*****
Reasons Why
2001 Angelia Sparrow
*****

Leia had cried herself to sleep in the big bed, alone. The children slept
fitfully, under Winter's unstinting supervision. Chewbacca paced the rooms,
his long stride eating half the floor at a step.

Han sat, unseeing on the sofa, a holocube in his hands. The hard part of
the day was behind them. He'd identified the body, made the funeral
arrangements, and comforted his wife. Now the hard part of their lives
could begin. Their lives, without Luke.

He looked at the holocube again. Something told him he didn't really want
to watch it, didn't really want to know. The whole death was strange.
There were no signs of violence, no struggle, not even the normal disarray
of sleep. Luke had been far too young for a heart attack or cerebral
accident. It was as if he had just lay down on his bed, and died. His body
had simply stopped working.

Chewbacca had handed him the holocube after the visit to the crematorium.
Leia had been a rock, unmoving, her face frozen as she went through the
arrangements. The children had been told the bare minimum, and after a
supper no one had felt much like eating, Jaina had curled up in his lap and
cried a little and Jace had done the same on Leia's. Only infant Anakin had
seemed at all unaffected. He was tense from the stress in the house, but an
unnatural calm still hovered over him. He cuddled in Winter's arms, twining
his pudgy fingers in her long white hair and staring solemnly past her left
shoulder.

Now the household slept, and he turned a cube over and over in his fingers.

*Will you play it?* Chewbacca asked.

"What's on it, Chewie?"

*What he thought you should hear.*

"I know that, ya big lug."

*Play it and know."

"All right, I will." Before he could think twice, he slammed the cube into a
viewer and activated it. He regretted the action almost immediately when
Luke appeared on the viewing platform.

"I'm sorry, Han." The holographic face contorted, pain, fear, sorrow, Han
couldn't tell. "I don't think it was supposed to end this way. I can't go
on. There is nothing, nothing except you and Leia, and that's not enough.
The purges were far more thorough than we thought. There are no Jedi. No
Force-sensitives. Not anywhere. I had hoped that your children might be,
but they are as normal as you and Leia are. I am the last relic of an era
long gone and have endured past my time.

"The more I think about it, the more I know I should never have survived
Endor. That would have been the most fitting. No more Jedi, no more Sith,
a universe free of both. Instead, I hung on, the last vestige of a dead
past. Dead inside, myself, since Endor, a shambling revenant, draining the
life and joy from those around me.

"You're getting ready to protest. Save your breath and time. You know as
well as I do it's true. How many fights have you had with Leia about my
constant presence? I selfishly clung to you two, when I should have let go
long ago. And I hope I haven't drained the life from your marriage.

"Take care of Leia. She'll need you more than ever. She's seen so much
death, but none of it has been this personal. There has never been a body
to dispose of, final ceremonies to be held, or any of that. Don't let her
skimp on them, either." The hologram gave the same wan smile that Han had
seen for years. It was a poor ghost of Luke's former happiness. "I don't
care for myself, but she will need the rituals for closure. She hasn't had
any of that, not with any of the deaths. Let her have it now.

"Love the children. Teach them to fly as recklessly as you do, to live with
the joyous abandon I lost. They will be fine people, leaders of the
Republic."

There was a pause, filled with the crackle of static, and Han waited for the
holo to start over. It didn't. Luke continued, his voice heavier, his face
even sadder.

"Chewbacca knows. He has known all along. Don't hold it against him. I
wouldn't let him warn you. Living so long, the one thing Wookiees
understand is when and how to die. He and I talked often, and he
understands more of the why than anyone ever will.

"It won't hurt. There's a self-destruct Force Sequence all Jedi learn. I
almost used it on Bepin, and I will use it now. All I have to do is lie
down, trip the Sequence, and wait. The end is painless and almost
instantaneous.

"I love you. I'm a coward, I couldn't say that if I ever had to see you
again. I know, I tried. I tried so many times. I've wanted you since the
moment I laid eyes on you in Mos Eisley. I never forgot Hoth, but you're
Leia's now, and I respected her claim. I just needed to tell you this last
thing. I love you. Remember that. And know I am always with you, and will
see you again. Good-bye, my brother, my love."

The holo winked out. Chewbacca took it from Han's unresisting hands and
crushed it, the only evidence, to powder. Then, he folded his partner and
friend into an embrace, and ignored the wetness on his fur.

*end*