. Even the entire Jedi council wasn’t able to stop Vader, once he turned. If we’re going to stop him, we have to act now. Before he turns, and before he gets any more powerful. I don’t intend to be responsible for unleashing the next Sith on the galaxy. You have to work with him, calm him, make him see—”
“I’ve been trying to teach him.” Luke’s voice is gentle as ever. “It’s not working.”
“Trying?” Leia shouts. “You’re the one who’s always saying do—”
“Doing, then. I have been doing all I can to help him find peace.”
“Then why isn’t he better now, Luke? Why is he still lashing out like this?”
“There’s too much Dark in him. He can’t stay calm. I’ve tried everything I know, Leia. It’s just not working.”
“Then what are we going to do with him?” Leia screams at him.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know! Luke—”
Luke leans his face into his hands.
Leia silences instantly. She’s seen her brother laugh, smile, mourn, frown in concentration, crow with victory, shout with alarm. She has never—ever—ever— seen him bow his head in defeat.
She loves her son. But she is also a general. And she has not spent her entire adult life working for peace in the galaxy for nothing. If she could give up her home planet to protect the rebel base, then she can do this, too.
“Luke.” Her voice is low, but steady. “You’re going to have to be the one to do it. He’s too powerful now for anyone else to be able to.”
Luke stares at the table, silent.
Leia waits.
At last Luke looks up, meets her eyes.
He does not ask, do what?
Before leaving to be trained, Ben installed a set of tiny surveillance droids throughout their house. He’s reinstalled them in each new house or base they’ve moved to since then, precisely for times like these. He knows Luke has gone to talk to Leia about him, yet again. He’s felt his worry for years now, intensifying with each new incident.
Ben watches the grainy figures on his holopad, listens to them shout. He’s heard this argument before. He’s too angry, he’ll never be a Jedi, we never should have taught him, we should have taught him earlier, he’ll be the next Vader, even Vader had good in him, it goes on, and then it—
Do what?
NO.
They want to kill me.
They think I will never be a Jedi.
They do not think I can be saved. That I am worth saving. They did their part. Now they’re done with me.
That’s ok.
I am done with them.
If I cannot be a Jedi, I will be a Sith, instead. I will find myself a teacher. Or not.
Either way, they will never be able to stop me. Not now. Not ever. I will find them, and I will kill them. Every last one of them. For what they were going to do to me. And I will kill the Jedi, too. If I cannot be a Jedi, then no one else should, either. It’s how my grandfather became a Sith. I will follow his example. And then I will rule the galaxy. And then I will never have to fear them again. Ever again.
I do not need calm. I do not need peace.
I only need power.
Luke meditates throughout the night. It’s wrong, it’s right, he doesn’t know what to do, he knows what he has to do, he doesn’t know if he can do it, he knows he can do it, he doesn’t know what the cost will be if he does, or if he doesn’t, it goes against everything he believes in, it will protect everything he believes in.
He slips deeper and deeper into the waves of the Force, stretching out across time. Blue-green planet vaporized in an instant. Brown robes slipping to the floor, empty. His friends’ screams, echoing out through the Force. His own hand, falling into oblivion.
His hands on a dark mask, scarred face looking up.
There will always be Light in Ben. He knows it. He just has to find it. Somehow. Somewhere. There must be another way to save him. He will meditate on it, venture deep into the Force to ask his long-gone mentors yet again what can possibly be done to keep Ben safe within the Light. But first, he will go back to Leia, and tell her that he will not do it.
Luke rises, stiff, and starts the long trek back to the base from his clearing deep in the moonlit woods.
Leia paces the silent hallways of the house throughout the night. Her son. Her husband. Her brother. Her fathers. Herself. The Senate. The Galaxy. Peace. Destruction. Dreams. Nightmares.
One father blasted into stardust. The other vaporized into the Force. A husband so overwhelmed by fear for their son, for her, for them all, that he flees to the ends of the galaxy to escape. She cannot flee. She must lead. And leading forces to battle means knowing not all of them will return.
A long time ago, on a planet far, far, away, a tiny, dark-haired boy hummed to himself as he stroked the fur of a small green pittin. Crowed with delight as he leaped from tree to tree. Cracked up with laughter as he braided her hair into the shape of a very wobbly lightsaber atop her head.
Grabbed the pittin by its throat when it scratched his hand. Broke off a branch of the tree and sent it flying at the other children’s heads when they lost interest in watching him. Smashed the mirror in half when the braid fell apart in his hands.
He is only a boy. He is halfway to a monster. He is hers. He is beyond her control.
Leia climbs up to the flat roof, sinks down onto the cold duracrete, and leans back against the low perimeter wall. The second moon has already risen, small and blue beneath the first moon’s golden orb. Something small and dark and winged flits across its glowing surface. The roof is bathed in dim blue-gold, light and shadow and metal and air.
Her father saved Luke’s life. Saved Luke’s life. Whatever else he did before then, doesn’t that count for something? Isn’t that proof that Ben, too, will find his own Light someday?
They cannot do it. There must be another way. She will never stop trying.
With a groan, Leia rises, climbs down from the roof, and heads out towards the woods to tell her brother what she has decided.
Halfway to the base, Luke falls to his knees, floored by a wave of pain and anguish.
Halfway to the forest, Leia puts a hand to her heart.
Too late.
Ben opens his eyes to find all of the Jedi dead at his feet.
“There are tiny holocams. In every corner of the house.” Leia’s had a dazed look in her eyes for a week now. Fumbling blindly through the house. Lost in space without coordinates.
Luke turns to her. “What?”
“Holocams. Hooked up to send a feed to an external datapad. Heavily encrypted.”
“You think we’ve been spied on—”
“I asked my comms director to take a look at the encryption.”
Luke waits.
“Ben’s datapad,” she says.
One trembling hand rises to cover Luke’s mouth.
Leia doesn’t even seem to react. She’s already stunned, bereft, adrift—what more can she possibly feel?
“Leia.”
“We weren’t going to,” she says, dazed. “We wouldn’t have. Never. We would have found another way.”
“I know, Leia. I know.” Luke’s voice scrapes against his throat.
“But now it’s too late. It’s too late, Luke, it’s—” She stares at her brother with burning eyes, no tears left. I murdered them, she mouths, unable to put voice to the words.
“If you did, then so did I.” There is no chair beneath him. Luke finds himself sitting on the floor, instead, robes tumbling around him.
“I murdered Ben.” Her voice cracks, raw. “I murdered BEN!”
“Leia,” he says again.
“Luke,” she answers, staring above his head. “Luke. What do we do now? What can we possibly do?”