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Chapter Text

Luke Amidala had looked forward to summer camp every year for as long as he’d been going. The first year had been when he was nine. His friend Han Solo had spent the entire school year telling him about the camp he’d been to the previous summer, and Luke had bugged his mother about it so much that Padmé had finally given in and signed him up when the time came. She was reluctant to send her son off to the woods by himself for six whole weeks; Padmé wasn’t very outdoorsy and simply could not see why Luke would want to go, not to mention she’d never been apart from him for six whole weeks before.

But on the other hand, it would allow her to spend some time in DC without having to drag Luke away from his friends yet again. As a U.S. senator, Padmé’s time was split pretty evenly between the nation’s capital and the state she was representing, Massachusetts in her case. Technically, though, the brownstone in Boston was her and Luke’s primary residence, and Luke always complained when she made him come with her to DC. During the school year, Padmé tried to let him stay home in the care of her good friend Obi-Wan Kenobi whenever possible, but she always brought Luke with her in the summer, and he never failed to mope the whole time. So, really, loath as she was to send him off to camp, it was a bit of a blessing in disguise. A win-win situation for both of them.

The summer after Luke turned twelve was no different than other years in that he was counting the days until camp began. He loved meeting up with his friends from previous summers, making new friends, and, of course, spending the entire six weeks getting into trouble with Han, or more accurately, letting Han singlehandedly get them both into trouble.

“Ready to beat everyone in fencing again this year?” Han asked as he and Luke got settled in the cabin they were sharing with half a dozen other campers.

“You bet,” said Luke, grinning. He was something of a fencing prodigy, which he’d discovered his first year at camp. He remembered excitedly telling Padmé all about it when he’d gotten home, and she’d gotten a weird look on her face and muttered something about Luke’s father. Luke had never met his father—he and Padmé had separated when Luke was just a baby—but judging by what little he’d managed to get out of Obi-Wan after Padmé had refused to talk, Anakin Skywalker had been quite a talented fencer himself. Luke was thrilled at the thought that he had something in common with his father, whom he knew almost nothing about other than his name, seeing as Padmé always clammed up whenever he was mentioned. Even Obi-Wan didn’t talk about him much, though Luke personally believed that was more to respect Padmé’s wishes than anything.

But when fencing day came around one week into camp, Luke was shocked to discover that there was a newcomer who was also a very skilled fencer. Not as good as Luke, obviously, but it was a close thing. When it finally came time for them to face each other, all the onlookers watched with bated breath, seeing as both were undefeated so far.

“En garde. Fence!”

They took off. Luke’s opponent was highly adept at blocking his strikes, not to mention aggressive on the offense, and Luke quickly grew frustrated. But then, at last, his opponent left a tiny spot open, and Luke dove forward and landed a hit.

“And we have a winner!” the counselor announced.

Luke beamed in pride and worked on taking the heavy mask off while the other campers cheered. But then he heard an angry voice exclaim, “But he cheated!”

Luke turned around in indignation and saw that it was his opponent who had spoken. Now that the mask was off, he saw that she was a girl who looked about his own age, with long brown hair and dark eyes currently narrowed in annoyance. She seemed oddly familiar, though Luke had never seen her before in his life.

“I didn’t cheat!” he protested.

“Yes, you did,” she replied. “Your foot crossed over the line when you hit me.”

“No, it didn’t!”

“Yes, it did!”

“I didn’t see anything,” the counselor intervened. “I’m sorry, Leia, but I’m going to let Luke have this one.”

“But I saw it!” Leia said shrilly. She seemed to realize she’d lost the argument, though, so she shot Luke a nasty glare before stalking off.

Luke shrugged, then moved away from the piste so the next match could begin and started taking off his gear. “What’s her problem?” Han said, coming to stand beside him.

“I don’t know. Sore loser, I guess.”

“Unless you really did cheat.”

“Hey!” Luke exclaimed, but then he saw that Han was laughing.

“Kidding. Luke Amidala, a cheater? Never.”

Luke was, generally speaking, a highly non-confrontational person, so he was dismayed to realize that Leia seemed to have made him into her sworn enemy following the fencing incident. She always had a hurtful comment ready whenever they were forced to interact, and Luke was convinced that she’d pushed him into the lake on purpose, though she swore it was an accident.

Things came to a head during capture the flag one Friday two weeks later. The pair was on opposite teams, and Luke was guarding his team’s flag—or at least, he was supposed to be, until he suddenly realized in horror that it was gone. He whipped his head around and saw that Leia was sprinting in the other direction with the flag clutched in her hands. How had she managed to sneak past him?

Luke barreled after her and caught up just before they reached the line dividing the two teams’ territory. He dove towards her and tackled her, shouting, “You’re out!”

“Get off me!” Leia yelled, flailing her arms and accidentally hitting Luke in the face.

“Ow! You just hit me!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you did!”

“Get off me!”

“Ow! Stop it!”

Several counselors rushed over to break up the scuffle. “What is going on here?” one of them demanded.

“She hit me!” Luke said, pointing an accusing finger at Leia.

“It was an accident! He shoved me!”

“I was just tagging you, ’cause this is capture the flag!”

“You two have been at odds for weeks,” the counselor interrupted. “I think it’s time you make peace with each other. I’m taking you back to your cabins, and then I’m going to wait outside while you sort this out yourselves.”

Their protests fell on deaf ears, and the counselor started leading them away. Luke looked glumly over his shoulder as the game proceeded without them. Stupid Leia. This was all her fault.

They ended up in Leia’s cabin, and true to her word, the counselor went back outside and shut the door firmly behind her, leaving them alone. Luke and Leia stood in angry silence for a solid five minutes before Luke sighed and said, “I’m sorry.” Privately, he didn’t think he had anything to apologize for, but he wanted to get the ball rolling so they could go back outside, and he doubted Leia was going to apologize first.

There was a brief pause, and then Leia muttered, “Sorry.”

Delighted, Luke poked his head outside. “Can we go back now?”

“Did you really work everything out in five minutes?” the counselor said skeptically.

“Well, I said sorry and she said sorry.”

“Not good enough. You need to actually talk to each other so we can put an end to this disagreement once and for all. I don’t want it resurfacing again tomorrow.”

Luke whined and complained a bit, but the counselor held firm, so at last he slammed the door shut again and turned back to Leia. “Why do you hate me so much?” he asked bluntly. “I’m sorry for what happened when we were fencing. If I did step over the line, I swear it wasn’t on purpose.”

“I don’t hate you,” Leia said after a moment.

“Then why are you being so mean to me?”

She shrugged and didn’t answer. Just as Luke was starting to wonder if they’d spend the rest of the summer in that cabin, Leia admitted, “I don’t like it here.”

Luke stared at her, astonished. “Why not? This is the best place ever!”

“Not to me. I don’t like the outdoors much, but my dad made me come. He said he loved this sort of thing when he was my age and swore I’d like it, but I don’t. I—I’m kinda homesick,” she mumbled. “And I miss my dad.”

No wonder she’d been lashing out, then. Luke, empathetic and forgiving as always, immediately felt his heart soften, and he strode over to give Leia a hug. She stiffened in surprise, but tentatively hugged him back after a minute. “Where do you live?” Luke asked, stepping away.

“California. You?”

“Boston.”

Leia regarded him in surprise. “Boston? That’s even farther away than California.” The camp was in Colorado. “You’re really not homesick?”

“Nah. I’ve been coming here since I was nine, and every year I’ve had Han, my friend from home, here with me. Plus, my mom’s a senator, so we’re going back and forth between Boston and DC all the time. I’m used to being away from home.”

Leia looked impressed. “Your mom’s a senator? Like, in Congress?”

“Uh-huh,” Luke said proudly.

“Wow! That’s so cool!” A moment later, Leia added, “I want to be a senator someday.”

“Really?” Luke made a face. “It seems pretty boring.”

Leia laughed. “You sound like my dad. He doesn’t want me to go into politics. He hates politicians. But I think that’s just because my mom was one.”

“Your mom?”

“Yeah. I’ve never met her, they split up when I was a baby. Dad never talks about her, either.”

“My parents split up when I was a baby, too,” Luke confided. “Except my dad was the one who left, so it’s just me and my mom now.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Nope. And Mom doesn’t talk about him, same as with you.”

“Huh.” Leia looked thoughtful. “I’ve always wondered what she’s like. My mom, I mean, not yours. I know she looked like me, though.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. I have a picture of her. Want to see?”

“Sure.”

Leia pulled out a backpack and started rummaging around. Something fell out and fluttered to the ground, so Luke picked it up to hand back to her. “You dropped th—wait a second.” It was a photograph, and Luke had just caught sight of the people in it.

Leia twisted around to look at him. “What?”

“Leia,” said Luke slowly, “why do you have a picture of you and my dad?”

“Huh?”

He held it out for her to see. The picture looked fairly recent, judging by Leia’s age. She was standing in front of what looked like a small airplane, and beside her was a tall man with disheveled dirty blond hair and light eyes, one of which had a thin, vertical scar right next to it. He was older than he was in the picture Luke had, but Luke was positive that it was Anakin Skywalker.

“What are you talking about?” Leia asked, looking confused. “That’s my dad. He’s a pilot, you know. Well, his real job is a teacher, but before that he was in the Air Force, which is where he learned to fly, except he got honorably discharged after he lost his arm in a car accident, and—”

“What’s his name?” Luke interrupted.

“Anakin Skywalker.”

Luke gaped at her, heart racing. “That’s impossible,” he said at last.

Leia frowned. “What do you mean, it’s impossible? That’s his name.”

“But—but—”

“But what?”

“But my dad’s name is Anakin Skywalker.”

Leia stared at him in disbelief. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about him.”

“Yeah, but I know his name, and I have a picture of him, and I’m telling you, that’s him.” He jabbed his finger at the photograph for emphasis.

“Okay.” Leia took a deep breath; her brain was clearly working overtime to make sense of the situation. “So maybe—so maybe we have the same dad and we’re half-siblings or something. Or maybe your mom lied to you and he’s not really your dad.”

“Why would my mom lie about that? Sure, she hates talking about him, but she wouldn’t tell me the wrong name and give me the wrong picture.”

Leia opened her mouth, then closed it again and narrowed her eyes. “Your mom’s a politician.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” asked Luke.

“My mom’s a politician, too, according to my dad.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. You don’t think—?”

“What’s your mom’s name?”

“Padmé Amidala.”

The color drained from Leia’s face, and she turned back to her backpack and started digging through it with renewed intensity. An agonizingly long minute later, she pulled out what looked like a ripped half of a photograph and shoved it in Luke’s face. “This is my mom.”

Luke gasped. The woman in the picture, though ten or so years younger, was clearly Padmé Amidala.

“That’s her,” he said. “That’s my mom.”

And now he realized why Leia had seemed familiar: because she looked like Padmé. Same eyes, same hair color, same small stature. Without another word, Luke burst back outside, startling the counselor who was still sitting there. “Is everything all settled?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Luke breathlessly. “Can Leia and I go to my cabin now? I want to show her the—the, um, really cool rock I found yesterday.”

The counselor smiled fondly as Leia stepped outside, as well. “Sure. It’s free time now, anyway. Just make sure not to miss dinner in an hour. Great job resolving everything, you two.”

Luke and Leia tore off towards Luke’s cabin. Han was inside when they burst in. “Hey, Luke. Where’d you go during capture the flag?” Then he saw Leia. “And what’s she doing here?”

“Not now, Han,” Luke said impatiently, and he dumped the contents of his own backpack on his bed and hunted through it until he pulled out a photograph. Well, half a photograph. Torn right down the middle, just like Leia’s.

With a shaking hand, he held it up to Leia’s half, and sure enough, they fit together perfectly to form one whole photograph of Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker standing in front of the Washington Monument, beaming and with their arms around each other.

“No,” Leia breathed. “That’s—how can—?”

Something suddenly occurred to Luke. “Leia, when’s your birthday?”

“May twenty-sixth.”

“That’s—” Luke swallowed. “That’s my birthday, too. You just turned twelve?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes looked like they were about to fall out of her head. “So you’re saying we’re…siblings?”

“Not just siblings. We’re twins.”

The shocked silence that followed was soon broken by Han. “What are you guys talking about?”

“I don’t understand why they didn’t tell us about each other,” Luke said for the thousandth time a week later. “I mean, my mom always refused to tell me anything about my dad, but at least I knew he existed.”

“I know,” Leia agreed. “It’s pretty messed up. Actually, it’s really messed up. They had no right to keep us from each other!”

“Yeah!” Luke found himself getting angry. Clearly, Leia—his twin sister—was already having a bad influence on him.

“My dad had better have a really good explanation for all this when I get home.”

“Same with my—” Luke broke off, an idea suddenly striking him.

“What?” asked Leia.

“You don’t know anything about Mom.”

“Right.”

“So you’ve always wanted to meet her.”

“Yeah.”

“And I don’t know anything about Dad, so I’ve always wanted to meet him.”

“Where are you going with this?” Leia said suspiciously.

“What if we switched places and went back to each other’s houses after camp?” Luke suggested excitedly.

Leia raised her eyebrows. “What, like, pretend to be each other? That obviously won’t work. Even if I could pass for a boy and you for a girl, we look nothing alike.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, neither of our parents are picking us up here, we’re both flying home and they’re meeting us at the airport. So, you take my flight and I take your flight, and then you’ll get to meet Mom and I’ll get to meet Dad.”

“Won’t they just send us right back on the next plane home?” Leia said, looking skeptical.

“Doubt it. They’ll be way too shocked to think of that. I’d say we’ll each get at least a day with them.” Luke gasped and added, “And then they’ll have to switch us back eventually, right? So they’ll have to talk to each other about it, and they’ll probably even have to see each other face-to-face.”

“Okay,” said Leia slowly. “Say this works. First of all, we’ll get in huge trouble—”

“Who cares? It’ll be worth it.”

