What Could Have Been Part III: The Destined Warriors

A Monster and a Choice

        Luke

        This. Was. It.

         Power. Victory. Revenge. They were all right in front of him. So close that his body tingled at the idea. He would unlock the power of the galaxy and become stronger than any Jedi or Sith ever had been. Even stronger than Midas. Maybe he would defeat his master and set things right in the galaxy. It would all be okay once he destroyed the last thing in his way. But if it was all so simple, why weren't his arms moving?

        "Luke!" Leia screamed. The severity in her voice seemed to rattle something in the young man's mind and kept him from inflicting her with his final blow. "Luke, listen to me. I know you're in there!" she declared in desperation. Luke sneered down at her sadistically. "And what makes you so sure?" He heaved up his lightsaber; ready to kill.

        "Because you haven't killed me yet!"

        She's stalling! Do not let her trick you!

         Leia's eyes were fierce now as they glistened with tears. Was she angry or sad? It seemed like both. "You haven't killed me because part of you is still Luke Skywalker and he wouldn't do something he didn't want to do. Luke, I know you. You don't want to kill me," she said in a sudden calmness. Maybe the yelling was just getting to hard on her wounded lungs. He had hurt her badly.

        Cretin! You imbecile! You feel pity for her? She is your enemy!

        The voice in Luke's head seemed to coil itself around his brain like a snake slowly suffocating its prey. It was hard to think on his own anymore. Painful even. "You don't know me," he retorted curtly. Leia's eyebrows dropped until they sat furrowed and determined above her blazing brown eyes. Luke almost couldn't look at her. At the face he had so often seen when he had angered her.

        "I don't know you?" Leia's jaw tightened. "We slept with a nightlight in our room until we were eight because Dad told us that story about the Veermoks that lived in the jungles behind our house and I was afraid that one of them would come in our room and eat us. You used to tease me about it but you always made sure the battery was charged because even though you acted brave, you were scared too. You hate beebleberry jam on your toast but you ate it every time Mom made it for breakfast because you thought she would feel bad if you didn't," Leia's voice was growing more intense now and Luke's mind told him to finish her off, but he just kept listening. He wanted to listen. "On our sixteenth birthday, we had to cancel to party because our parents thought we had food poisoning but we didn't. We were sick because the night before, we had eaten all three layers of the Trammistan chocolate cake that Aunt Sola had baked for us. But we didn't mind because that cake tasted so good and we just couldn't stop eating it! So do not tell me that I don't know you Luke Skywalker because for nineteen years it was me standing beside you- not this Sith that you have let twist your mind! I know you inside and out, Luke... We tell each other everything! And... And Han asked me to marry him, Luke!" she shouted in an abrupt sob which she must have been holding down for quite some time. "He asked me to be his wife and I said yes, and all that I've wanted to do since then is tell you so you can tell me that I'm crazy and love struck. But then you'll hug me and tell me that Han doesn't know how lucky he is and that you love me! That's all I want because we've been through everything together, Luke, and I don't want that to change. I never want that to change because you're not just my brother..." she cried uncontrollably now and Luke couldn't manage to interject a single word because he was in awe. "You're my best friend, Luke!... I love you..."

         The news of Leia's engagement seemed trivial in comparison to his sister's declaration that she loved him. They had always told each other that they loved one another throughout their childhood and it had never been any galaxy shattering statement. But in that moment, after he had nearly killed her out of pure paranoia that she might have betrayed him all for him to do just that, Leia didn't hesitate to say in strained and labored breaths that she loved him.

         "But I..." Luke's lips barely moved. He looked down at his hands and was horrified to realize that they were his own. He had broken the loyalty he and Leia had built over nineteen years for what? Power? "Leia... I-I-" Luke collapsed to his knees in distress. He was a monster. How could Leia ever forgive him? "I'm sorry, Leia," he cried over and over. His lightsaber rolled into a puddle beside him and fizzled out like an extinguished flame. "I'm sorry. I'm... I'm so sorry."

         Get up! Get up you ignorant, spineless, pathetic, weakling! You have power! Use it! Get up and do fulfill your destiny you rotten, lamentable-

          "Get... out... of my head!"

          And then it all stopped. The pain. The strangling evil around Luke's thoughts lost its grip and disappeared from his body. He wasn't a prisoner to the Dark side. He was free.

          "No! No! What have you done? What have you done?!?" Midas shrieked. The old man's yellow eyes widened in panic as Luke collapsed onto the ground in utter exhaust. He seized Luke and shook him as if to draw back the spirit the ritual had plagued him with. When it was no use, the Sith drew out a dagger. "Come back! I am your apprentice! I deserve your power! Show me your knowledge Lord Sidious!" he chanted in a deranged howl as he slashed the dagger against his own gnarled wrists. As if trying to cast back the dead Sith Lord, Sidious himself, Midas stumbled aimlessly around the stormy balcony shouting his demonic spell and swinging his bloodstained arms above his head. When he was close enough to the edge where the water was running effortlessly across the polished tile, his feet seemed to leave their place below him and the ungodly man's decrepit body lurched over the balustrade and along with him went the pleas for knowledge and the lust of power. The last of the Sith, finally destroyed.

         Leia

         "Luke! Luke! Wake up!" Midas was the last of Leia's worries as Luke laid pale and motionless in her arms. "Luke, don't do this! Please, please... please don't!" she sobbed into his hair as she cradled his head against her chest. "Come on Luke, you don't get to scare me like this a second time." The rain was let up just in time for Leia's tears to fall in their own downpour.

        "Leia..."

        Luke's blue eyes barely opened. "Leia?" he asked again. Leia continued to cry despite the relief she felt to see her brother's bright blue eyes again. "I'm here Luke."

        "Did you kill him? Did you kill Midas without me?" he asked weakly. Leia's sniffles were broken by a short snort of laughter. "No. You did that all yourself," she told him. Luke sat up slowly. He studied Leia's shallow breathing solemnly. Her injuries hurt like hell but nothing was fatal. "I'm sorry, Leia," he finally told her.

        Leia didn't respond immediately. She didn't want to say that she forgave him even though she truly did. He wouldn't believe her. She had to say something more. Something to resonate longer than any words the Dark Side had implanted in her brother. "Luke, none of what happened today will be written in any history book. It won't be recorded in the Jedi Archives and Dad will never hear about it. The choices you made are ones we'll both live with for the rest of our lives, but letting them haunt you will not help you find peace. I want you to forgive yourself for this. Will you do that for me?" She looked her brother in the eyes and he nodded and she knew he would.

        The storm had lasted late into the morning and past the time the sun would have risen, but as the twins sat together, cold and wet on an equally cold and wet planet, the sun's rays found their way through the leftover grey clouds and touched down on tiny bits of the horizon. They sat there in silence for what seemed like years; reflecting on what they had become part of by fulfilling the prophecy which had weighed on them for eight years. The question still remained.

        What now?

        Fatigue finally broke its way through to Leia's mind and she decided that the question was best left saved for later. She wanted to go home and put on warm clothes and find a medical droid. Her ribs felt broken. But most of all she wanted to see her parents and Han. She wanted things to go back to normal the way she knew they couldn't. It was like putting on your favorite tunic as a kid and realizing that you had grown out of it. But there was a new tunic waiting.

         The same thought seemed to cross over Luke's mind. He stood up and Leia followed in suite. "Ready to go home?" she asked him sleepily, but Luke shook his head. "Not quite," he said with the ornery smile that Leia had so missed returning to his face.

         "There's someone I want you to meet first."