Missing and Presumed Dead

Luke's Truth

Leia's hands dropped from his face as though he'd burned her, and she cradled them against her chest as if she were trying to hold her beating heart from leaping out. " What?"

He felt as though his soul was caving in on itself, but he managed a tentative, pained smile. "Still think I couldn't say or do anything to change how you feel about me?"

It was a lame joke at the worst possible time and she pointed her finger at him, shooting him a glare. "Don't put words in my mouth." She warned, but the glare fell away as quickly as it came. "I just...give me a second to think, okay?"

She stood before he answered and began to pace the room, one of her hands absently fiddling with her hair as she did so. He watched her, and though his heart was hammering in his chest, worried that he had done the wrong thing in telling her, he couldn't help but wonder if anyone else knew that Leia Organa had a habit of playing with her hair when she was stressed. Maybe that was one of the many reasons she usually kept it in an elaborate braid or updo.

Minutes trickled by as she continued to pace. He waited, shifting uncomfortably when she continued to say nothing. Perhaps she would wear a rut into the floor of his quarters.

But finally, she stopped, taking a long, deep breath in. "What if he's lying?"

"He's not."

"You said your father was Anakin Skywalker."

"He is."

Leia turned to stare at him, her eyes narrowed. "You're telling me that one of the greatest Jedi heroes of the Republic is now Darth Vader?"

"Apparently so." Luke replied, miserably. Unfortunately, neither one of them knew enough about Anakin Skywalker to even begin to piece together how that happened. He knew his father had been a Jedi, one of Obi-Wan's friends, was one of the best pilots Obi-Wan had known, and was apparently not dead. Leia had once added to that knowledge with the only very vague story her own father had told her about Anakin Skywalker: some story about being part of the first battle of the Clone Wars on Geonosis.

So, in short, Luke had no idea, and no amount of him dissecting what little he knew would give him the answers.

Leia seemed to come to the same conclusion. "How do you know he's not lying?"

Luke sighed, lowering his head. "The Force."

"Maybe the Force is wrong."

"I don't think it is." He shook his head. "The feeling I got when he told me...Leia, it's like the Force confirmed his stupid revalation as fact. Like how I know Tatooine has two suns. It was that certain." It still was, try as he had to change it.

Leia sat back down beside him, rubbing her temples. "So all that muttering you were doing on the Falcon that day, about Obi-Wan not telling you something?" He didn't realize she'd paid attention to that. Then again, he'd been pretty out of it. "That had to do with this?"

"Yes." He replied sourly. He still had yet to get answers about that, and try as he might, he couldn't get Obi-Wan to make an appearance to explain himself. Convenient, this Force Ghost thing.

"And you've told no one since you found out?"

"No. You're the first."

Leia sighed, running her hands through her long tresses. "Kriff, Luke. I can't believe you kept something like this from me."

"I know." He replied, wishing he could be shot out into the vacuum of space to escape the shame of this entire revelation and conversation. "I'm sorry."