“—second of all, making Dad and Mom see each other again probably isn’t a good idea, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they split up and have refused to even talk about each other for the past twelve years, let alone to each other,” Leia pointed out. “They probably hate each other.”

“I don’t see how they could. Mom’s awesome.”

Leia bristled at the implication. “So is Dad,” she said defensively.

“So then how could they hate each other?”

“Just because we love them doesn’t mean they love each other.”

“Maybe they only hate talking about each other because it’s too painful because they do still love each other.”

“Hopeless romantic.”

“Pessimist.”

“I’m being realistic.”

“Well, it’s no fun. I don’t see the harm in making them see each other just once,” Luke wheedled.

“You’re really serious about this.”

“Yeah. Come on, you want to meet Mom. You know you do.”

Leia bit her lip, considering it. “Fine,” she said at last, and Luke grinned in triumph. “But when they ask, it was one hundred percent your idea.”

Chapter Text

Leia was a ball of nervous energy on the plane to Boston. “Still can’t believe you’re Luke’s twin sister,” said Han, who was in the seat next to her. “How crazy is that?”

“I know. I still feel like it must be a misunderstanding or something, but the facts all add up. I guess I’ll find out for sure when we get there,” Leia said, feeling a little nauseous.

Han seemed to sense her anxiety. “Hey, don’t stress about it. Padmé—I mean, your mom—is really cool.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah. Me and Luke have been friends since kindergarten, and I swear, I spend more time at his house than my own. Padmé’s practically a second mom to me. I mean, she even lets me call her by her first name. How many friends’ parents are that cool?”

“Well, I’m glad she’s been a mother to you,” Leia said, unable to keep bitterness out of her tone.

Han’s face softened. “I’m sure she wishes she could’ve been your mom the past twelve years. Just because things didn’t work out between her and your dad doesn’t mean she didn’t miss you.”

Leia sighed, didn’t reply, and shifted her position yet again.

“Okay, I get you’re nervous, but can you please sit still just for, like, five minutes? You’ve kicked me seven times in the past half hour.”

Leia’s nausea rose as the plane landed and she followed Han through the airport, trying to calm down by reminding herself that someone called Obi-Wan Kenobi was picking her—well, Luke, technically—up since Padmé was at work. Hopefully she’d have a few hours to look around the house and settle down before having to meet her mom. Although, on second thoughts, that was just a few more hours for her to freak out.

“Look, there’s Obi-Wan,” said Han, and he dragged her through the crowd at the gate and towards a man who looked to be maybe in his late forties. He had auburn hair and a beard, both of which were lightly speckled with gray, and he smiled as they approached.

“Hello, Han,” he said. Then he looked around and frowned. “Where’s Luke?”

“California,” Han said cheerfully.

“California? What on earth is he doing there?”

“Going to meet his dad. Oh, this is his long-lost twin Leia Skywalker, by the way.”

If Obi-Wan had looked distressed following Han’s first statement, it was nothing compared to how he looked following the second. He gaped down at Leia, who looked nervously back at him. “Hi,” she managed.

Obi-Wan merely stared at her in shock for several uncomfortable minutes. “I should send you right back on a plane home to Anakin,” he said finally, though his voice wobbled slightly, and Leia realized his eyes looked a little misty. Then, suddenly, he threw his arms around her.

“Oof,” said Leia as she found herself squashed against Obi-Wan, but she uncertainly hugged him back.

“Oh, there’s my parents,” she heard Han say. “See you guys later. And good luck with your mom, Leia!”

Obi-Wan drew back after several minutes and proceeded to inspect Leia closely. “You definitely look like Padmé, there’s no denying that,” he said as she squirmed under his gaze, “but there’s something of Anakin in your face, too.” He took a deep breath and seemed to collect himself somewhat. “How did this happen? How did you and Luke—?”

“We met at camp,” said Leia, and she proceeded to explain the whole story.

By the time she finished, Obi-Wan was shaking his head, looking both exasperated and amused. “That sounds exactly like something Anakin would do. Honestly, it sounds like something Padmé would do, too.”

“Do you think she’ll be mad?” Leia asked apprehensively.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Shocked? Yes. But mad? No. She’s missed you terribly all this time. The custody arrangement never sat well with her, but she and Anakin were too angry with each other to try to work out something better at first, and as the years passed I suppose they just both figured it was easier this way.” Leia looked curiously at him, but he didn’t elaborate on the cause of her parents’ split. “Anyway, I should call her to explain what’s happened.”

“No!” Leia blurted out. Obi-Wan looked at her in surprise, and she flushed slightly. “It’s just, I don’t want to make her miss work for this, and I—I don’t know if I’m ready to meet her just yet.”

Obi-Wan regarded her for a long time before finally nodding and saying, “All right. Although when she gets home and sees you instead of Luke, she’s going to be very upset with me for not calling her.”

They went to baggage claim to pick up the rest of Leia’s things, and then they took a cab to the Amidalas’ house. Leia’s jaw dropped when she walked inside the brownstone. She and Anakin weren’t necessarily struggling financially, but they lived modestly. Padmé and Luke, however, clearly did not. It was the most tastefully (and no doubt the most expensively) decorated home Leia had ever seen. The first floor consisted of a kitchen and dining area, the living room and Padmé’s bedroom were on the second floor, and Luke’s bedroom and a study were on the top floor. Three floors, Leia thought in amazement as she spent the next couple hours combing the house from top to bottom. Her house only had one floor. Though admittedly her house was short and wide, whereas the Amidalas’ was tall and narrow.

“How could two people possibly need this much space?” she demanded of Obi-Wan at one point.

“Padmé’s always liked to live comfortably,” he replied with a chuckle. “Besides, she has to do a lot of entertaining here. Senatorial duties and all that.”

“I guess.” A thought occurred to her. “Did Dad ever live here? I bet he’d hate it. He’d think it was too extravagant.”

Obi-Wan laughed again. “Yes, he did live here, and yes, that did come up. Quite frequently.”

“When will she be home?” Leia said. It felt weird to call her “Padmé,” but it also felt weird to say “Mom” now that Luke wasn’t there.

“Probably in half an hour or so.”

“So why’d she and Dad split up?” Leia asked bluntly a minute later.

Obi-Wan frowned. “It’s not my place to say.”

“Oh, come on. Dad would never tell me, and I’m sure she won’t either. Please?”

“You’re a little young to hear about it.”

“I’m twelve,” Leia protested. “I’m not that young. I can handle it.”

Obi-Wan seemed to internally wrestle with himself for a few moments before heaving a sigh and saying, “Anakin thought Padmé was…having an affair.”

Leia gasped aloud. “An affair? He thought she was cheating on him?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“With who?”

Obi-Wan looked embarrassed. “With me,” he admitted.

Leia gasped again. “With you? Was she?”

“Of course not,” Obi-Wan said indignantly. “Padmé and I have never been anything more than good friends, which we tried to tell Anakin, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“So if there wasn’t anything going on between you two, why’d Dad think there was?”

“Sometimes Anakin can be…possessive,” he began slowly. “Not to mention stubborn. The three of us were best friends, but Anakin was in the military, as I’m sure you know, and Padmé and I ended up spending a lot of time alone together whenever he got deployed somewhere. Eventually, he started to take it the wrong way. And then he lost his arm just a few months before you and Luke were born, so he was in the hospital for a while, and then in rehab and physical therapy and all that. In the meantime, I was there for Padmé to help her through the end of her pregnancy and coping with Anakin’s accident, so I suppose that made him even more jealous. Everything was kind of sizzling under the surface for a while once you two were born, but then finally it all blew up when you were about three or four months old.”

“What happened?” Leia demanded, wide-eyed.

“Well, Anakin had gotten the idea into his head that there was something between Padmé and me, and once Anakin gets an idea into his head, it’s almost impossible for anyone to get it back out again.” Leia nodded; she was all too familiar with her father’s obstinacy, which he often joked that she’d inherited. “So he confronted Padmé one day, and of course she denied it, and they got into a huge fight. I don’t know exactly what was said, but I think at one point Anakin said—he accused Padmé of not wanting to be with him anymore now that he was disabled. He said of course she’d prefer me over him, because I still had two arms.” Obi-Wan winced as he spoke, and Leia gasped for the third time that conversation. As far as she could remember, Anakin had never made a fuss about his arm, but she now realized that of course it must have bothered him when the accident had first happened. Maybe it still bothered him, and Leia had just never thought about it.

“Was that true?” she asked quietly. “Was my mom—did she—?”

“She still loved him just as much as she always had,” Obi-Wan assured her, and Leia nearly sighed in relief. “And she tried to tell him so, but he wouldn’t listen. So then of course Padmé got angry, too, since her own boyfriend, the father of her children, refused to believe her when she promised him she wasn’t cheating on him. Anyway, things escalated, and then Anakin was packing his bags and taking you on a plane to California. I’m not really sure how or why they decided to split you and Luke up. I asked Padmé once, and she said she honestly wasn’t really sure, either, other than that they both refused to give the other sole custody of both twins, and joint custody was out of the question after the fight. Maybe at the time it seemed logical to each take one?”

“Logical? It seems cruel to me,” Leia mumbled.

“I agree,” said Obi-Wan. “And as to why they never told you about each other…if you ask me, I think they were just being rather selfish.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you and Luke knew the other existed, you’d want to meet and visit each other all the time, but that would require that Anakin and Padmé see each other again, and they didn’t want to do that. And I suppose the longer the lie went on, the harder it became for them to tell you two the truth.”

Leia mulled that over. It did make some degree of sense, but it still hurt. Then again, there was no possible way to explain the absurd custody arrangement without it hurting.

“Don’t judge Padmé too harshly for all of this, though,” Obi-Wan added softly a few moments later. “I probably shouldn’t have told you the whole story until after you’d had a chance to meet her and form an impression on your own. She truly is a wonderful person. She just made a few questionable choices.”

Leia nodded, chewing her lip. “Seems like the whole thing was more Dad’s fault, anyway,” she said at last, though it pained her to admit. It would’ve been much easier to blame the absent mother she’d never known than the man who’d raised and loved Leia her entire life, but according to Obi-Wan, Anakin had been the one to first start conflict where none existed.

“Don’t judge him too harshly, either,” Obi-Wan said. “It was an incredibly hard time for him. Getting deployed and having to leave Padmé all the time put a strain on their relationship as it was, and then losing his arm, getting discharged—honorably, but it still meant he was suddenly unemployed—and becoming a first-time father all in the span of a few months…it took a toll on Anakin.”

“You’re not mad at him?” Leia said in surprise. “After he accused you of having an affair with his girlfriend behind his back?”

“I was at first, a bit, but I could never stay mad at Anakin. He is—was—my best friend.” Obi-Wan’s eyes grew sad, and Leia impulsively leaned over and hugged him.

Just then, she heard the front door open.

She looked at Obi-Wan in a panic, and he put a reassuring hand on her arm. “Will you come with me?” Leia asked in a small voice.

“Of course. Come on.”

“Luke?” a high, lilting voice was calling from the entryway. “Luke, are you home?”

Obi-Wan made his way out into the hall, Leia trailing him closely and doing her best to hide behind him. “Oh, hello, Obi-Wan,” Leia’s mother said. “Is Luke upstairs?”

“Actually, there’s been a bit of a mix-up,” Obi-Wan told her.

“A mix-up? What do you mean?”

Obi-Wan stepped aside to reveal Leia, who instinctively hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself look smaller. She slowly raised her eyes up from the floor, taking in a pair of high heels, a pencil skirt, hands clutching a purse, a stylish blouse, and at last, a face. Thanks to the picture Leia had spent twelve years gazing at, her mother’s face felt almost a little familiar, though it was slightly older and more careworn than the one in the photograph. Her dark hair was done up neatly, and Leia noted in amazement that they really did have the same eyes, just as everyone had been telling her.

Padmé had gone very pale. “Obi-Wan,” she said in a shaky voice. “Obi-Wan, who is this?”

Mother’s and daughter’s eyes met. “Mom?” Leia whispered.

Padmé inhaled sharply. “Leia,” she breathed.

No one moved or made a sound for a full minute. And then before she knew what she was doing, Leia was running across the room and hurling herself into her mother’s arms. Padmé caught her and hugged her tight, and a few moments later Leia realized her body was shaking with sobs. “Leia,” Padmé repeated through her tears. “Leia, Leia, Leia…”

“Mom,” said Leia, the word rolling a little more confidently off her tongue this time. She was crying too now, and both of them were too overwhelmed to notice Obi-Wan discreetly slip out.

“I’m so sorry,” said Padmé, voice muffled in Leia’s hair. “I’m sorry I let your father take you away from me and Luke, I’m sorry I never tried to contact you or find you or meet you, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay,” Leia said. It wasn’t okay, really, but she didn’t want to deal with all that just yet, not now that she was finally in her mother’s arms, finally living the moment she’d always dreamed of.

At last Padmé drew away, though only slightly, and demanded, “How is this possible? How are you here right now? And where’s Luke?”

“Luke and I met at camp,” Leia explained, and briefly described how they’d figured out the truth. “So then he suggested we take each other’s flights home so I could meet you and he could meet Dad. Luke’s in California now. Or at least, I think he is.” Leia realized she hadn’t actually heard whether or not Luke had arrived.

“I see,” Padmé said finally.

Leia looked at her nervously. “Are you—are you mad? I’m really sorry, I told him it was a stupid idea—”

“No, I’m not mad,” Padmé said, giving her a small smile. “I’m—I’m so grateful I finally get the chance to meet you, Leia. But I am worried about Luke, so I suppose I’d better call your father to see if he made it there safely.”

Leia observed Padmé carefully upon the mention of Anakin, but her expression gave nothing away. She recalled her and Luke’s debate about whether they still hated each other or still loved each other. Suddenly, Leia found herself caring very much about what the answer was.

