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Chapter Text

The old, yellowing lights above Luke flicker as they begin to shut off with the sunrise. The rows of low-sitting bus station benches, wet with the dew from the late night-early morning fog, is the only thing keeping Luke from jumping up and sprinting away. On his left, his guitar case leans against the bench. It begins to slip, and Luke lets it fall and rest against his knee. On his right, Aunt Beru sits beside him quietly, her hands folded in her lap as she fiddles with the hem on the bottom of her sweater. Uncle Owen isn’t with them.

The greyhound bus for the nearly nine hour ride to Georgia State is getting ready to load up. Other passengers linger nearby, minding their own business, but none of them look like him. None of them are traveling with much else except for a duffle bag or a backpack. Luke’s suitcase, stuffed to the brim with his clothes and everything else he’ll need, sits sadly near the bus, waiting to be loaded up with the few other bags making the trip with them. He’s carrying his guitar onto the bus instead of loading it, too nervous about it potentially being damaged on the drive.

Beside him, Aunt Beru sighs heavily, “He would be here to see you off if he could. You know that.” She says quietly. Luke shrugs her promises off. He’d rather if he wasn’t. That he isn’t. Uncle Owen would spend the entire time waiting to board making snide remarks about Luke taking the guitar with him. And he doesn’t quite mind that his father isn’t here either. He doesn’t remember him enough to have any tether to him except for music anyway.

It doesn’t feel right without Ben here, though.

The intercom buzzes to life above them.

All passengers for Greyhound Bus 1-9-7-7, Cincinnati to Atlanta, may now begin boarding.

Aunt Beru sighs, and then she stands, slinging her small crossbody purse over her shoulder, “Come on then. You don’t want to be late.” She bends and picks up the guitar case, and then extends her other hand to Luke. He takes it, not hesitantly, but with the same enthusiasm as a lost child. Nervously. Curiously. Terrified.

“Aunt Beru… what if-“ he begins as he stands, but she shoves the guitar case into his hands and begins to pull him towards the bus. On the edge of the curb, with one of Luke’s feet on a step and the other still on the ground, she says firmly “You get to school… and you do good things, Luke. You’re destined for greatness. Don’t let your uncle sully your talents.”

Uncle Owen, for the better part of fourteen years, has been more than prickly about Luke playing the guitar. Aunt Beru has never said much, except for that she finds some of the songs he plays lovely, but this is the first time she’s encouraged him to keep playing. To play like it’s the thing he was born to do. Luke’s hands grip the leather strap of the hard guitar case tightly, and he drops it to hold it with only one hand at his side. The other goes around Aunt Beru’s shoulders, almost unexpectedly for both of them, as he murmurs “thank you” into her shoulder. 

He’s nineteen years old, yet Aunt Beru holds him with the same delicacy as she did when he was five. She kisses his cheek. Luke leans into it. She opens his hand, places something small in his palm, and then curls his hand around the small plastic item. Luke doesn’t dare open it in front of her.

When he boards, she lingers, a hand pressed over her heart as she waves goodbye slowly. And then she goes, long skirt swaying beneath her cardigan as she walks. Luke watches her exit the bus station alone, and then the bus lurches as their long drive begins. The plastic orange spaceship in his palm digs into his skin, but he clenches his fist harder in response to the pot holes as the bus pulls out onto the main road, the same shade of orange mixing with a hazy pink and blue sky above them.

✦✦✦

The very first time Luke Skywalker meets Han Solo, he’s been in Atlanta for three weeks, attending classes for two, and has played his guitar a total of once since arriving. On his first day, that is. It sits lonely, unplayed, in its case beneath his bed in his dorm room. His roommate, an enthusiastic and idealistic man named Dak, stays out late and comes home early, if at all. Luke finds that he prefers when Dak doesn’t come back until afternoon, and then crashes in bed fully clothed and sleeps until the next morning, when he drags himself out of bed and to class. 

It’s the first week of September when Dak convinces him to go out with him and his friends. He doesn’t say where they’re going, but he tells Luke to bring his guitar with him. When he pushes Luke through the front doors of a bar called Echo Base, it dawns on him what exactly is happening. On the further-most right wall of the bar, an employee in a shirt with the bar's logo on the back is setting up a small stage with a microphone. He pauses in his steps, frozen in place with his guitar strapped to his back. Dak’s hand lands on his back, “You alright?” He asks.

Luke swallows back what tastes eerily like bile, “Oh I don’t- I don’t play in front of people.” He shakes his head, but Dak raises an eyebrow and keeps a hold on Luke’s jacket, “You played in front of me, though?” “Yeah but I didn’t know you were awake. This is-” 

One of Dak’s friends, who he introduced as Isla, laughs quietly at Dak’s side. “Aw, Skywalker’s got stagefright.” She says quietly to the others behind her, and Lyle and Ibti hum and smile, but they don’t look at Luke. Dak rolls his eyes, “Don’t be an ass, Isla. If he doesn’t want to play, he doesn’t have to.”

Isla and the others slink away towards the bar, no doubt with their fake ID’s at the ready, while Dak snakes his arm around Luke’s shoulders. With his other hand, and pats Luke’s arm. “It’s cool if you don't want to play. My buddy Han didn't want to at first either, but he’s all gung-ho about it now. Who knows. Maybe you’ll get all brave.” He smiles, and it seems genuine but Luke doesn't know Dak well enough to tell what his real smile looks like.