Luke smiled as he looked out at the California sun through the window of the plane. They’d just landed, and now he was waiting to disembark. He didn’t really mind flying alone, but he was a little jealous that Leia had gotten to sit next to Han on her flight. Luke checked his watch; Leia’s flight was longer, but it had left before his, so he figured she might have already arrived in Boston.

At last the line started moving, and Luke ducked out into the aisle and followed his fellow travelers off the plane. He hoped he’d be able to recognize his father at the gate. He knew the old ripped photograph like the back of his hand and he’d carefully studied Leia’s newer picture of him, but still, Luke had never seen him person, and LAX was much bigger and more chaotic than Logan Airport in Boston.

He looked around anxiously for several minutes, getting buffeted this way and that by harried-looking businessmen and lost-looking tourist families. And then, at last, he spotted a man standing over by the window, craning his neck and scanning the crowd just as Luke was doing. There was the tousled hair, the thin scar by his eye, the prosthetic arm. It was him.

Luke took a deep breath and made his way over, palms sweating as he tried to recall Leia’s words of reassurance before they’d left. Dad looks kinda scary at first, but don’t let that fool you. He’s actually a huge dork. Luke came to a halt in front of him. “Excuse me?” he stammered.

Anakin looked down at him in surprise, then smiled politely. “Hi there. Can I help you? Do you need help finding your parents?”

Not anymore, Luke thought. But when he spoke next, it was only one word. “Dad?”

Anakin’s brow furrowed in confusion, but then his eyes widened as a look of dawning comprehension spread across his face. He crouched down slightly so that they were at eye level and gazed at Luke intently, as if he was searching his face for some sign of familiarity. “Luke?” he said at last.

Luke nodded, feeling tears spring to his eyes. “Luke Amidala.” Not quite sure what to do, he stuck out his hand for Anakin to shake. “Hi.”

Anakin’s lips were parted, and his eyes—blue like Luke’s—were also swimming with tears. And then without a word, he reached out and enveloped his son in a hug. Luke buried his face in his shoulder, sniffling and thinking about how different his father’s big, solid body felt compared to his mother’s small, softer one. Luke’s sniffles gradually morphed into full-out sobs, and Anakin was sobbing too, and they both stood there in the middle of the crowd weeping and hugging and marveling at the fact that they were there, together, father and son reunited for the first time in twelve years.

It could have been anywhere from seconds to days before they broke apart. “Let’s—let’s sit down,” Anakin said. His voice was trembling, but his smile was so wide that Luke couldn’t help but shyly smile back. Anakin took his hand (and Luke let him without the chorus of ugh, stop, you’re embarrassing me that Padmé always got these days) and led him over to the nearest free seats. The airport was crowded and sweltering, but Luke hardly even noticed, so occupied was he with drinking in the sight of his father.

“So,” Anakin began. He cleared his throat and shook his head with a disbelieving smile. “What exactly is going on here?”

Luke recounted the whole tale. “And now Leia’s in Boston with Mom,” he finished. He checked his watch again. “Well, it’s only four o’clock there now, and Mom doesn’t get out of work until five, so I guess they haven’t actually met yet, unless Obi-Wan called her to say what happened and she left work early.”

A jumbled mix of emotions appeared on Anakin’s face at the mention of Padmé, one that only got even more jumbled at Obi-Wan’s name, but then he was blinking rapidly and clearing his throat again. “Well,” he said after a minute. “I don’t—I don’t quite know what to say.”

Luke gave a watery chuckle. “Me neither.”

“Luke,” Anakin said again, but he didn’t follow it up with anything else. It was like he was just reveling in the feeling of saying his son’s name.

Then Luke thought of something that had been bothering him ever since he and Leia had figured out the truth. He hesitated, not wanting to ruin the moment, but then decided to plunge ahead anyway. He had to know. “Dad,” he began, warmth spreading through him at the way Anakin’s mouth quirked up at the address. “Dad, why did you—I spent my whole life wishing I could meet you, so I guess I just was wondering—why didn’t you ever want to meet me?”

Anakin looked heartbroken. “Oh, Luke,” he said softly, and he pulled him into another hug. “I did want to meet you. I thought about you every single day for twelve years. Every single day. There were so many times when I was about two seconds from just buying a plane ticket to Boston and tracking you down. But I never went through with it because I was—I was afraid to talk to your mom again.”

“Why?”

Anakin sighed and was quiet for a while. “We parted badly,” he said at last. “Very badly. And it was all my fault. Our entire breakup was my fault, so afterwards I figured she probably hated me for it, and I was too ashamed to face her again.”

“Oh. What happened?” Luke said curiously.

But Anakin shook his head. “The past is the past,” he said. Then a smile appeared back on his face. “I want to hear about you, Luke.”

“What do you want to know?” Now that they were actually together, Luke realized he had no idea how to go about making up for twelve years of lost time.

Anakin laughed a little, like he was thinking the same thing. “I don’t know. Everything. Um, what’s your favorite subject in school?”

“English. And gym.” Anakin laughed again, and Luke scrunched up his face. “Twelve years, and the first thing you want to know is about school?”

“Sorry, I can’t help it. I’m a teacher.”

“What grade?”

“Fourth.”

“Cool. Leia said you’re a pilot, too?”

Anakin smiled. “Yeah. I don’t fly much now—” Luke saw him glance down at his right arm “—but I used to love it, when I was younger.”

“I always thought being a pilot would be so cool,” Luke said. “But Mom says it’s too dangerous.”

“She always was a worrier,” Anakin replied, and his tone seemed almost…fond.

Interesting. Do you still love her? The words were right on the tip of Luke’s tongue, but he remained silent.

Except the way, only a moment later, Anakin asked, “How is she, anyway?” with a soft expression on his face made Luke think he rather knew the answer.

“Good.” Luke figured he should elaborate, but he didn’t really know how best to sum up the past twelve years of his mother’s life. “Um, she’s a senator now,” he tried.

“I know. I heard when she was elected a few years ago. I was glad. That was always one of her biggest dreams.” There it was again, that fond tone. Then Anakin blinked, gave his head a tiny shake, and abruptly changed the subject. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Favorite color? I don’t know. Blue, I guess.”

“Me too.” They grinned at each other. “Favorite food?”

“Pizza.”

“Mine’s ice cream.”

“Ice cream’s pretty great, too.”

And so it went for several minutes, until they realized they should hurry up and get Luke’s bags from baggage claim. During the walk to the car and the drive home, Luke chattered on about school, his friends, what he liked to do during his free time (Anakin was overjoyed to hear that he loved fencing), and so on and so forth.

The Skywalkers lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood less than an hour outside of LA. “Our house isn’t much,” Anakin warned as they turned down their street. “Nothing like what you’re used to with your mom, I’m sure.”

But when he got out of the car and looked around, Luke was delighted. “You have a backyard?”

“It’s pretty small. But I guess you probably don’t have one at all in the city.”

“And a pool?”

“Yep. Thank God. It gets really hot here.”

Space-wise, the house had only the bare minimum inside—kitchen, living area, two bedrooms, and a bathroom—but Luke loved it all the same. He had just dropped all his things in Leia’s room and gone back out into the hall when the phone rang.

Anakin answered it. “Hello?” His eyes widened. “Padmé? Oh. H-hi,” he stuttered; Luke watched his expression with interest. “Yes, Luke’s here. He’s fine. And Leia’s with you? Thank God. Can you believe they did this? Out of all the summer camps in the—what do you mean, it’s my fault? Luke said it was his idea, not Leia’s. Genetically predisposed towards rash decision-making? Excuse me! I’m not the one who—yes, you’re right, we have to switch them back. When should—tomorrow? But I was hoping to get to spend some more time with Luke first.”

Luke beamed at him, and Anakin smiled back before returning his attention to the phone. “I understand you haven’t seen him in six weeks, but I haven’t seen him in twelve years, so…” A brief pause. “Fine. Next weekend sounds good.” A frown. “Oh, we have to fly all the way out there? Why can’t you come here? Yes, I’m aware you’re always busy, Senator, but—no, I’m not busy this weekend, but the fact that you just assume I can drop everything and fly across the country at a moment’s notice—of course I’d do anything for our children! I’m just saying, last-minute plane tickets are expensive, and—what? No, I don’t need your charity, thank you, I’m perfectly capable of paying for them myself, I just meant—” A loud sigh. “All right. We’ll be there on Saturday. Here’s Luke.”

He passed the phone to Luke, who held it up to his ear with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation. “Hi, Mom.”

“Luke, I don’t know what could have possessed you to do something like this,” Padmé said sternly.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he mumbled. “I just—I just really wanted to meet Dad.”

Padmé sighed. “I understand,” she said, much more gently. “It’s our own fault, anyway, for keeping our lives so separate all these years. It’s no wonder you were curious about your father, and Leia about me.”

“Why’d you do it?” Luke asked softly. “Why didn’t you ever tell me I had a sister?”

There were a few moments of silence on the other end. “I don’t know, Luke,” said Padmé heavily. “The first few years, I just—I didn’t want to have anything to do with your father, so by extension I didn’t want you to have anything to do with him, and by keeping you away from him, that also meant keeping you away from Leia. The older you got, the more I realized how wrong it was to keep lying to you about this, but I—I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth, because I knew the more time passed, the more time I spent lying…the more upset you’d be when you found out.”

“But I found out anyway,” Luke pointed out. “You can’t imagine how Leia and I felt when—I just wish I could’ve heard the truth from you first.”

“I know.” Padmé sounded pained. “Luke, I am so, so sorry. Whether I like it or not, the four of us are a family, and I should never have tried to stop us from being one. I should never have prevented you from meeting your father, and I should never, ever have kept Leia’s existence a secret from you. You have every right to be upset with me, and if it takes you a long time to forgive me—if you never forgive me, I wouldn’t blame you. I’ve been a terrible mother.”

“That’s not true,” said Luke. “I mean, yeah, I’m really mad at you for lying to me my whole life, and that’ll take some time for me to get over…but you’re not a terrible mother. I wish I could’ve grown up knowing Dad and Leia, but I didn’t. You were the only family I had, and I’ll always love you, Mom. Even after all this.”

“I love you, too, Luke,” she said, sounding a little choked up. “I love you so much. And I promise you, I will never lie to you again.”

“Good.” Luke paused. “Are you still going to keep me away from Leia and Dad after this is all over?”

“Of course not,” Padmé said at once. “When we’re all together next weekend, we’ll work out what to do. It’ll be hard, since your father and I live on opposite sides of the country, but we’ll figure something out. I promise.”

“Okay. Can I talk to Leia now?”

Leia spent several minutes swapping stories with Luke about their respective adventures, but eventually Luke said, “Dad wants to talk to you.”

Leia hesitated for a moment, then said, “Fine.”

“Leia?” said Anakin’s voice after another moment.

“Hi, Dad,” she said shortly.

“You’re all right?”

“Yes.” Then she frowned. “Actually, no. Finding out you have a twin brother and your dad didn’t bother mentioning him for twelve years doesn’t really qualify as ‘all right’ in my book.”

“I’m really sorry, Leia, I—”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to all the trouble of switching us back. I’d rather just stay here with Mom.” Leia laughed bitterly. “Sure, she let you take me away and never bothered trying to find me, but at least she didn’t lie to my face every single day for my entire life, so I think I’ll take the slightly better of two awful parents.”

To Leia’s satisfaction, Anakin sounded on the verge of tears when he spoke next. “You’re right. What I did was despicable and selfish. I never told you about Luke because I was too scared to see your mom again after everything that happened between us. I was thinking about what was best for me instead of what was best for you, and by doing that I broke, like, the number one rule of parenting.”

Leia snorted. “No kidding.”

“There’s no excuse for what your mom and I did to you two. None at all. But I want you to know that I am so sorry.” Leia thought she heard a sniffle on the other end. “I know that doesn’t make any of this okay. Nothing could ever make me lying to you about your brother okay. But I regret it more than you know, and if I could go back and do it all over, I would do everything so differently.”

Leia was quiet for a minute. “You’re only sorry because we caught you,” she said. “If Luke and I never met and never figured out the truth, you and Mom would’ve just kept lying to us for the rest of our lives.”

Anakin coughed uncomfortably. “What matters is everything’s out in the open now. No point dwelling on what-ifs.”

“You’re the one who was talking about going back and doing stuff differently.”

“Oh. Touché,” he said with a small chuckle, and Leia cracked a smile despite herself. “But I swear, I’m not just sorry because you caught me in a lie. I was sorry every day I didn’t tell you the truth.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me, then?”

“I don’t know. I was a coward. I was scared you’d hate me. But I guess I just ensured that by continuing to lie.”

Leia thought about those words for a while. Did she hate Anakin? She felt like she should, and she was certainly furious with him. But hating him…he was still her father. He was still the one who’d taught her to ride a bike, packed her lunch every day, cheered her on from the sidelines at all her soccer games, proudly displayed her terrible artwork all over the house. Could one lie, huge and life-changing as it was, really outweigh twelve years of love?

“I don’t hate you,” she said at last. “But you owe me big time. No chores for a month.”

“Done.”

“Actually, for a year.”

“Done.”

“And I can have dessert whenever I want, not just three times a week.”

“Done.”

“And you’ll stop forcing me to taking fencing lessons.”

Anakin sighed. “But you’re so good at fencing.”

“But I hate it. Besides, Luke loves it. You can live vicariously through him if you really want.”

He laughed. “Fine, you can quit fencing. And I promise I’ll come to all your debate team stuff even though I never have any idea what’s going on.”

“Okay. You’ll also stop complaining about how politics is a waste of time.”

“Deal.”

Leia managed to elicit a few more promises from him before hanging up and going to find Padmé. She’d left to allow Leia to talk with Anakin in private, and she was currently in her bedroom with an old photo album. She looked up as Leia entered, then smiled and beckoned her over. Leia hesitantly perched on the bed beside her, and her heart swelled when Padmé tentatively put an arm around her.

Leia snuggled into her side, surprised by how natural it felt. “What are you looking at?”

“Pictures I haven’t looked at for years. There’s you and Luke.” Leia looked where she was pointing and laughed as she saw that it was a photo of Padmé with her hands resting on her pregnant belly.

They flipped through the pages for a while, and Leia found herself gazing at photo after photo of Anakin and Padmé together, looking so happy and in love. Then came her and Luke’s baby pictures. Leia made a face. “Newborn babies are really ugly.”

Padmé chuckled. “Not to their parents. As far as your father and I were concerned, you and Luke were the most beautiful things we’d ever seen. It was the happiest day of our lives.” After a minute, she placed a soft kiss on the top of Leia’s head.

Leia smiled, and a moment later her eyes fell upon a picture of the four of them all together, the new parents each holding a baby in their arms, though Leia couldn’t tell which was her and which was Luke. Padmé’s head was resting on Anakin’s shoulder, both of them beaming down at their children. “You and Dad seemed really happy together,” she said softly.

Padmé’s smile faded. “We…were. We were happy.”

Leia looked at her carefully. “Before you got home, Obi-Wan told me what happened. Why you split up and stuff.”

“He did, did he?” Padmé said rather disapprovingly. Then she sighed. “Well, it was all such a long time ago. What’s done is done.”

“Do you—” Leia bit her lip. “Do you still hate Dad?”

For a moment, Padmé looked so, so sad. “No. I never did,” she said at last. “I was furious with him at the time, but I could never hate him.”

“Are you still mad at him, then?”

“It was such a long time ago,” Padmé repeated. “I’ve put the whole mess behind me.”

But, judging by the fact that Leia saw her discreetly wipe her eyes a few minutes later, that wasn’t entirely true.

Padmé took the photograph of all four of them out of the album and insisted that Leia keep it, and they reached the last page soon afterwards. “So, what do you want to do this week?” asked Padmé.

Leia furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Luke and your father won’t be here until Saturday, so we have a whole week to ourselves. We can do whatever you want.”

“Don’t you have work?”

“I’m taking the week off to spend it with you,” Padmé told her, and Leia beamed.

“Actually,” she said after a minute, “could you maybe still go in one day and I can go with you? I want to be a senator someday, too, so maybe I could go with you and see what it’s like?”

Padmé looked thrilled. “Of course! You know, Luke never shows any interest in my work.”

“And Dad never shows any interest in my plans of going into politics.”

They spent the rest of the evening deciding what to do—most of it involved going to museums, historical landmarks, and other things that Anakin hated doing with Leia—and after Padmé had gone to bed, Leia called Luke again.

“So Dad really thought Mom was cheating on him with Obi-Wan?” Luke said in a horrified whisper, hoping Anakin wouldn’t overhear. The one drawback of the Skywalkers’ small house was that it made private phone conversations much more difficult. “That’s gross.”

“I don’t know,” Leia said on the other end. “They do seem pretty close.”

“Okay, no. You don’t know either of them like I do. The idea of them together is messed up.” Luke shuddered. “I guess that explains the vague stuff Dad was saying earlier about immediately realizing how wrong he’d been but feeling too ashamed to look Mom in the eye again. He should be ashamed. Mom and Obi-Wan. Yuck.”

“So Dad’s not still mad about it?”

“No. He told me the whole split was his fault. And you should’ve seen the look on his face when he was talking about her. Honestly, I’m pretty sure he still loves her.”

Leia gasped softly. “Really?”

“Yeah. Did Mom talk about him at all?” Luke asked next.

“A little. She definitely seemed sad, and kinda like she missed him? But I’m not really sure. She said she ‘could never hate him’ but wouldn’t give me a straight answer about whether or not she was still mad at him.”

“Huh. That sounds like Mom, all right,” replied Luke. “She can be really hard to read, especially if she doesn’t want you to know what she thinks about something. It’s what makes her such a good politician.”

Leia laughed. “She’s letting me come into work with her on Monday.”

“That sounds awful.”

“No, I’m so excited. And then we’re going to walk the Freedom Trail and go to the Old State House and the MFA and Bunker Hill and the JFK library and—”

“So, basically, all the boring stuff she dragged me to as a kid to make me ‘cultured.’”

“Ugh, you sound just like Dad.” Luke could practically feel her rolling her eyes through the phone. “What are you two going to do all week?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t planned anything out. We’re probably just going to wing it.”

“Classic Dad.”

“What do you think it’ll be like when we get there?” Luke said a minute later. “I mean, with Mom and Dad seeing each other again for the first time in twelve years.”

“Hmmm.” Leia sounded thoughtful. “Well, if Dad’s definitely not still mad and Mom’s possibly not still mad, maybe it’ll go okay.”

“I hope so. I don’t want them to fight.”

“And, you know, all the pictures Mom and I were looking at earlier…they really did love each other, Luke,” she said wistfully. “A lot. Maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe, when they see each other again, they’ll realize how much they’ve missed each other.”

Luke grinned in triumph. “Who’s the hopeless romantic now?”

Leia scoffed. “I just mean, now that we know that what happened between them was just a stupid misunderstanding, it seems more likely to me that they might make up than if there had been a real problem, like if Mom had actually had an affair with Obi-Wan.”

“Ewww, stop,” Luke groaned. “But you’re right. I bet they’ll make up and then they’ll fall in love all over again and then they’ll decide they want to give it another shot and then we’ll all get to stay together as a family.”

“Okay, now you’re definitely going into hopeless romantic territory.” Leia paused, then added, “But that would be really nice, wouldn’t it?”

Chapter Text

“This is a terrible idea!” Luke hissed into the phone as he crept down the hall towards Anakin’s bedroom.

“It is not!” said Leia on the other end. “You’re the one who’s so convinced they’re still in love, anyway. Consider it looking for proof of your own theory.”

“Still, I don’t like it. What if he catches me?”

“Just pay attention so you can get out of there as soon as you hear the shower turn off.”

“What if I don’t hear it or I’m not fast enough and he comes in and—”

“Then you can play the ‘you abandoned me for twelve years’ card to get out of trouble.”

“That’s low.”

“Not as low as lying to your kids their whole lives.”

“I don’t think we should use that as the moral standard we judge everything by.”

“Stop talking, start looking.”

“Okay, okay.” Luke carefully inspected the closet, but there was nothing in it aside from clothes. “You really didn’t find anything in Mom’s room?”

“Well, she had a whole photo album,” Leia reminded him. “And I still think there’s something fishy about that necklace.”

“The carved wooden one? She wears that all the time. Only around the house, though, I think.”

“Exactly. The rest of her jewelry’s all fancy and stuff. That necklace doesn’t fit in at all. Maybe I’ll ask her about it later,” Leia said thoughtfully. “But other than possibly the necklace, I didn’t find anything interesting. And I looked for a long time. She takes forever to get ready in the morning.”

“Tell me about it.” Luke peered under the bed and sneezed loudly as he was greeted by an inch of dust. He froze and listened carefully, but the shower was still going. “Nothing in the closet or under the bed.”

“Try the dresser.”

“Ewww, I’m not going through Dad’s underwear drawer.”

“Which is exactly why he might hide something in there.”

But the dresser, too, was empty of clues. Luke sighed in frustration, then brightened as he realized he hadn’t yet checked the bedside table. He pulled open the drawer and was promptly greeted with more clutter than he would’ve thought could fit inside the small space. Keeping his ears out for the sound of the shower turning off, Luke rummaged through as quickly as possible. Spare change, what looked like bits of machinery, several years’ worth of handmade birthday cards from Leia…and, way in the back, a small wooden box.

Luke excitedly pulled it out and opened it, gasping as he saw a slightly wrinkled photograph of two babies inside. “Jackpot!”

“What is it?” Leia demanded. “What did you find?”

Just then, to his horror, Luke realized that the shower had fallen silent. “Oh no. Gotta go!” He hung up on Leia mid-protest, shoved the phone in his pocket, heard footsteps approaching, panicked, and stuffed the box under his shirt.

He remembered to shut the bedside table drawer just in time, and Anakin walked in only a moment later with a towel knotted around his waist. “Luke,” he said, looking surprised. “What are you doing in here?”

“Oh, I was just…exploring the house.” Anakin had taken his prosthetic off to shower, and Luke tried not to stare at the way his right arm simply stopped just below the elbow.

Anakin chuckled. “Exploring the house? Again? There’s really not much to look at.”

Luke shrugged, hoping Anakin wouldn’t press the issue further. Fortunately, he didn’t, and Luke started sidling out, doing his best to hide the lump under his shirt where the box was.

Then Anakin frowned, and Luke broke out into a cold sweat. “Have you seen my arm? I could’ve sworn I left it in here.”

Luke nearly sighed in relief. “No.”

“Hmmm. Must be in the other room.”

“I’ll go check!” Luke said eagerly, and before Anakin could say a word, he had dashed out into the safety of the hall. Luke hurried to Leia’s room and stashed the box under the bed before going to look for Anakin’s arm. Sure enough, it was lying on the coffee table in the living room, and Luke carefully picked it up and brought it back to his bedroom.

Anakin smiled. “Thanks. I can’t believe I forgot where I left it. I must be getting old.” Then his grin widened, and he said, “Hey, give me a hand, would you?”

Luke laughed and passed the arm over. “Good one.”

“You’re a much better audience than Leia. Apparently, jokes are only funny the first hundred times.”

“Well, then I guess you can use that one on me ninety-nine more times.”

Luke returned to Leia’s bedroom, shut the door behind him, and took the box back out. He studied the outside for a moment, but there was nothing remarkable about its appearance, so he opened it again and looked inside instead.

On top was the picture of the babies whom Luke assumed were himself and Leia. It was rather worn, as if it had been picked up and looked at thousands of times; the thought made a lump form in his throat. The rest of the box’s contents were mostly other pictures. Some were of the twins, including what looked like ultrasounds from when Padmé was pregnant. Padmé was in a lot of the pictures. Almost all of them, actually, Luke realized, aside from two or three that were just him and Leia. Anakin was in several, too, with his arms around Padmé or kissing her on the cheek while she laughed. Luke wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his mother look so carefree.

Once he’d sifted through all the photographs, he saw that there were a few other things lying at the bottom. A couple ticket stubs, a long-dead flower, and a paper napkin on which was written Padmé followed by a phone number. Luke recognized it as Padmé’s handwriting. He smiled slightly; it must have been from when his parents had first met. He picked the napkin up just to make sure there was nothing else in the box—and his heart almost stopped as he saw that there was one more thing, hidden in the corner underneath the napkin.

A ring.

Luke stared at it for several minutes, eyes wide. It was simple—a plain silver band with a small diamond set into it—much simpler than the jewelry Padmé usually wore (other than the carved wooden necklace Leia had mentioned), and yet there was no doubt in Luke’s mind that it had been meant for her. His mind raced with a thousand questions. Had Padmé ever seen it? Had they been not just dating, but engaged when they split up? Or had Anakin bought it but never given it to her? Had he—

There was a knock on the door, and Luke shoved the box and all its contents under the bedcovers. Anakin came in a moment later, saying, “I’m heading out to pick up the pizza now. Want to come with me and drive around the town a little?”

“That’s okay,” Luke said, relieved when his voice came out steady. “I was just about to, um…call Mom and talk for a bit. Yeah.”

“All right. I should only be ten minutes or so, the pizza place is pretty close by.”

“Okay.”

Luke waited until he heard the front door shut and the car pull out of the driveway, and then he frantically called Leia back. “Thanks for hanging up on me before,” she said crossly. “Is everything okay? Did you get caught?”

“Almost, but it was fine. I found something, though. Something big.”

“What is it?” she asked excitedly.

Luke briefly described what was in the box. “But that wasn’t all. There was a ring in there.”

“A ring? You mean—?”

“An engagement ring. Yep.”

“Oh my God,” Leia breathed.

“I know,” agreed Luke. “Do you think—do you think Dad ever proposed? Do you think they were engaged?”

Leia was quiet, but only for a moment. “I doubt it. Because then Mom would’ve had the ring, not Dad,” she reasoned.

“Unless she gave it back to him when they split up.”

“Maybe. But I still don’t think so. Obi-Wan would’ve mentioned if they’d ever been engaged, wouldn’t he have?”

“I guess so.”

“My guess is, Dad bought the ring and was going to ask Mom to marry him, but then all that stuff happened before he got the chance,” said Leia. “And he’s kept it all these years as a reminder of what could have been.”

They both silently mulled that over for a while. “That’s…really sad,” Luke said after a minute. “Really sad.”

“Yeah. We were—we were almost a family, Luke. We were this close to growing up with all four of us together.”

The thought sent a stab of pained wistfulness through Luke’s heart. “Do you think Mom knows? That Dad almost proposed?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.” A slight pause. “Wait a minute.”

Even in the short time they’d known each other, Luke was already starting to recognize Leia’s I-have-an-idea voice. “What?”

Sure enough: “I have an idea. You should bring that box with you when you come here.”

“Why? So you can see it?”

“Yeah, but also so Mom can see it,” said Leia.

Luke raised his eyebrows. “Mom? Why?”

“Well, you’re convinced Dad still loves her, right? But we’re not sure how she feels. So maybe if we just, like, leave the box out for her to find, she’ll see the ring and she’ll realize that Dad loved her so much back then that he wanted to marry her, and that he still loves her so much now that he held onto the ring for all these years.” Judging by her tone of voice, Leia thought she should win the Nobel Prize for coming up with that scheme.

And Luke, with all the idealism of a twelve-year-old, gasped and said, “Wow, that’s genius! Good thinking. I’d better go put it back for now so Dad doesn’t realize it’s gone, but I’ll try to sneak it into my bag this weekend when we’re packing.”

“Cool. Operation Get Our Parents Back Together is officially a go.”

The week passed much too quickly for Luke’s tastes. He was looking forward to going home and seeing Padmé and Leia again, of course, but the thought of leaving Anakin so soon after they’d met upset him. He spent Saturday’s flight to Boston consoling himself with Padmé’s promise that both twins would be spending time with each other and with both parents from now on.