It’s not that Luke has stage fright, like Isla said. It’s that, really, he doesn’t like to play in front of people at all. His father is what worries him. The last name and the physical likeness and the generational talent worries him. The 501st is as popular as The Beatles were— still are —and Luke wants nothing to do with the fame that drove his father to join what the media dubs as The 27-Club when Luke was only five years old.

In his bedroom on the farm, and his dorm room on camps, it’s not Anakin Skywalker’s legacy. It’s just Luke, and the guitar his father carried onto stage every night for half a decade. Of course, nobody around him needs to know that.

He slides into the group's booth beside Dak, his guitar leaning against the outside of the table. Lyle slides a glass of something clear across the table and into Luke’s space, and he takes it with hesitation. Two weeks into the school year, and he’s drinking illegally at a bar in a city he’s never been in with people he barely knows. Aunt Beru would kill him. 

Luke sighs, and then takes a sip anyway. It burns at the back of his throat, but he doesn’t cough or sputter. Across from him, Ibti knocks back her entire glass, and then she clears her throat. “You drink a lot, Luke?” She asks quietly. She’s the youngest of them all according to Dak, who had very quickly briefed Luke on all of his friends during the bus ride over. Luke shrugs his shoulders, but he keeps his eyes trained on the make-shift stage on the other side of the bar, “Snuck what I could get away with when I was back home.” He says, but he doesn’t supply anything more. Ibti sinks back into her seat.

Beside him, Dak raises his hand into the sky and calls out, “Han! Over here!”

The man who Luke assumes is Han begins to meander over, wearing a guitar case strapped to his shoulder. He’s much older than the rest of them, or rather he looks like it, and the vest he’s wearing is stained and ripped in places. Compared to the others in Dak’s group, he stands out like a sore thumb. Luke leans over to Dak and whispers “That’s your friend?”

Dak nods, but he grimaces too, “He’s… a character. You’ll like him.” But his tone sounds more like he means You’ll get along with him because you both play guitar .

When Han reaches them, he doesn’t sit right away, but places his guitar down right beside Luke’s. His eyes skip right over Luke as he greets the table, and he smiles with full teeth, “Hey Dak. Lyle. Ladies.” he winks, and Isla and Ibti roll their eyes and turn back to each other and laugh. Han slides into the booth beside Lyle, right across from Luke. He does not greet him, so Luke reaches out his hand, “I’m Luke.” he introduces himself. Han eyes him, tilts his head, and then nods once. “Han.” He says. He does not reach to shake Luke’s hand.

The conversation slides to a halt between them then, and Luke desperately wishes he could just slip out of the bar and take one of the MARTA busses back to campus.

The first three people who take the stage, a pair of blonde girls that sing a drunken, acoustic rendition of Girl’s Just Want To Have Fun and a frat brother with a kazoo who butchers Elton John’s Piano Man, make Luke feel just a little bit less worried about it. The more he people-watches, the more drinks he sees being tipped back while rhythmless performers try their very hardest to garner applause from the bored patrons.

When the employee running the whole thing gets up to the microphone and tiredly says “Next up: One of our regulars. Han Solo.” Han winks at the table and stands up with his guitar, even when the audience gives a half-motivated round of applause as he strolls to the stage. His old and weathered acoustic guitar still has a shine to it when he pulls it from the soft Fender-branded case, and he holds it delicately. Like it’s the dearest thing in the world to him.

The first few notes begin to ring out, but it isn’t until Han begins to sing that he realizes what the song is. It’s an old country song, one that Luke recognizes from the radio in his uncle's old and half-broken down pickup truck. One that would play in the early mornings when the sun was barely up while Luke raced down the empty roads towards school with the windows rolled all the way down.

And you could have it all

My empire of dirt

I will let you down

I will make you hurt

Han croons into the microphone. He doesn’t have a stunningly unique voice, but he plucks out chords like he’s been playing this song since birth. Luke thinks that he’s old enough to possibly have been playing it since Luke’s birth. For the first time since the night began, people are paying attention to the stage. An older man at the bar smiles and nods and raises his glass of jack as Han finishes out the song.

Luke watches, intensity in his stare, as the house lights come back on. He hadn’t even noticed that they had gone down.

The same dead-voiced employee creeps up onto the stage once again, but this time there’s a shine to his eyes as he clears his throat. “Incredible, as always. Next up, we’ve got a new face joining us. Please welcome, Luke Skywalker.”

Luke freezes, once again. His shoulders tense, but his face burns the same as it did right after his first kiss. A hand lands on his shoulder and a voice goes in one ear and out the other, but Luke can’t exactly comprehend who it is that’s pushing him up out of the booth. When Dak spins him around to face him and thrusts his guitar case into his hands, Luke finally swallows the hard lump in his throat and pushes out the words, “I can’t play!” 

Dak squints, “What’re you talking about? Yes you can! I’ve heard you!” “No. No, Dak that was- that was different. I haven’t played in front of people since-” he hesitates, “in a long ass time, alright? I don’t have anything prepared! And I haven’t even practiced.” His knuckles are white on the handle of his guitar case, but Dak pries his fingers apart and begins to unbuckle the locks himself. 

“Luke,” he begins, “I’ve heard you play. You’re good, without the practice or the preparation. That’s why you're at school right? For music? You’ll be fine.” He wraps Luke’s guitar strap around his shoulder, wrestling to fit the instrument against Luke’s chest. “You can’t say you can’t do it unless you try, man.”

Then he spins Luke around by the shoulders and pushes him towards the small stage.

The crowd, from the stage, looks so empty. Luke’s precious electric guitar is the only grounding he has in his hands while one of the employees plugs his guitar into an amp at the side of the stage. He stares, for a moment, while the empty bar stares back at him. It feels like a scene from a musical comedy, except that Luke is living in it and he feels sick to his stomach. 

Instinctually, he plucks out the first three chords that come to mind. Stupidly, it’s one of his dad’s songs.

Dogma is a song about an old friend , his dad used to say whenever he was introducing the song through the blinding lights above a stage while holding the same guitar that Luke is cradling now, who enlisted in the military right out of high school. I never heard from him again. We used to call him Dogma, ‘cause he was the type of person who believed in everything. Religion. Fate. Fortune Tellers at Coney Island. He always followed everyone else's orders, but never his own. I think if I could go back, treat him a bit better than I did, maybe he wouldn’t have gone. Maybe he wouldn’t have disappeared.

Luke closes his eyes as he sings, reciting the words that used to play on the radio in the winter evenings for years after his dads death.

Maybe he knows what he’s doing

Maybe he’s sick in the head

Someone in my past life

Who said he’d always be ahead

Someone at a landline

Who said he’d have a gun right at the head

Someone who shut off lamp-lights

With his eyes shut, facing ahead

It comes more naturally than breathing to Luke. The dig of the strings. The drag in his chest during the bridge. The chorus that he’s memorized over and over again, tying tiny pieces of his father to him without really knowing him at all. He’s glad, at the very least, that Anakin was more widely known by his stage name. Darth Vader, the darkly-dressed lead singer of an entire country's favorite band, wrote about most things. Those things mostly happened to be grief and death and a twisted kind of love that Luke has never had to experience, but occasionally, they had lighter songs. Songs that played on the radio during summer. Songs that you couldn’t possibly escape if you were out in public, because they were just too damn good to not be played when the sun was out and the weather was a sweltering eighty-five.

He opens his eyes to whistling, through a genuine and thick round of applause, as Dak stands in his seat. He hollers out to Luke, who hastily unplugs his guitar and barrels off of the stage. He nearly trips over a bundle of wires, but quickly composes himself in front of a group of girls who continue to applaud with grins on their seemingly identical faces. He smiles in response, but very quickly hurries back to his table. 

“I knew you had it in you!” Dak throws an arm around Luke’s shoulders, but Luke shoves him off as he shoves his guitar back into the case.

He pushes his way through the swarm of empty chairs, Dak hot on his heels as Luke high tails it out of the bar. “Luke!” Dak calls behind him, “Luke, where are you going!”

“Back to campus. I can’t believe you’d do that! I told you that I can’t play in front of people.” Luke says, but he doesn’t turn around, just continues walking down the street. Behind him, Dak scoffs, “But you can! We all just watched you play that sad ass song and slaughter it!” 

“That’s not the point!” Luke spins on his heel, his face white and flushed, “I don’t play in front of other people! I told you I don’t, and you totally disregarded that! It’s not that I can’t. It’s that I don’t want to! That was a dick move!” He feels spit shoot from behind his teeth, and maybe it hits Dak in the face, but Luke is too angry to care at all. He pushes Dak’s shoulder back, and Dak stumbles but he doesn’t fall. He doesn’t say anything at all.

Luke spins again, hoisting his guitar closer against his chest. Behind him, but farther away, Dak calls out, “The next bus isn’t for another half-hour!” “Then I’ll wait!” Luke yells over his shoulder.

He stomps his way through downtown Atlanta, ducking under street lights until he makes it to the empty bus station. He’s still not an expert on the transport system here, but he knows he needs to take the bus all the way to the Five Points stop, and reboard to the university's stop. The light above it reminds him of the light at the bus station all the way back in Cleveland, flickering and yellow. He hugs his guitar close to his chest as he sits himself down on the paint-flaking metal bench. He doesn’t feel unsafe in Atlanta, but he doesn't feel up to defending himself right now if he absolutely has to.

When hard footsteps fall behind him though, Luke feels his shoulders tense on instinct. He clutches the handle of his case, and peers over his shoulder and whoever it is coming up behind him. 

“You should’ve probably stayed with us.” Han says, hitching his soft acoustic case up high on his back, hands gripping the woven straps. Luke makes a harsh noise in the back of his throat, “Did you really follow me all the way out here?” He asks. 

Han chuckles, “No. I didn’t drive here. I’m taking this bus home.”

“Oh. Well now I feel like an idiot.”

“Don’t.”

Han lets out a long sigh, and then he steals the spot beside Luke on the bench, guitar still on his back. He leans against it, pressing it against the back of the glass wall surrounding the station. Luke winces as Han leans back, but he says nothing.

They sit in an uncomfortable silence. One that’s usually reserved for after funerals and car trips home from the police station. Luke has experience in both, but it’s nothing he’s willing to say to this near-stranger.

“You were good.” Han finally says, when five minutes have passed without a word spoken between them. Luke slides his eyes over to Han, but he doesn’t give the other man the satisfaction of gaining all of his attention. He shrugs instead and hums, “Not as good as you were. You had that old guy at the bar crying into his drink.”

Han scoffs, arms crossed across his chest, “Who? Charlie? He cries o’er everything and anything since his wife left. You could pass him a napkin and he’d cry. No. You got a gift, kid. I mean it.”