Once they landed, Luke got the strong impression that Anakin was panicking but doing everything in his power not to show it. “It’s going to be fine,” Luke said in the cab. “I’m sure Mom will be happy to see you again.” Frankly, he wasn’t sure of that at all, but he hoped it would calm Anakin down, at any rate.

No such luck. “I very much doubt that, seeing as the last time I saw her, I screamed at her and called her a liar,” he muttered, jiggling his leg up and down anxiously.

“Then apologize,” Luke said patiently, “and she’ll forgive you.”

“But what if—?”

“I thought I was supposed to be the kid and you were supposed to be the parent.” That got a tiny laugh, at least.

When they arrived at the Amidalas’ brownstone, Luke marched right up to the door and went inside, Anakin nervously following. “Mom?” called Luke. “Leia? We’re here.”

He heard footsteps above them, and then Leia was thundering down the stairs and throwing her arms around Luke. “Hey! How was your week with Dad? Did you like California? What did you think of our house? Your house is awesome! I had the best time with Mom. She’s amazing.”

“We had a great week, too,” Luke said enthusiastically. “It was so much fun. We—”

“Luke?”

He looked up and saw that Padmé had appeared at the top of the stairs (Luke was pretty sure his six-foot-something father was trying to hide behind him and Leia). “Hi, Mom!”

Padmé smiled and hurried down towards him, pulling him in for a bone-crushing hug while Leia moved to greet Anakin. “I missed you so much! Six weeks at camp is hard enough on me without adding an extra week at the end.”

Luke laughed and hugged her back, temporarily forgetting the bitterness he felt towards her for having never told him about Leia. “I missed you, too.”

Both twins stepped away from their parents after another minute or two and turned to watch the final reunion unfold. The elephant in the room was so large, Luke felt rather as if he was being flattened against the wall.

Anakin and Padmé were simultaneously looking and not looking at each other, and all was tensely quiet for several moments. Then Anakin took a tiny, hesitant step forward and cleared his throat. “Padmé.”

Padmé glanced up and inclined her head towards him a fraction of an inch. “Anakin. Hello.”

Another awkward pause. “You look great.” Anakin’s face flamed, and he hastily added in a stammer, “I-I mean, you look like you’ve been doing great. Um, I mean, how—how have you been?”

Padmé’s cheeks were rather pink also, and Luke and Leia exchanged a grin. “Good, thank you,” she replied politely. “And you?”

“Good.”

“That’s good.”

When the silence started to become unbearable once more, Luke decided to intervene. “Mom, Leia said you guys had a lot of fun this week.”

Padmé turned towards him, looking relieved at the distraction. “Yes, we did. Her idea of fun aligns with mine a lot more closely than yours does.” She smiled, and the twins laughed. “How was your week?”

“It was amazing! Dad and Leia have a pool at their house! He showed me around LA and we took a bus tour and I saw all the Hollywood stars and then we hiked up to the Hollywood sign and we went to Disneyland and I got to ride on Dad’s motorcycle and—”

“What?” Padmé interrupted, turning back to Anakin and frowning at him. “You let my twelve-year-old son ride on a motorcycle?”

“Our twelve-year-old son. And it’s perfectly safe, Leia rides on it with me all the time.” Seeming to notice the none-too-subtle glance Padmé gave his prosthetic arm, Anakin scowled and added, “I made some modifications years ago so I could drive it with one hand. Besides, this arm’s a pretty new model, and it’s really functional. Expensive, but worth it.”

“It still seems very dangerous,” said Padmé.

“Come on, Mom, it was fine,” Luke said quickly before Anakin could retort. “And we didn’t go on the highway or anything, just around town.”

“Hmmm.” Padmé pursed her lips.

“Mom drove me down to Plymouth so I could see Plymouth Rock,” Leia offered, seeming just as eager to change the subject as Luke was. “Except it was really lame and I was disappointed, so we went and got ice cream afterwards to make up for it.”

“Something similar happened when she took me to see it, if I remember correctly,” Anakin said with a small smile at Padmé.

She didn’t return it, but her disapproving expression relaxed somewhat. “I warned Leia that she’d be disappointed, but she insisted on going anyway. I wonder where she got that stubbornness from.”

Anakin laughed, and Padmé almost smiled, and Luke thought that maybe everything was going to go decently, after all.

They shared stories from the past week for a while longer (Luke and Leia did most of the talking) before moving on to talk about the six weeks at camp, and then they finally addressed the other elephant in the room.

“So,” said Leia. They’d gone upstairs to sit in the living room, and she and Luke had sat down beside each other on one sofa in a sly attempt to make Anakin and Padmé sit together on the other, but Padmé had opted for the armchair instead. “You lied to us. For twelve years.”

Both parents tensed up, looking ashamed. Uncomfortable silence fell, and Luke almost wished Leia hadn’t said anything; resentful as he was, rehashing the issue yet again didn’t seem as important as spending time all together, a family reunited for the first time, in a pleasant manner.

Padmé was the first to speak. “I have no excuse,” she said quietly. “We were being selfish, thinking about our own needs and wants instead of yours. We haven’t been half the parents you both deserve, and I am so, so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” said Anakin. “I—I don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry. I love you both so much. Leia, I value every second of the past twelve years more than you know, and Luke…Luke, I wish so badly that I could’ve spent all of those seconds with you, too.”

“I feel the same way.” Padmé stood and went to kneel in front of the twins, taking one of their hands in each of her own. “Luke, raising you has been my biggest blessing, and Leia, letting you go has been my biggest regret.”

She looked utterly miserable, and so did Anakin, and Luke found himself blurting out, “Who cares?” Seeing the hurt on his parents’ faces grow following the words, he hastily amended, “I mean, who cares that we were apart for twelve years? We’re together now, aren’t we? And we’ll never be separated like that again, so why does it matter? Why can’t we just move on and make the most of the time we do have instead of moping about the time we missed?”

Leia looked startled, and Padmé and Anakin looked simultaneously uncertain and hopeful. “But, Luke,” Anakin began. “Your mom and I really hurt you two. We can’t just ignore—”

“I’m not saying we have to ignore it,” Luke cut him off. “But Leia and I have already made it clear how we feel, and you’ve both apologized and explained what you were thinking by not telling us—”

“Thinking is a strong word,” Leia muttered.

“—so I feel like at this point, there isn’t that much more anyone can say. It’s just going to take time for us to get over it and forgive you. But I want to forgive you.”

Luke glanced over Leia, who sighed but then nodded. “I want to forgive you, too,” she admitted. “And…I guess Luke’s right. No point dwelling on the past. We should move forwards, not backwards.”

Padmé gazed at them in astonishment. “You two sound like you’re forty, not twelve.”

“Wise beyond their years,” Anakin said, nodding. “They definitely got that from you.”

That made both twins laugh, and tentative smiles grew on their parents’ faces. “So, you’re—you’re really sure you don’t want to talk about this more right now?” Padmé asked.

“Yeah,” said Luke.

“Me too,” Leia agreed. “But I do want to talk about how everything’s going to work from now on.”

Padmé planted a kiss on both their foreheads, making Leia smile and Luke protest, before standing up once more and returning to her seat. Except she didn’t go back to the armchair—she sat down on the other sofa right beside Anakin, who appeared to be trying not to look too pleased at the development.

“There’s a lot of ways we could do this,” Padmé started. “But the easiest one I can think of is to continue as we were before, except Luke and Leia will spend holidays and school vacations together either here or in California.”

“So I can only see Leia and Dad a few times a year?” Luke said, crestfallen. “That’s hardly any better than before.”

Padmé sighed. “I know, honey, but it’s the only way that doesn’t involve any of us uprooting our entire lives. It’s impossible for me to move to California because my job requires me to live in Massachusetts, and Leia and your father don’t want to move out here. Their lives are back in California.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Leia said suddenly, to everyone’s surprise.

“You—?” Anakin stared at her. “You want to move all the way across the country?”

She shrugged. “Well, Mom and Luke can’t come to us, but I want to spend more time with them, so us moving here is the only thing that makes sense.”

Padmé was shaking her head. “We can’t ask you two to—”

“Dad hates California, anyway,” said Leia. “He’s always complaining about how hot and dry it is all the time.”

“I don’t hate it. But the weather is pretty disagreeable,” Anakin acknowledged.

“Disagreeable weather? In California?” Padmé raised her eyebrows. “You do remember what it’s like here in the winter, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but unlike you, I like snow and rain. I grew up in Arizona, remember? Practically in the middle of the desert.”

“See? You like it here,” Leia told him. “So why can’t we move here?”

Anakin bit his lip, and Luke’s heart soared as he realized he was actually considering it. “But what about school and all your friends?” Anakin asked Leia. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind coming back here, sure, but you’ve lived in California your whole life.”

Leia’s face fell a little, but then she said determinedly, “I can still keep in touch with all my friends from home, and I’ll make new ones here. I already have Luke.”

“And Han,” Luke added.

“Yeah, and Han. That’s two Boston friends already.”

“Well, the schools here are a little better…” Anakin said slowly.

“Can we move, Dad? Please?”

He mulled it over for a while longer. “We’ll think about it,” he said at last. “I don’t want to rush into anything.”

“You don’t? That’s new,” Padmé muttered, making Anakin huff and the twins snicker.

They made a tentative plan about who would go where for the upcoming year (Luke would go to California for Thanksgiving and February vacation, and Leia would come to Boston for Christmas and April vacation), and almost as soon as everything was settled, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” said Luke. He gave Leia a meaningful look.

She jumped up, too. “I’ll come with you.”

They hurried away, but unfortunately, their unspoken plan to leave their parents alone together backfired, since Anakin and Padmé both followed them downstairs. “Obi-Wan!” Luke cried in delight when he opened the door, and he threw his arms around the man.

“Hello, Luke,” said Obi-Wan, hugging him back. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while, have I? How was camp? And your week with Anakin?”

“It was great!” But then Luke pulled back and frowned at him. “So I guess you also knew I had a twin and never told me.”

Obi-Wan grimaced. “Ah. About that—”

“It was my fault,” Padmé said quickly, coming over to give Obi-Wan a hug as well. “He only kept it a secret because I asked him to, and he always told me I was being stupid. It’s my own fault for not listening.”

“I do tend to find that things work out better when people listen to me,” Obi-Wan said dryly, and they all laughed.

Except for Anakin, who was hanging back and looking like he’d seen a ghost. Remembering what Leia had told him about Obi-Wan’s tale, how he and Anakin had been best friends once but hadn’t seen each other since the fight, Luke hurriedly moved out of the way, tugging Leia with him. Padmé stepped aside, too, glancing uncertainly between the two men.

Obi-Wan had grown pale, and he was staring wide-eyed at Anakin, who was still frozen in place. Then, a small whisper: “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan.”

And before Luke even had time to blink, they’d both moved towards each other and met in the middle, hugging each other tightly. “I’ve missed you, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said in a muffled voice.

“I missed you, too.” Anakin’s voice was wobbly, and Luke realized there were tears sliding down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry for everything. I was such an idiot, and a terrible friend, and—”

“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan interrupted gently. “I forgave you a long time ago. And it isn’t as though I was entirely blameless in the whole thing. You were going through so much, and I should’ve tried harder to—I should’ve been there for you.”

“You were there for me. I was just too blind to see it at the time.”

They finally pulled apart, though Obi-Wan left his hands braced on Anakin’s arms. “I hope you know…I would never have done something like that to you.” Luke’s brow furrowed in confusion, but then he realized that by “something like that” Obi-Wan probably meant “having an affair with your girlfriend behind your back” but didn’t want to phrase it so bluntly in front of the twins.

“I know,” Anakin said softly.

“I would’ve sooner cut off my own legs than do anything to hurt you. You were my best friend, Anakin.” Obi-Wan paused. “Are. You are my best friend. If you still want to be.”

Tears were welling up in Anakin’s eyes once more. “Of course I do. I-I don’t deserve you, Obi-Wan, after everything I did—”

“Forget about all that. It’s in the past,” Obi-Wan said soothingly. “Now, what have you been up to the last twelve years? Aside from raising a wonderful daughter, of course.” He grinned at Leia, who grinned back. They must have taken to each other during Leia’s week with Padmé.

Anakin and Obi-Wan spent so long catching up that Obi-Wan ended up staying for dinner, to everyone’s delight. After he’d left, Luke announced, “I’m going to bring all my stuff upstairs.”

“I’ll help you,” said Leia, and they both hurried out.

Anakin and Padmé followed them into the front hall. “Do you need help carrying anything?” Anakin asked.

“Nope, we’re good,” Luke chirped. He and Leia took a couple bags each and trooped upstairs, leaving Anakin and Padmé alone together at last. But rather than going all the way up to Luke’s room, the twins stopped on the second floor and crept as close to the stairwell as they could without being seen, doing their best to eavesdrop on the conversation below.

All day, Padmé had gotten the sense that Luke and Leia were trying to get her and Anakin alone, but she’d managed to foil their plans every time. Until now. She strongly considered making up some excuse or other to get out of there, but as she watched the decade-older version of her ex-boyfriend fidgeting and biting his lip and looking as nervous as he had when he’d first asked her out a lifetime ago, she resignedly decided that they’d better talk things over and try to clear the air as best they could.

“So,” Anakin said after a minute. “You’re a senator now.”

Padmé nodded. “Yes.”

“Congratulations.” He gave her a tentative smile. “I remember how much you always wanted that.”

“It’s not fair that you have to be thirty to be a senator,” Padmé complained. “Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I’m not smart or capable.”

“I’m sure you’d run circles around most of the old dudes they have in there currently,” Anakin said sympathetically, though he was grinning. “But you’ll get your turn, and then you’ll be the best senator this country’s ever seen.”

“Okay, I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do.” He kissed her on the nose. “You’re the most amazing person I know.”