Luke wants to thank him, and tell him that he got it from his dad. That Anakin Skywalker was his father, and he passed both his guitar and his talent down to his only child, but the words don’t dare raise past the bile at the bottom of his throat. He fears he’d throw up with them. Instead, he nods and hums in thanks. Han keeps up, though, “That your song?” He asks.

This finally garners a reaction out of Luke, who wrinkles his brows tightly, “What? No. That was Dogma.” “That was what?” “Dogma. By The 501st, They were huge in the 90’s. You’ve never heard it?”

Han is the one who shrugs this time, and he shakes his head with a frown, “They English or something? I’ll tell you, I don’t listen to much o’ that-” “No. No not in the slightest. They were from California.”

“Oh.” Han says quietly, and then he sits up, “They know how to write a song, I’ll give ‘em that. I doubt the real version is as good as what you were playing up there, though.”

The fight on Luke’s tongue dies with Han’s words, and with the squeal of their bus. Han stands abruptly, and heads towards the doors, not waiting for Luke or his response.

Luke follows quickly, it’s what he does best these days, but he doesn’t sit beside Han when he boards. Instead he walks past the man, and sits four rows behind him, leant against the window. Han doesn’t turn back to look at him once, obviously done with the conversation, but Luke replays it in his head the entire way to the Five Corners stop. He thinks, mostly, about the last thing Han said. About how he’d played it, rather than what he’d played. Most people stop looking when they hear the opening line to Dogma. They don’t hear the pitched up tempo from the live version of the song. The quickened bridge, and the dramatic pauses between the chorus’ and the verses that only Anakin Skywalker knew how to play. The way he played in the only live album the band ever put out. Luke’s favorite album they ever put out.

He has to convince himself he’s not as much like his dad as the world believes him to be, without even knowing him.

Luke feels sick to the stomach as the bus jumps over every pothole in Atlanta.

✦✦✦

The second time Luke meets Han Solo, it’s been one month and it’s of his own volition. He goes back to Echo Base, without his guitar and without his roommate, during the next open mic night and sits in the same booth they sat in the last time. He watches as Han croons out another oldie, one that Luke doesn’t know, but he whistles and claps at the end anyway. It at least gets Han’s attention.

Han slides into the booth across from Luke, “No guitar?” “I’m not playing. Just… wanted to talk.” Luke leans back into the vinyl covered foam, and Han chuckles. “You wanted to talk, so you showed up at the bar I’m a regular at and cornered me. Who are you? Greedo?”

Luke cocks his head, “Who?” but Han shakes his head and says “Nevermind.”

A waitress sets down a beer in front of Han, but Luke waves his hand when she asks if he wants anything. The chattering around them begins again, but Luke pays them no mind. “Listen. You’re good, and I’m- I want to know how to play in front of people like that.” He says quickly, breath stolen from his lungs as he hurries to say his peace. Han lowers his beer with one eyebrow raised, “You want… help? From me?” He chuckles again, in a way that makes Luke want to sputter until the heat on his face dissipates. 

Instead, he rolls his eyes, “Nevermind. Forget I asked. This was a waste.” he says as he begins to slide out of the booth, but Han drops the beer down and says “Wait. Wait , kid.”

Luke pauses, and then he slides back into his seat.

“What exactly do you need? Cause I know it's not a mentor.”

“Just someone to play alongside. To get used to playing around other people.”

There’s a shared silence between them, and Luke is beginning to notice that they share a lot of those. Finally, after what feels like a decade, Han nods. And then he asks “You didn’t have many friends did you, kid?”

Luke rolls his eyes in response.

✦✦✦

Luke Skywalker is seven years old when he meets Biggs Darklighter for the very first time. Biggs is eight and a half, only a year older, but he’s much braver than Luke has ever considered himself to be.

“You ever been to New York?” Biggs asks at recess one day, southern accent thick like molasses. It’s not uncommon here, and Luke might be the only one without it. Aunt Beru says that she can hear his dad– before stardom –in his voice. Luke doesn’t believe her.

Biggs is pulling his shirt over his bent knees. He pulls his arms into his shirt, and sinks his head down into it. To Luke he’s just a blob of shirt and boy. 

He copies Biggs, but his polo is too tight to draw his arms in, so Luke just wraps his arms around himself. “I think so. Dad and I went to a lot of places when I was a baby. But I haven’t gone on any vacations since I moved here.” 

One of the other kids sprints past them, yelling that another member of their class is “it”. Neither Luke or Biggs really like running and playing in the same way the other kids do. They had met at this very picnic bench, Biggs sitting down next to him with a sketchbook and a bag of colored pencils. They hadn’t spoken until the bell rang, when Biggs had grinned and said thank you for letting me sit with you .

They did that a few more times before Luke had ever said a word back to him.

From his seat next to him, Biggs peers over with his head tilted to the side, “Mom said that if your aunt and uncle are okay with it, maybe you could come with us to New York in the summer.”

Luke perks his head up, dropping his feet onto either side of the bench as his stretched-out shirt snaps off of his knees, “Why are you going to New York?” He asks, trying desperately to hide the excitement in his throat. Biggs is older, and he has more friends in other classes, and Luke would never want him to think that he’s not cool enough to be friends with.