“And you’re the most amazing person I know.” Padmé turned her head and captured his mouth in a longer kiss, then snuggled closer against him. “I love you, Ani.”

“I love you, too.” A moment later, he added teasingly, “I wouldn’t be in a hurry to turn thirty, though, if I was you. Soon enough you’ll be thirty-something and wishing you’d appreciated life a little more when you were twenty-something.”

Oh, how she did wish that, now that she was thirty-something (and getting uncomfortably close to forty-something). Padmé quickly cleared her throat and her mind. “Thank you. And you’re a fourth grade teacher?”

“Yeah.” Anakin looked sheepish. “Not really as impressive as all the things you’ve done.”

“I don’t know. While I’ve been sitting around in a room arguing with people all day, you’ve been making a genuine impact on kids’ lives. I think that’s pretty impressive.”

Anakin turned a little pink at the praise. “You’ve done an amazing job with Luke,” he said a moment later. “He’s…well, he’s wonderful.”

“So is Leia,” Padmé replied. “She reminds me of you.”

He looked surprised. “Really? She’s always reminded me of you. Luke reminds me of you, too.”

“Well, he’s always reminded me of you.”

They both chuckled. For the thousandth time that day, Padmé was struck by the contrast to the last time she’d seen him. Anakin was older now, yes, but it was more than that. He was more…grounded. More mature. Less likely to fly off the handle or let his emotions get the better of him. Raising a child will do that to you, Padmé supposed; God knew she was no longer as naïve or impulsive as she used to be.

Anakin looked different, too. But not necessarily worse; in the back of her mind, Padmé found herself thinking he was more handsome now than he’d ever been. Adulthood, real adulthood as opposed to young adulthood, suited him. His face was sharper, more worn, with a few lines around his eyes. But those eyes were exactly the same as they’d always been. The same eyes she’d fallen in love with.

The same eyes that had crackled with jealous rage the day he’d accused her of cheating on him with Obi-Wan. The day he’d walked out of her life and taken one of their children with him.

I love you!

Liar!

Padmé’s expression must have changed to reflect her thoughts’ new direction, because Anakin’s smile faded and he said quietly, “Look, Padmé, I…I am so sorry. For all of it. I ruined all of our lives, and for what? Because I was too stupid to realize I had everything I’d ever wanted? Too paranoid to see that things actually were as good as they seemed?” He shook his head, sighing. “I loved you, Padmé. I loved you almost too much, because by trying to keep you with me, all I did was lose you.”

“But you didn’t need to try to keep me with you. I already was with you,” Padmé pointed out. “Anakin, you were—you were everything to me. Everything. I loved you more than I’d ever thought it was possible to love someone. My heart belonged to you, utterly and completely. So how do you think I felt when I realized that you didn’t know that? When I realized you doubted my love for you? When I realized that you thought, you actually thought I could’ve betrayed you like that, could’ve let someone else touch me the way I only ever wanted you to touch me, could’ve loved someone else the way I loved you?”

There were tears in Anakin’s eyes now, and Padmé realized that her own were welling up, too. “I know that now. I should never have doubted you. It’s just—it’s just I always thought I wasn’t good enough for you,” Anakin admitted, avoiding her eyes. “I was always gone, always leaving you alone. And after the accident, I was just—I was so useless. Just sitting around all day, no arm, no job. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t hold you or touch you the way I used to. I couldn’t even help much with the twins, because they cried every time I accidentally touched them with my prosthetic since it felt so unnatural. So—so inhuman. And I figured, why wouldn’t you want Obi-Wan instead of me? Someone who’d been there for you all those years when I never was, someone who could hold you properly with both his arms? Hell, I would’ve preferred Obi-Wan over me.”

Padmé could only stare at him, appalled. “Anakin, how could you—how could you even think I would’ve felt that way?” she managed at last. “Not good enough for me? You were all I ever wanted. No one else ever compared to you.” Before she could think better of it, she reached out and took his hands, one flesh and one metal. “I would’ve preferred to be held by these arms, by your arms, than by arms that belonged to anyone else, even if they were both whole. And I couldn’t have cared less that you didn’t have a job. I didn’t expect you to have one so soon after the accident, you needed time to recover. Besides, I loved having you ‘just sitting around all day,’ because it meant I got to spend time with you, and we both got to spend time with the twins. Yes, maybe they cried sometimes because your prosthetic arm was cold and it surprised them, not because it was unnatural or inhuman, but do you remember how they’d light up when they saw you? Because I do. They loved you so much, Anakin, and so did I. You were the only father they wanted, and the only partner I wanted.”

Anakin was crying in earnest now. “I’m sorry, Padmé. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said past the lump in her throat. “Sorry that I didn’t realize you were doubting yourself like that, that I didn’t make you feel loved or make you understand how much you meant to me.”

“But you did make me feel loved,” he said softly. “I was always happiest when I was with you. I guess I just thought—I guess I convinced myself that it was all a lie, somehow, that it was too good to be true.”

“It wasn’t,” Padmé said firmly, suddenly needing him to understand this. “It wasn’t a lie, not any of it. You’re one of the only people I’ve ever been able to truly be myself around. I never put on an act in front of you, not even for a second.”

And then, because Anakin was still crying and because she was crying a little too and because she hadn’t seen or heard from him in twelve years and, dammit, she’d just missed him for so long, Padmé closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him. Anakin immediately returned the embrace as if by instinct, and Padmé teared up anew at how familiar it felt. Twelve years were suddenly reduced to nothing; in that moment, it felt like no time had passed at all. In that moment, it felt like coming home at the end of a long day.

Padmé didn’t know how long they stood there, but it wasn’t until well after their tears had dried when she raised her voice slightly and said, “Now, would you like to go upstairs and tell Luke and Leia to mind their own business, or should I?”

There was a faint, muffled gasp, followed by hurried footsteps ascending the stairs to the third floor, and both parents snickered.

Chapter Text

Anakin and Leia were staying a week, after which point they’d return to California and Luke wouldn’t see them in person again until Thanksgiving. “At least, that’s what Mom and Dad think,” he told Leia Sunday morning. Anakin was staying in a hotel nearby, but Leia had opted to stay in Luke’s room for the week.

She grinned down at Luke, who was still lying on the air mattress he’d slept on. “I’ll be very surprised if we even make it onto the plane next weekend,” Leia said confidently.

“And to think you were the one who kept being all ‘Luke, you’re such a hopeless romantic,’ ‘Oh, they probably hate each other,’ ‘Stop being so unrealistic, there’s no way they’d ever get back together.’”

“That was before I saw Mom tearing up over that old photo album, before you found an engagement ring in Dad’s room, and before we both saw them apologizing and crying and hugging last night.”

“True.” Luke smiled and said delightedly, “So I guess the making up phase is complete. Now, on to falling in love again.”

“Well, I don’t know. One single conversation isn’t going to magically fix everything that happened between them,” Leia pointed out.

“But you just said—”

“Okay, I think there’s still feelings there and I’m totally going to help you get them back together, but I’m still trying to be a little realistic.”

Luke huffed. “Fine, maybe they’ll need more than just the one conversation. But you can’t deny that it was a really good start.”

“It was,” agreed Leia. “Now we just need to set them up to spend more time alone together.”

The next few days were far less awkward than the first had been, now that the ice had been broken between all four of them. Padmé took another week off from work (“This is new. I always had to drag her away from her desk,” Anakin teased) and the family spent time walking around Boston, finding things to do outside of the city, or sometimes just sitting around at home chatting and getting to know each other.

Luke and Leia gave their parents the slip as often as they could without arousing suspicion (unbeknownst to them, both Anakin and Padmé had long since figured out exactly what they were up to), and on Wednesday, they found the perfect opportunity to advance their matchmaking scheme even further.

The four of them were getting ready to go out to dinner at one of Padmé’s and Luke’s favorite restaurants—or rather, Anakin and Padmé were getting ready. Luke and Leia had a different plan.

They knocked on Padmé’s door and came in when she gave them permission. She was still wearing the casual (well, casual by Padmé Amidala’s standards, at any rate) clothes she’d had on earlier that day, and she was standing in front of her open closet, frowning slightly. She turned to look at the twins. “Are you two almost ready?”

“Yep,” said Leia. “And so is Dad. He’s waiting downstairs.”

“Oh.” It could’ve just been Luke’s imagination, but he was pretty sure Padmé looked a little flustered. “Tell him I just need ten more minutes.”

“More like twenty,” Luke said under his breath. They turned to leave.

“Hold on a second.” The twins spun around once more and saw that Padmé was holding out two dresses, one blue and one black. “Which one do you like better?”

You mean, which one do we think Dad would like better, Luke thought, barely suppressing a smirk.

“Blue is Dad’s favorite color,” Leia told her slyly.

Padmé reddened and acted like she hadn’t heard—and came downstairs twenty minutes later wearing the blue dress. The twins exchanged knowing looks, and their smug grins only widened as they saw the way Anakin was pretending not to stare at her and the way Padmé was pretending not to notice. “All right,” she said. “Everyone ready?”

“Actually, something’s just come up,” said Luke, just as he and Leia had planned.

Anakin raised his eyebrows. “Something’s come up? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Han invited me and Leia over to his house for pizza and a movie.” That was actually true, but only because the twins had strongly suggested the idea to Han in the first place. “And I haven’t seen him since camp, ’cause I was in California and all, so I really want to go.”

“So do I,” Leia added. “Can we go? Please?”

“But I thought we were all going to dinner together as a family,” Anakin said, frowning.

“We’ve had dinner at home all together every night so far,” Luke pointed out. “And we can go to a restaurant tomorrow or the next day.”

“But I haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping yet, and there isn’t much food in the house for Dad and me to have for dinner,” said Padmé. She’d recently taken to referring to Anakin as “Dad” in front of the twins instead of the colder “your father,” which Luke and Leia found very promising.

“Well, you two can still go to the restaurant,” Leia said innocently. “I mean, now that you’re all dressed and ready, you might as well go, right?”

Both parents’ eyes narrowed, clearly catching on to the scheme, but after a few moments Padmé sighed, shrugged, and looked at Anakin. “I guess she has a point. Do you want to just go anyway?”

“Sure,” he replied, expression carefully neutral, not that that was fooling anyone. “You’ve been cooking for us all week, anyway.”

“Are you saying you don’t like my cooking? Because yours is pretty terrible, if I remember correctly.”

“It’s gotten much better, actually,” Anakin said defensively. “And that’s not what I meant. I’m saying you deserve to take a break and let someone else do the work.”

“Oh. Well,” said Padmé, looking mollified. She turned to the twins. “Do you need a ride to Han’s house?”

“No, Obi-Wan already said he could drive us.” Luke looked out the window. “Oh, look, he’s here! Bye! Have fun at dinner!”

And he and Leia bolted outside before either parent could say another word. They high-fived as soon as they’d gotten into Obi-Wan’s car. “I take it your cunning plot is working, then?” said Obi-Wan, looking both disapproving and amused.

“You can say that again,” said Luke. “They’re going out to dinner by themselves. They’re literally going on a date.”

Obi-Wan shook his head and pulled out into the street. “I can’t believe I let you two make me an accomplice in all this.”

“Oh, come on, Obi-Wan,” Leia said. “You were our only hope.”

Anakin and Padmé watched, bemused, as the front door slammed shut behind the twins. “Well, that was…interesting,” Padmé said. “Should we get going, too?”

“Okay.” Anakin followed her outside, and Padmé spent the entire cab ride to the restaurant trying to slow her heartbeat down. It’s just Anakin. You can handle one meal alone with him.

After being seated, they occupied themselves with studying the menu in silence, but once they’d placed their orders and the waiter had departed, Padmé figured she’d better get the conversation going. She was just casting about for something to say when Anakin suddenly said, “Hey, is that—?” He reached out and took hold of the necklace she was wearing, running his thumb over the small wooden pendant and smiling softly. “It’s the necklace I made you.”

Padmé flushed down to the roots of her hair. Why had she worn it? She’d known it would be too forward, that it would send a message she knew she shouldn’t send. It didn’t even match her outfit, either. And yet despite all that, she’d put it on as she was about to go downstairs that evening, before she had time to change her mind.

Seeming to notice her blush, Anakin reddened too, hastily dropping the necklace again and letting it swing back down to settle against her chest. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Padmé glanced down at the necklace, then back up at him with a shy smile. “It’s a beautiful necklace. I still can’t believe you made it yourself.”

He laughed. “Well, I’ve always been good with my hands, I guess.”

“I know,” Padmé blurted out before she could stop herself, and now both of their faces were the color of firetrucks and they were both coughing embarrassedly and taking quick swigs of wine.

“I made that for your birthday, right?” Anakin said after a minute, cheeks still rather pink.

“Yes,” Padmé said, seizing the conversation topic with relief. “It was my first birthday since we’d started dating, and you were getting deployed the next day.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Anakin’s smile turned a little sad. “It was the first time I was leaving you, wasn’t it? I remember I made it so—so you’d have something to remember me by. I was scared you’d find someone better while I was gone.”

“Would’ve been pretty hard to find someone who didn’t exist,” Padmé said softly. She cursed herself as soon as the words had left her mouth—even twelve years later, just being around Anakin made her blurt out things she knew she shouldn’t say—but the look on Anakin’s face made her think it might’ve been worth it.

“Hey,” Anakin said then, looking thoughtful. “Isn’t that breakfast place where we first met around here somewhere?”

“Yeah, it’s the next street over.” Padmé laughed. “I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was running late to my first day as an intern at the statehouse—”

“—and I was on summer break from the Air Force Academy,” Anakin recalled. “The summer before my last year. I think I was in Boston visiting a friend, and I was only supposed to stay a week—”

“—but you ended up staying all summer.”

“Well, how could I not, after I’d successfully managed to get the number of the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen?” He smiled, and Padmé blushed yet again. Honestly, it was ridiculous. She was a grown woman having a civilized dinner with her children’s father, not a schoolgirl with a silly crush. She needed to get ahold of herself.