Biggs sighs, and then covers his head fully with his shirt, “My dad. We go see him for a few weeks every summer.” His voice is muffled through the cloth, but Luke can still hear the distaste in his voice. Luke knows that Biggs’ parents got divorced when he was younger, and that his dad got married to his step-mom last year. Now they have a new baby, and Biggs had spent a week telling Luke all about how he wasn’t excited for his new sister.

“I’ll ask Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru if I can.” He turns towards Biggs’ sketchbook, eyeing the colored tall skyscrapers and the pair of people drawn in between them. He thinks it could be Biggs and his brother. He thinks it could be Biggs and him too.

At his side, Biggs hums. He finally pokes his head up, but then he lays it on top of his knees. Luke can see his arms through his stretched out shirt, “Please come. I don’t want to go alone.”

✦✦✦

“You have got to meet this guitarist that I know.” Han tells Luke two weeks into their friendship (Luke calls it such, but he’s not sure that Han would voice the same opinion), while he tunes his guitar. “She’s great. And a real spitfire.” He laughs, heartily and in-tune with the strings of his own guitar as they reverberate.

Han’s apartment is their go-to meeting spot. Luke hasn’t spoken to Dak much, except for in passing, and the space they share is now tainted by the knowledge that Dak exploited the talent that Luke shared with him. Han’s apartment has dirty walls that are half-covered by framed posters of old country artists. The space on one of the walls is filled by a long bookshelf filled with record sleeves that are falling apart, collected from bargain bin sales and being dumped by record-stores, but that still crackle to life on the old record player set up on top of it.

For everything that Han Solo is worth– which is very little –he cares about music. Possibly more than himself.

It’s an adjustment for Luke, at the very least, to have Han not only listening to him play, but playing alongside him. It isn’t much of a learning curve when it comes to playing with Han, though. Luke begins, picking a song they both surely know, and playing until Han joins in on the chorus or the second verse. Neither of them sing. Han won't say why he doesn’t, but Luke knows why he won’t himself. It’s different when he’s imitating a legend, versus just being himself, even if it’s only to Han. Han, who has no idea who Anakin Skywalker is.

Still, he won’t take the risk, especially when he agrees to let Han’s guitarist friend join them.

Her name is Leia. Luke is obsessed with her near-immediately.

The moment she walks into Han’s dingy-apartment, she stands out. Her long hair is braided perfectly, curled around into a pretty pattern on the back of her head. Her pleated white skirt brushes the floor, and she holds it up above her ankles while she steps over the too-tall door jam into the apartment, a hard-shelled guitar case strapped to her back with vinyl straps. 

Han likes her. Luke can tell by the way that he fumbles to put away the mail stacked high by the door and wipes up dust with his jacket sleeve.

Before he can even introduce himself, Han is doing it for him. “Leia. This is Luke. He’s a friend. And a guitarist, too. He’s pretty great.” The words seem to fall from his tongue unceremoniously, but Leia doesn’t seem to pay him much mind. She smiles at Luke, instead, and then extends her hand. “Han told me you’re not from around here.” She says, and Luke can hear a kindness in her voice that he’s not used to hearing. He knows virtually nothing about her, yet he wants to talk with her for hours already.

Luke hesitates, and then nods as he takes her hand for one single shake. “I’m from Ohio, actually. I’m here for college.” “Oh! You go to GSU?” 

When Luke nods, she grins again, “I have another friend who goes there. He actually plays the bass.” She says it like it’s nothing. For a very long time, Luke was the only musician he knew. There’s not many of those in Ohio, and if he ever needed to fix something more than his strings, it would mean driving hours to Findlay. Now, he knows two other musicians. Possibly more if he sticks with Han and Leia.

“So, what’re we playing?” She asks when she lets go of Luke’s hand, pulling her guitar off of her back and laying it flat on the back of Han’s couch. The custom-looking squire jazzmaster that she pulls out of the case makes Luke’s old epiphone look cheap in comparison. 

Han, who’s been mostly quiet since Leia turned her attention towards Luke, finally speaks up. “We haven’t decided yet. Any suggestions?” 

Leia sits on the circular ottoman that's covered with a patchy-blanket and thinks for a second, “Do you guys know any Nirvana?” She asks. It catches Luke by surprise. He would’ve expected something more along the lines of The Beatles, but when Leia begins to pluck out the opening chords to Come As You Are , Luke sits down and plays with her.

They don’t speak, or sing, for the entire song. Leia whispers the lyrics, if only for herself, but Luke expects Han to take over the lyrics. He doesn’t, instead he sinks into the back of his couch, picking at his guitar strings with his eyes shut, as if he’s desperately trying to remember the chords. Luke doesn’t have to remember them, it’s one of the songs he’s been playing for as long as he can remember.

It’s Leia who deviates, pulling into her own solo during the bridge of the song. If Luke knew her any better, he’d probably make a joke about showing off, but this is the one joke that Han doesn’t make at the end of the song. He just sits in silence, listening to the pull of her chords. They both do.

When she sets her guitar to the side, she sits up, “Beer?” She asks singularly.

Han rises to his feet without a word and goes to the kitchen, leaving Luke and Leia alone in the living room. “How long have you been playing?” She asks, kicking off the strappy sandals on her feet and pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged. Her skirt still falls over her legs, hiding them completely. Luke glances back at the kitchen nervously, but then removes his own guitar and lays it flat in his lap.

“Uhm… since I was a kid. Probably about thirteen.” He begins to say just as Han comes back into the room, three cold bottles in his hands. He passes one to Luke, who takes it just as something to hold in his hands to spite the nerves, “My neighbor taught me. He used to teach music a long time ago.” He waves off the question as well as he can, giving them an answer that's half of the actual truth. “What about you?”

Leia hums around the mouth of her bottle, and then lowers it, “Oh I- I taught myself. My parents didn’t want me to play, so I went behind their backs.” She grins wide, and then it falls. Luke won’t ask about it, as long as she doesn’t ask about his. Then, she leans forward, “Actually, I play a few things. My mom wanted me to play piano, so I took lessons for that too when I was a kid. Violin too, but it didn’t stick as well as guitar did.” 

She winks, and Luke feels the tip of his nose warm.

It takes three weeks of knowing Leia for Luke to realize that he likes her more than he likes Han. She doesn’t talk much about her life, and Luke is fine not to know because she doesn’t ask after his. All he really knows about her is that she grew up in New York and that her parents passed away only a few years ago. She’s incredibly radicalized, and the first time he goes out to a bar with her, the bouncer kicks them out after she throws her (illegally obtained) drink at the political debate being shown on the TV screen. She’s also got a grudge against The 501st, something Luke finds out the first time she hears him playing the chorus of Tribunal and groans. Luke is okay with it though, if it means that he doesn’t have to talk about that band ever again.

Above everything else though, Leia doesn’t take any shit from anyone.

It’s after a month of knowing her, of becoming close friends, that Leia introduces them to her bassist-friend, Wedge.

He’s nothing like Luke thought he’d be. He’s tall, with coarse black hair that's cropped like a soldiers, and he carries himself with the same kind of importance that Leia does. It becomes apparent to Luke within three minutes that he knows Wedge from somewhere, and it isn’t until the following Tuesday that he realizes from where.

He’s standing in the doorway to his Sound Engineering class, answering a text from Han, when Wedge walks into him.

“I knew I recognized you from somewhere.” Are the first words out of his mouth, and Wedge laughs with the same heartiness an old friend would give. He’s got a saddle bag settled on his hip, looped across his shoulders, and his sweater sleeves are pulled up to his elbows. If Luke had never met him before, or at least didn’t know he played an instrument, he’d assume he was just like anybody else. 

Luke does not feel just like anybody else when Wedge slings his arm around his shoulders and drags him to where he’s sitting towards the front of the lecture hall.

It’s not a sure thing, but they eventually graduate from Han’s tiny apartment to a music studio in the college's music hall. It’s the same kind of cramped as the apartment, but it’s sterilized. Cleaner than Han’s hasty cleaning jobs before anyone ever came over. There’s nothing there to distract them from their goal together, but Luke finds it hard anyway. He wants to write, and he wants to get the chance to play what he writes, but it disillusions him nonetheless.

He says as much to Wedge one day, while they sit outside beneath the building's pavilion, watching as the rain comes down around them. Wedge has a cigarette tucked between his lips, watching as the wind continues to blow out the flame on his lighter. He nearly gives up, so Luke takes it from him and turns his back from the wind. He’s never had so much as a puff from a cigarette– he couldn’t say the same for a joint –but he lights it effortlessly and hands it back without trying to steal a taste of the smoke for his own lungs.

Wedge grins gratefully.

“I just…” Luke waves his hand half-heartedly in the air as he goes back to what he was originally saying, “This is what I’ve always wanted. People. Music . But… I’m telling you Wedge, I have got nothing . Not even a line in the sand. I feel like- like-” He looks around, at the swirling puddles carrying dirt down into the drain near their feet.

“I feel kind of like a beach. The sand’s getting washed away with the tide.” 

At his side, Wedge chuckles. He takes another puff, and Luke watches as the smoke falls from his mouth as he speaks. “Keep talking like that, Luke, with all those metaphors in your head, and you’ll be one of the greatest songwriters of this generation.” He puffs again, and then with his cigarette still in his mouth, says “Or a poet. All Edgar Allen Poe or some shit.”

He stomps his cigarette down into the damp sidewalk, and then he turns back towards the building. “You coming?” He asks.

Luke sits, contemplates, and then he shakes his head. “In a minute. I’ll catch up.”

✦✦✦

“You know, guys…” Wedge says as he places a glass of Cognac down onto Han’s coffee table. He’s got a finer taste when it comes to alcohol, and had brought his own this time after Han had rolled his eyes and blown him off when Wedge had asked if he had anything but beer. “We have got three guitarists, a bassist, and no drummer. On top of that, none of us know how to mix or produce, so we’re kind of screwed in that department.”

Leia blows the smoke from her joint towards the ceiling. Han steals it from her and takes a drag, before sticking it back between her fingers. Luke sits in a chair on the other side of the room, a notebook tucked in between his thigh and the chair's armrest. He isn’t particularly paying attention, but what Wedge has to say makes it through his brain fog.

On the couch, Leia leans her head back over an armrest and props her feet up over Han’s legs. His face turns a bright maroon, but Leia doesn’t seem to notice it. Instead, she hums “And what do you want us to do about it, Wedge?” She rounds out her vowels like they’re physically in her mouth, talking around them rather than just spitting them out the way that Luke does. Luke likes her accent, the product of an East Coast socialite-type of raising. She’s high-class, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the way she’s sprawled out on a nappy couch with a joint in her hands.