“You weren’t so bad-looking yourself,” she teased. “That’s probably why I gave you my number, seeing as I’m usually not exactly thrilled when strange men ask for it.”

“But I didn’t ask for it,” Anakin said, eyes twinkling merrily. “I spent the entire conversation blushing and stuttering, and you were the one who took it upon yourself to write your number down on my napkin.”

“Oh yeah, I did, didn’t I? Well, someone had to take charge of the situation, and it clearly wasn’t going to be you. You were a mess.”

“I really was,” he agreed, and they both laughed.

There was hardly a break in the conversation after that, even once the food arrived. They talked about the past (reminiscing about the years they’d spent together and filling each other in on the ones they’d spent apart) and the present (discussing how perfectly Luke and Leia had turned out and marveling that they’d ended up finding each other at summer camp, of all places), but they diligently avoided any mention of the future and what it might bring. Padmé suddenly found herself wishing they had more time, wishing Anakin wouldn’t leave again in only four days.

After dinner, they decided to go for a walk instead of returning home, having received texts from the twins saying they were still at Han’s house. They ended up in Boston’s Public Garden, which had always been Padmé’s favorite part of the city. It was especially beautiful then, with all the flowers in full bloom and the backdrop of the city’s twinkling lights against the night sky.

“We came here on our first date,” she said to Anakin as they walked. “Remember?”

“How could I forget? We had a picnic right over there,” he said, pointing. “And I’d meant to buy you flowers, but I forgot, so I panicked and picked some here, even though I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to.”

Padmé laughed. “Yeah, probably not. But they were beautiful.”

They came to a halt on the bridge across the lagoon and took in the view. Anakin sighed. “I really do love it here,” he murmured.

Padmé thought back to the proposition that had been made on the first day, the proposition for which she’d hardly dared to let herself get her hopes up. “Do you think you and Leia will actually move here someday?”

Anakin considered the question for a while. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “It’s like I said before, I don’t want to uproot Leia like that and take her away from everything she knows. But she does seem to want to move, and it’d be nice for the four of us to live near each other. It would be good for the twins to spend more time together and with both of us, instead of just one of us.”

Something in Anakin’s expression made Padmé ask, “And what about you and me? Would it be good for us, too?”

“Well, I’d like to be closer to Luke.” He was gazing at her very intently now, and he added quietly, “And to you.”

Padmé’s heart was hammering at a million miles an hour, and they were standing much closer together than she’d realized, and the whole thing was bringing back yet another memory, and she stammered, “This was—this was where we had our first kiss.”

Spoken so softly it was almost inaudible: “I remember.”

Anakin’s hands, one warm and one cold, came up to cup her face, and Padmé’s eyes instinctively fluttered shut as he leaned forward ever so slightly and brushed his lips against hers. She rested her hands on his chest and melted into the touch, kissing him back and reveling in how good it felt, how familiar, how right—

Padmé jerked backwards, heart pounding. “S-sorry,” she managed. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

She tried not to look at the hurt, confusion, and disappointment mixing in Anakin’s expression. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “That was—that was stupid. Let’s just—” He cleared his throat. “Let’s just forget it happened.”

“Yes. Good idea.” And now Padmé was clearing her throat, too, hating the heavy awkwardness that had replaced the previous easy, comfortable atmosphere between them. “We should head back. Luke and Leia will probably be home soon.”

Once again, Padmé spent the entire cab ride trying to calm herself down, though this time she also glued herself to her phone and pretended to be very busy despite not having any new messages. Upon their arrival, they waved off the twins’ questions about how their evening had been and instead insisted they tell them every detail of their evening with Han. Anakin left for his hotel as soon as Luke and Leia announced they were going to bed, and Padmé went upstairs to her own bedroom. As she snuggled under the covers, she tried not to remember how it had felt, once upon a time, to lie in bed with Anakin’s arms around her, holding her and keeping her warm.

Luke and Leia had both thought they sensed some kind of tension between their parents following their evening alone together, but all traces of it were gone the next day, so they dismissed it as nothing. “It’s Thursday,” Leia said that night, “and Dad and I are leaving on Sunday. We need to kick our plan into high gear.”

“Agreed,” said Luke. “What should we do?”

“I think it’s time to break out the ring.”

Luke’s eyes widened, and he went to fish Anakin’s box out from the top shelf of the closet, where he and Leia had hidden it the week before. “I say we just leave it somewhere, somewhere Mom will definitely find it—”

“And somewhere Dad won’t see it before she does.”

“Her bedroom, maybe?” Luke suggested. “We could just leave it on top of the bed. There’s no way she’d miss it, and Dad never goes in there so he won’t find it first.”

Leia nodded decisively. “Good idea. I think we should wait a few more days, though, just in case something else happens and we don’t need to use the ring after all.”

“Okay. How about on Saturday? Since it’s the last day.”

“Perfect.”

Chapter Text

Saturday morning, Padmé stepped out of the shower and slipped on a bathrobe before padding down the hall. She returned to her bedroom, shut the door, and was about to head towards the closet to select her outfit for the day when something caught her eye.

There was a small wooden box sitting on her bed. Padmé frowned; she was pretty sure it hadn’t been there when she’d left to take a shower, and she was also pretty sure she’d never seen it before in her life. Curious, she picked it up and opened it.

It was filled with decade-old photographs of the twins as babies, of her and Anakin happy and together. Padmé felt a few tears spring to her eyes as she looked through them, feeling just as overwhelmed with wistful nostalgia as she had when she’d showed Leia her old photo album. But the pictures weren’t the only things in there. She recognized ticket stubs from concerts and movies she and Anakin had gone to together. There was a brown, dried-out flower, and, remembering his reference to their first date a few days earlier, Padmé almost wondered if it was one of the flowers Anakin had illegally picked from the Public Garden that day.

Then she saw the napkin and let out a small noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. There it was, name and phone number scrawled hastily by someone who should have been at her internship ten minutes ago. Anakin had—Anakin had kept it? After all these years? He’d held onto that tiny scrap of memory from the day they’d met?

All things considered, Padmé was already emotional enough that she was nowhere near prepared for what awaited her underneath the napkin.

The ring was the only thing inside the box that was unfamiliar to her, and it knocked all the breath right out of her. Padmé could only stare at it, eyes wide, heart pounding. It was an engagement ring, there was no doubt about that. And there was also no doubt that it belonged to Anakin, seeing as everything else in the box was obviously his. But why did Anakin own an engagement ring? And why would he keep it in a box full of mementos of his relationship with Padmé?

Just then, she heard voices floating up from the front hall and realized Anakin must have arrived. With trembling hands, Padmé put everything back down on the bed and went out into the hall, stopping at the top of the stairs. “Anakin, could you come up here for a minute?” she called, doing her best to keep her voice steady.

Anakin gave a muffled affirmative, and a moment or two later he was coming up the stairs. “What’s up?” he asked. Almost immediately, his cheeks turned pink, and Padmé belatedly realized that she was still wearing nothing but a bathrobe. She was momentarily embarrassed, but then she turned her attention back to the issue at hand and beckoned Anakin into her bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind them so the twins wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop, as they’d no doubt try to.

Without further ado, she pointed to the box and all its contents strewn on top of the bed. More specifically, she pointed at the ring. “Explain this.”

All traces of Anakin’s blush vanished as he grew very pale. “I-I don’t—” he stammered. “How—where did you get this?”

“It was on my bed just now when I got out of the shower,” Padmé informed him. “I assume you must have put it there in some misguided attempt to—to rekindle our relationship or—”

“I didn’t. It wasn’t me, I swear. I only got here five minutes ago,” he pointed out. “And as far as I knew, this was still back in California. I have no idea how it could’ve—”

Both sets of eyes narrowed at the same time, and both parents said in unison, “The twins.”

“Luke must’ve found it when he was at my house,” said Anakin. “He must’ve brought it here with him, and then he and Leia left it out for you to find.”

“But why do you have it in the first place? Anakin, why—” Padmé swallowed. “Why do you have an engagement ring?”

He was staring at the floor, silent. “It was for you,” he mumbled at last.

“What?”

Anakin looked back up at her. “You remember the day of the accident? With—this?” He gestured at his right arm with his left hand.

“Of course I do.” It had been the most horrible, terrifying day of Padmé’s life. Seven months pregnant, getting a phone call from the hospital that Anakin had been in a serious car crash, hours spent waiting and not even knowing if he was going to survive, finally going to see him once he was out of surgery and seeing the empty space where the rest of his arm should have been, holding him and fruitlessly trying to comfort him while he sobbed until his throat was raw…

Padmé shoved the memories aside as Anakin opened his mouth to continue. “That day was…it should have gone so differently. You weren’t expecting me home for a couple more weeks, but they let me go on leave early, and I decided to drive home without telling you I was coming. I wanted to surprise you.” Padmé nodded; he’d told her that much after the fact.

“But that wasn’t the whole story,” Anakin admitted. “I—I’d bought that ring a while before, but I hadn’t seen you in person for a few months and I wasn’t about to propose over the phone. So I decided when I got home that night, I was going to take you out to dinner, and then we’d go for a walk, and we’d end up at our spot on the bridge in the gardens. And then I was finally going to ask you to marry me.” He closed his eyes briefly, looking pained. “It was supposed to be the best day of our lives. But instead, we spent the whole night in the emergency room.”

Padmé didn’t know what to say, which wasn’t a problem, seeing as she didn’t trust herself to speak without bursting into tears anyway. Anakin had wanted to marry her. And she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would have said yes. Would his jealousy of Obi-Wan still have reared its ugly head later on, or would all have been resolved? Right now, would they have been married for twelve years? Would they have raised both their children together and not missed out on a single moment of either twin’s life? Would they have been a family, all four of them?

She took several steadying breaths, tears stinging her eyes. When she finally managed to unstick her throat, Padmé said in a wobbly voice, “Why didn’t you—why didn’t you ask me later? After everything had settled down?”

Anakin shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know. After the accident, I was…I was in a bad place. I was angry, bitter, depressed.” Padmé remembered that all too well, the darkness that had clung to him despite all her efforts to chase it away. “I could barely even make myself get up in the morning,” Anakin continued in a low voice. “Marriage was the last thing on my mind. But I started getting better when the twins were born. It helped, I think, to have those—those two tiny, precious lives to care for.” His voice broke a little. “They distracted me from wallowing in self-pity all the time. They gave me a purpose again. Except by the time all the resentment from the accident had cleared up, it had just been replaced by resentment towards Obi-Wan, and towards—towards you, because I thought you preferred him over me. So then the fight happened, and I left, and I still had the ring because I’d never given it to you.”

Padmé sank down onto the bed, and a moment later Anakin slowly sat beside her. “So, you’re saying—” She cleared her throat and looked at him. “You’re saying we could’ve been—could’ve been so happy, but instead we lost it all just because we didn’t know how to communicate with each other properly?”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Guess so. Hindsight’s a bitch.”

They were quiet again, and another question was pressing on Padmé’s mind. A question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to. A question she thought she already did know the answer to. “Anakin,” she said softly, “why did you keep the ring all this time?”

Anakin stared at his hands for a long time. And then he finally lifted his head and looked at her, blue eyes shining with unshed tears. “Because I—I still love you, Padmé.”

The almost-whispered words sent Padmé’s head reeling and her heart racing. Anakin still—he still—after all this time—Anakin—she squeezed her eyes shut. “S-so what now? What do you expect me to say?” she asked shakily after several minutes. “You expect me to just—just fall into your arms? Like nothing ever happened? We can’t do this, Ani.”

Padmé heard a sharp intake of breath at the old nickname, and she opened her eyes again. “We can’t do this,” she repeated. “It’s been twelve years. We’ve both changed so much. We’re different people now. We hardly even know each other anymore.” Except that wasn’t quite true. Yes, Anakin was older, calmer, more mature, but underneath all the differences, he was still the same Anakin she’d always known, always loved. He was still her Anakin, even after twelve years.

“I know,” he said, and tears were starting to silently stream down his cheeks now. “I’m not saying we should—I just still love you, Padmé. That’s all I’m saying. I never stopped loving you. And I-I thought—the other night, on the bridge, I thought—”

“That was a mistake,” Padmé insisted, though she wasn’t sure which one of them she was trying to convince.

“Was it?” Anakin asked quietly, desperately. “What if we just—just tried? To start over, give us another chance? If we promise to communicate better, to never keep things from each other?”

“We can’t. We’re not twenty anymore, Anakin. We can’t just do whatever we want, there are consequences now. We’re adults with jobs and responsibilities and children—”

“Children who would probably love for us to get back together.”

“Children who would be devastated when we inevitably break up again, because if we couldn’t make it work the first time, why would we be able to do it now?” Padmé interrupted. “Us never being together at all would be a thousand times better for them than giving it a shot and failing. We’ve already spent enough time thinking about ourselves instead of them. We owe them this much.”

Anakin was making the familiar face that meant he knew she was right and hated it. “Fine. You’re right,” he said at last. “Just—just answer me one thing, and we’ll never talk about this again. Do you still love me?”

Padmé opened her mouth to say no, then closed it again. “It doesn’t matter,” she said instead. “This can’t happen, Ani. Not now, not ever. We missed our chance, and now it’s too late.”

The silence that followed was so absolute, Padmé thought it was a miracle Anakin couldn’t hear her heart breaking.

Then he took a shuddering breath, wiped his eyes, and stood. “I’m sorry, Padmé,” he said. “For everything. I’m sorry for everything I did back then, for ruining what we had. And I’m sorry for putting you in this position right now. You’re right. It’s impossible. I shouldn’t have said anything.” And he turned to walk out of the room.

I’m sorry too, Ani.

Just then, Padmé realized the box of mementos was still on the bed. “Wait,” she said. “You forgot all your things.”

Anakin stopped in his tracks and went back to gather everything up, but he left the ring. When Padmé held it out for him, he shook his head and said, “Keep it.”