“No. No, he’s right, Leia.” Luke sits up further in his seat, dragging his notebook with him. “We should- I mean we need a percussionist, right? That’s how the whole band thing works, right?” “We’re not a band-” Han begins, but Leia kicks him with her foot and he quiets almost immediately.

Wedge drinks down the rest of his Cognac, holding the glass between his fingers and thumb. Luke watches his eyes trace the design on the glass, and then Wedge meets Luke’s with his own. “I know a guy. A drummer. We work together actually. Thought maybe I could… invite him to a sesh sometime. See what happens.”

Unlike the rest of them, Wedge is actually employed. (For the most part, Han is too, but Luke wouldn’t count running illegal substances for work as a profession.) He’s the assistant manager at a music store in Downtown Atlanta, a place tucked into a street corner called The Academy. Luke’s heard stories about it, and the people he works with, but he’s never actually been in and makes no plans to ever go.

For a minute, Luke stays silent, allowing his companions to mull over their decision, but Leia seems lost in counting the bumps on the ceiling, and Han seems lost in staring at Leia’s intricate braid that falls over her shoulder. It’s after they say nothing that Luke nods, “Yeah. Bring him next time. I mean… if he’s down for it. We’ll see what he can do.” Wedge grins again, toothily as the bottoms of his sharp canines peek out from behind his lips, “Perfect.” He says singularly, and then stands up, leaving his glass on the coffee table. “Going for a smoke. You coming, Luke?” He asks.

Luke goes down to the stoop with him.

✦✦✦

Ezra Bridger is supposedly a damn good drummer.

Leia hates him before he can even get a word in.

“No.” She says, “Absolutely not.” She pulls her guitar strap off over her head and places it down onto her chair. In the doorway, Ezra seems startled, yet unsurprised. He hasn’t even said anything, but Leia pushes him out of the room and shuts the door, leaving the original four alone.

She looks at Wedge, “I’m not playing with him.” “Why the hell not?” Wedge asks. Beside him, Han stands and looks between them. “That was pretty harsh, princess. Why not give the guy a chance.”

Leia shakes her head, but the bundle of hair on the back of her head doesn’t move. “If I have to play with a bunch of boys , then it will not be that one. Literally anyone else, Wedge. You could have chosen anyone else.” She raises her hands, as if this a capricious act from God that could not be helped, and she’s the innocent target.

Wedge, for his part, looks between the three of them with a wrinkle in his brow. When he meets Luke’s eyes, Luke just shrugs. He doesn’t know what's wrong either. Leia laughs, like she’s disappointed, and shakes her head again. “You don’t get it. I will never work with Ezra Bridger ever again, and it won’t change even now.”

She grabs her guitar and her case, and doesn’t bother to pack her instrument away. Instead, she just leaves, harshly pushing the door open with her shoulder and stomping down the hall.

The boys linger, staring at the door as it swings shut.

“What was that about?” Luke asks, looking towards Han. He holds up his hands in defense, “How should I know?” “You’ve known her longer than us.” “Yeah, by three months. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Leia isn’t exactly forthcoming about her feelings or her personal life. Real door screwed shut type.”

And he isn’t wrong, Luke knows that, but he wants to believe that he knows Leia well enough now to know that this is out of character. Even for her.

After Leia leaves, Wedge promises to apologize to Ezra on at least Luke and Han’s behalf. Luke isn’t sure it’s a warranted apology if it isn’t from Leia herself, but he just nods and mumbles that he’ll check on Leia.

Luke has never been to Leia’s penthouse-apartment, a highrise way above Atlanta that overlooks the majority of downtown, but he’s been invited plenty of times. It’s not too hard to find, at least by looking up and peering at the opulent glass walls that look right into her living room from a birds eye view. He doesn’t know if she’s home, but it’s worth the risk of taking the rest of the afternoon off from practicing.

When Leia opens the door, she grumbles, but she doesn’t shut it on him. Instead, she pushes it open further and beckons him inside.

“If you’re here because you want to change my mind, the answer is no.” She says, heading for the kitchen. Luke has nothing to say, yet, because everything but the wind has been swept out of him. He could probably see the farm back home from this view, and her huge living room is decedent white, matching a white, marble fireplace. Perfect, it seems, for big city royalty. 

Leia pours herself a glass of red wine, and then a glass of water, and sets the water into Luke’s hand. “Alright, get on with it. Wow. You live here? I can’t believe I’ve never come up despite the numerous invitations. Why don’t we use this place to practice? How can she even afford this?” She says it all with a deep vibrato in her voice, obviously in an effort to emulate Luke, but it falls just short of amusing. 

She falls back onto her pristine looking couch, and buries her bare feet into the white fur carpet on the floor. Luke shrugs, because he can’t say he wasn’t thinking that.

“It is pretty nice up here.” He says, and then leaves it at that. Leia chuckles, “I didn’t pick out the decor. That was all my decorator. She said it needed to be pristine. Vogue pristine. Still don’t get what that means.” She swirls her glass, and a drop of red splashes out and spills onto a cushion. Leia lazily wipes at it, but does nothing to prevent it from staining.

Luke takes a seat on the accompanying ottoman, and Leia sets her glass down onto the floor. Luke holds his in a tight fist, afraid of dropping it and ruining her carpet. Leia doesn’t seem to care much.

“I didn’t… I didn’t come to change your mind. Well I mean- I mean I did, but not in the way you’re thinking.” He starts. Leia rolls her eyes, “Spit it out Skywalker. You’re already starting to bore me.”