She stared at him. “Anakin—”

“Look, I’m not saying—it doesn’t have to mean—just keep it, all right? It was meant for you, so I feel like you should have it. Please.”

When she saw the look on his face, Padmé’s protests died in her throat. She’d already hurt him enough that day. “Thank you,” she said softly, and Anakin nodded before leaving without another word.

Once he was gone, Padmé went over to her dressing table and picked up the carved wooden necklace. She unclasped it, slid the ring onto the string beside the pendant Anakin had made for her so many years ago, and fastened it again before hanging it back up. Then she shut the bedroom door once more so that no one would be able to hear as she flopped onto the bed and muffled her sobs in the pillow.

“They’ve been in there kind of a while. What do you think they’re talking about?” Luke asked hopefully. After they’d snuck upstairs, found Padmé’s door shut, and tried unsuccessfully to listen through it anyway, he and Leia had resignedly settled themselves in front of the TV (though the living room was across the hall from Padmé’s room, so they could still keep an eye out for when their parents emerged).

“I don’t know. Hopefully they’re figuring out how to get all me and Dad’s stuff over from California so all four of us can live here together,” Leia replied, grinning.

“Maybe they’re cancelling your flight tomorrow as we speak.”

“Maybe they’re enrolling me in your school.”

“Maybe they’re deciding what month would be the best for a wedding.”

“All right, I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself.”

“Hey, who knows? The ring’s right there. Maybe Dad is taking the opportunity and using it to propose to her.”

Leia laughed, and just then Padmé’s door opened and Anakin walked out, holding the box in his hand. He wandered into the living room, and Luke noticed in confusion that his eyes looked a little red and that the smile he gave them seemed forced. “Leia, are you all packed yet?” he asked.

The twins stared at him in horror. “Packed?” Leia echoed. “You mean, we’re still leaving tomorrow?”

“Of course we are. Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I—I just thought maybe—” Leia said, and at the same time Luke started to say, “But Mom—”

They both glanced down at the box, and Anakin noticed. He sighed. “I know what you two have been trying to do,” he told them, “and it’s very sweet, but it’s not going to happen. Everything between your mom and me is in the past, okay? So, please, just—just stop.” Seeing their crestfallen looks, Anakin strode over and hugged them both. “But we both love you so much, and that will never change. It’s better this way, I promise.” But the accompanying smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Luke and Leia said nothing and instead watched him glumly as he turned to leave. Anakin was almost out of the room when he looked over his shoulder and said sternly, “Also, I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from going through my things in the future.” He held up the box for emphasis.

“Sorry, Dad,” Luke said sheepishly. “But it was Leia’s idea.”

Leia glared at him. “Hey!”

Anakin chuckled and said, “I’m going downstairs to grab something to drink. Either of you want anything?”

They didn’t, and he was gone a moment later. “I can’t believe it didn’t work,” Luke said. “You’re—you’re really leaving tomorrow. I won’t see you or Dad again until Thanksgiving.”

“And I won’t see Mom until Christmas,” Leia murmured, eyes looking a little watery. She leaned over and enveloped her brother in a tight hug, their small sniffles masked by the sound of the TV.

Luke, Leia, Anakin, and Padmé were all in a somber mood for the rest of their last day together, though both parents tried to act upbeat for their children’s sake. They spent the afternoon and evening hanging around the house, and Anakin went back to his hotel that night to finish packing, while Leia went upstairs to do the same.

“I don’t want them to go, Mom,” Luke said softly when it was just him and Padmé left. As it had always been. As it would always be.

For a second he thought his mother was going to cry, but then she pulled him in for a hug. “I know, honey,” she replied. “But you can call and Skype all the time, and then Thanksgiving will be here before you know it.”

“But I’ll miss them. Won’t you miss them?”

“Of course I will. Two weeks with Leia can’t even begin to make up for twelve years apart.”

Luke looked up at her. “Won’t you miss Dad, too?” For, in all their plans of when they’d be able to see the twins, Anakin and Padmé hadn’t said anything about seeing each other again.

Padmé sighed and didn’t answer, merely hugged Luke tighter.

Boston had been hot and sunny all week, and the week before too according to Leia, and Luke bitterly thought that it was quite fitting that the rain chose Sunday morning to start pouring down. Anakin had stopped by the house to pick up Leia and say goodbye, and they were all gathered in the front hallway; Obi-Wan was there, as well.

Luke was unable to suppress a sob as he threw himself into Anakin’s arms, ignoring how soaked he was from having been out in the rain. Anakin squeezed him so tightly that Luke could hardly breathe, but he didn’t say a word of protest. “Don’t go,” Luke pleaded, voice muffled in Anakin’s shirt.

“We have to, Luke,” Anakin said; regretful didn’t even begin to describe his tone. “We have to go home. Leia and I are starting school and work again next week. But I’ll talk to you every single week, all right? I promise. Every single day if you want me to.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too. I’ll miss you so much.” Anakin planted a kiss on his forehead and made an attempt at a smile that Luke couldn’t have returned even if he’d wanted to. “But we’ll see each other again very soon. Thanksgiving’s only three months away.”

Beside them, Leia and Padmé were having a similar farewell, and both were teary-eyed when they finally drew apart. Luke moved to hug his sister, neither uttering a word because they simply didn’t know what to say. Out of the corner of his eye, Luke saw Anakin awkwardly extend his hand for Padmé to shake, but she ignored it and pulled him in for a hug instead.

“Maybe you can sneak on a plane and come visit us sometime before Thanksgiving,” Luke said at last.

The corners of Leia’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile. “Or you could do it. You’re the one who loves flying so much.”

Luke gave a watery chuckle and reluctantly stepped away from her. She and Anakin both hugged and said goodbye to Obi-Wan before gathering up Leia’s bags, saying one more round of goodbyes, and heading out into the rain. Luke moved to watch through the window as they loaded everything into the waiting cab and got inside. He started waving, and they both waved back as the cab pulled away until they turned a corner and were gone.

Luke remained at the window for a while longer, and he only turned around when he felt Obi-Wan gently lay a hand on his shoulder. Obi-Wan hugged him and murmured words of comfort that Luke barely even heard. When he disentangled himself from the embrace, Luke looked over towards Padmé and saw that she was standing frozen in place, staring unseeingly out the window. She had something clutched tightly in her hand, and Luke realized in surprise that it was the necklace Leia had remarked upon almost two weeks earlier. And hanging right beside the wooden pendant was the ring he’d found in Anakin’s room.

“Mom?” Luke said quietly. She made no indication that she’d heard, so he tried again, louder this time. “Mom?”

Padmé turned her head to look at him, drawing her eyebrows together. There were tears in her eyes. “Tell me honestly.” She looked between him and Obi-Wan, hesitated, then asked, “Am I making a mistake?”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Yes,” he said immediately. “Mom, they can’t go. Please.”

“I think the more accurate assessment is that you’re making the same mistake again,” said Obi-Wan. “You let them both go twelve years ago, Padmé. Don’t let it happen a second time.”

Padmé shut her eyes and took several deep breaths. Then her eyes snapped open again, and the sorrow had been replaced by a familiar fierce determination that Luke felt suited her much better. “Obi-Wan,” she said, “how quickly can you get us to the airport?”

Padmé Amidala had always considered herself a fairly sensible and composed person—which was why she was so hard-pressed to explain how she ended up in the passenger seat of a car careening (well, careening by Obi-Wan’s rather tame driving standards) through the streets of Boston on the way to stop the love of her life and their child from boarding a plane. The fact that it was still downpouring outside only added to the drama. Honestly, her life might as well have been a movie.

Although the movies don’t show what to do when you repeatedly get stuck in traffic while you’re trying to dramatically stop the love of your life and your child from boarding a plane, nor do they show what to do when you and your other child both forget your phones at home in the mad rush to leave and your friend’s phone is dead because he always forgets to charge it, so you can’t even send a quick text to either party at the airport asking them not to get on the plane.

“Ugh, come on, Obi-Wan,” Luke complained from the backseat. “We’re not going to make it in time!”

“I’m not going to go right through a red light, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Obi-Wan said. “Besides, their plane doesn’t leave for hours.”

“But we have to get there before they go through security, otherwise we won’t be able to get to them!”

“Well, worst case scenario, you and Padmé can buy last minute-plane tickets so that you’ll be able to go through security too and find them.”

Padmé hardly even listened to the exchange, so preoccupied was she with worrying for the millionth time that day (that week, that month, that year, the past twelve years) if she was making a mistake. All the reasons she’d given Anakin the day before about why they couldn’t be together were still valid…but so was the hollow ache that had bloomed in her chest as she’d stood there and watched him walk out the door yet again. Leia, too. Padmé was still getting to know her daughter; she wasn’t nearly ready to be separated from her again.

If they made it on time (which was a pretty big “if” at that point), what would she even say to Anakin? What was Padmé trying to accomplish by stopping them? Did she just want them to stay close by? Or did she want more? Did she want them to move in permanently with her and Luke? Did she want to raise both twins together with Anakin by her side? Did she want Anakin to hold her and kiss her the way he used to, to run his hands through her hair and gaze adoringly at her and tell her how beautiful she was and how much he loved her? Did she want him to say that everything would be all right, that they could work things out this time around, that they would never let anything come between them again, that their relationship wouldn’t jeopardize the twins’ stability because it wouldn’t fail or end?

Yes, she realized. All of the above. She wanted all of it. She wanted her family together. And she wanted Anakin.

It was a good thing Padmé worked that all out when she did, because they were pulling up to the entrance to the airport only five minutes later. Luke was out of the car almost as soon as it came to a halt. “Mom, come on, let’s go!” he shouted.

“I’ll go find a parking spot and I’ll wait there until you’re ready to leave,” Obi-Wan told her as she hastily unfastened her seatbelt. “Good luck in there.”

“Thanks for doing this,” Padmé said breathlessly, and then she climbed out, grabbed Luke’s hand to keep them from getting separated, and sprinted inside with him. She kept stumbling—of course she’d had to wear high heels that morning, even though it was raining outside. What had she been thinking?—so after a minute or two she stopped, yanked her shoes off, and carried them in her left hand as Luke dragged her along by her right. Eventually the shoes got knocked out of her hand when she bumped into someone, and Padmé simply couldn’t be bothered to go back for them, even though they were her favorite pair.

They ran through the terminal lobby towards the gate that Anakin and Leia’s plane would be taking off from. As they got closer, Padmé frantically searched the security line. It was quite long; maybe they hadn’t gone through yet? Where were they, where were they, where—

There, right at the front of the line, one group away from handing their boarding passes over for inspection and being permitted through security. “Dad!” Luke yelled. “Leia! Stop!”

“Anakin! Leia!” Padmé called, trying to make herself heard over the loud airport hubbub. “Wait!”

She and Luke moved as close as they could, still shouting Anakin and Leia’s names. They were starting to attract attention now, but Anakin and Leia hadn’t turned around. “Anakin!” Padmé cried desperately. “Don’t go! Ani, please!”

And then, finally, finally, he was turning around, gaping in shock when he saw Padmé and Luke there. Everyone else in the line had quieted down to watch the scene unfold, so Padmé heard clear as day when Anakin gasped, “Padmé? Luke? What are you—how—?”

“Dad, come on!” Leia interrupted, and she started pulling him back through the crowd towards them. A few people huffed in annoyance as they were jostled around, but most moved to let them past, looking highly interested.

Logically, Padmé should have realized that, seeing as Anakin and Leia were currently making their way over, she could’ve saved everything she had to say until they reached them and could talk more quietly (and more privately). But by that point, she was too hopped up on adrenaline to think of that, and so she found herself saying, loud and rushed, “I love you, Ani. I still love you.” This drew gasps from the onlookers, and Anakin stumbled slightly, eyes widening. Leia looked astonished, too, but she tugged him onwards.

“And I don’t want you to go,” Padmé continued. “Not again. I want the four of us to be together as a family, the way we should’ve been all along. I never should’ve let you go the first time, and I’ll be damned if I do it again. Ani, I—I want to give us another shot.”

Almost as soon as the words had left her mouth, Anakin and Leia cleared the security line at last, and then Anakin was running towards her and sweeping her into his arms and twirling her around and Padmé was laughing and feeling like a twenty-something-year-old again. And then he set her back down on the ground and his lips were on hers, and Padmé was pretty sure she heard the surrounding crowd cheering and applauding, but she didn’t care because Anakin was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and they were both crying and smiling against each other’s mouths, and she never wanted the moment to end.

It did end, of course, but they still clung to each other, his arms around her waist, hers around his neck. Their foreheads were resting against each other, and Padmé moved her hands up to brush away his tears, leaving them resting on his cheeks afterwards as she savored the feeling of his skin against hers.

“So are we not getting on the plane, or…?”

Anakin and Padmé finally tore their eyes away from each other and directed them at their thrilled-looking children instead. “I-I don’t know,” Anakin managed. His smile faded slightly (but only slightly) as he seemed to realize that they did, in fact, live in a real world. “I mean, school starts again next week. There’s no way we’d be able to get all moved and settled in time.” He glanced uncertainly back at Padmé. “That is, if you—if you even want us to—”

“Yes,” she cut him off, smiling. “I want you two to come live with us.”

“So do I,” Luke piped up.

“Me too,” said Leia.

“Maybe it’s rushing things,” Padmé continued, “but we’ve wasted twelve years, and I just—I don’t want to wait any longer. I want the four of us to live together. I want us to be a family.”

Anakin beamed so brightly it almost made her dizzy. “Me too,” he said, and then he was kissing her again.

The twins exchanged a grin and a high-five. “Looks like our plan worked after all,” Leia said.

“I think you mean my plan.”

“Whatever.”

“I bet this’ll be all over the internet pretty soon,” Luke said a moment later, snickering.

Leia looked at him in confusion. “Why would it be? Why would anyone care?”

“Mom’s a U.S. senator, remember? And she’s usually much more dignified than this.”