Luke sighs, and he feels his shoulders fall further down than he would usually hold them. “I just… I don’t get why you vetoed Ezra so fast. You didn’t even let him get a word in.”

She groans, and swings her foot dangerously close to knocking over the wine glass. Luke winces. Leia pulls her knees up to her chest, “Because I know pretty boys like that. With the colored hair and the band t-shirts and the stupid I can do anything attitude. He’s not someone I want in my band.”

“Our band.” 

“Yeah. That too.”

She crosses her legs beneath her. Luke swallows a giant lump in his throat. “Do you know Ezra already? Is there a past there?”

Leia groans again, leans over to pick up her wine glass, and then stands and steps towards the kitchen. She polishes the last of the red off, and then places the glass on the counter, “I’m not talking about it.” 

“So there is a past.” Luke stands and follows her. He still hasn’t taken even a sip of his water, but he places his glass beside hers. Leia rolls her eyes once more and takes a step away, pulling her gray-colored cardigan tight around her front. For the first time since they met, her hair is down and covering her shoulders, and Luke notices just how long it actually is. “Jesus. Fuck off Luke.” “No. Because we need a drummer, and you won’t even tell me why you hate this poor guy so bad.”

“If I tell you, will you drop it?” “Yes.”

They stand in silence for a moment, staring at each other from across Leia’s kitchen. It takes them another silent, tense moment, before Leia finally says “Fine.”

She rubs her hands across her face, pinching at her temple before she says, “Ezra and I knew each other when we were in high school. We were sixteen when we joined the same band. He played drums, I played the keyboard, and we fucking hated each other. He said I was an uptight bitch, and I thought he was a childish buffoon. The band ended up breaking up because of it, and I never talked to any of them ever again.” She picks up the still-uncorked bottle of red and takes a swing straight from the bottle, “Happy now?”

Luke doesn’t know exactly what to say, so he says nothing. Leia sighs, “Now that you’ve prodded your way into my past, could you please go? I would like to be by myself tonight, and drink until I can’t remember this conversation.”

So Luke does what he’s asked, because he’s nothing if not a good rule follower. He and Leia are too similar, and too much unalike. He thinks it could be the death of them.

On his way out, Luke pauses. “I won’t tell them. Wedge and Han.” Your secret is safe with me , he wants to add, but it seems too cliche. Leia smiles tired in response, and then Luke shuts the door behind him.

✦✦✦

It starts slowly at first. Leia skips the next time they’re supposed to practice, and she won’t pick up any of their phone calls. It’s her attitude towards Han, and his returned sarcasm towards Leia, that takes the next brick out of the wall.

“No. No no no. You’ve got it all wrong!” Leia stops playing, and yanks the cord from Han’s guitar out of the amp abruptly. It gives a horrible whine, and then it dies out, but Luke covers his ears anyway. “It’s a B-flat after a C. You’re playing a D. It sounds wrong.”

Han scoffs, and snatches the cord back from out of her clenched fist, “Well I’m sorry I’m not sticking strictly to the book, honey. I think it sounds better this way.” There’s a smug smirk on his face, and he crosses his arms over the front of his guitar. Leia clenches her jaw, but she doesn’t retaliate physically. It doesn’t stop her from threatening to, at least, and she balls up her fists. “I could slap you right here and no one would tell me I’m in the wrong, you absolute man child. And don’t call me honey.”

Luke and Wedge can only watch in silent horror.

The third brick to fall comes when Han says that Leia should be delegated to keyboard, so he can stay as the lead guitarist. Leia loses her cool, and Han yells “I can’t do it anymore! She’s a stubborn, narcissistic know-it-all with a superiority complex! I quit!”

When he walks out, Leia mutters something about how the band wouldn’t even be a band without her. He flips her the bird and slams the door on his way out.

Leia goes home angry, and Luke drags Wedge to a bar that he knows doesn’t ID. He doesn’t drink much, and Wedge complains about the cheap whiskey being too diluted, but he passes Luke the glass after one sip and Luke savors the burn when he puts his lips to the glass and asks Wedge to grab two more.

Luke sets the glass down onto the table, and it clicks lightly against the resin-covered wooden table. Beside him, Wedge sits in the same nerve-racking silence that Luke feels in his chest. He’s the one who exhales first, and Luke eyes him curiously. Wedge opens his mouth, first like he’s going to say something, and then like he’s still searching for the words. His jaw twitches, and his eyes pass back and forth across the table, but they never land on Luke. 

“You want out too, don’t you?” Luke asks. It’s then that Wedge finally looks up at him, mouth still hanging open. He does close it, but only to lick his lips, and then it drops open again. Once again, he looks for words that don’t want to come out.

Beneath the table, Luke’s leg starts to shake.

“I like you guys.” Wedge says, “A lot. You’re some of the best friends I’ve ever made but… but this band is messy Luke. And it’s gonna be hard, and it just seems like-” “Like what? That we’re not putting the effort in? Like we’re- like we’re gonna crash before we even get the engine on?”

It’s not that Luke doesn’t think the same. He thinks Wedge is right, in more ways than one. He just doesn’t want to admit it. He doesn’t want to let go of the image in his head. An image of himself on the edge of a stage, a guitar held above his head, his friends standing beside him. An image that he’s let himself focus on for far too long.

But across from him, Wedge seems tired. He exhales, leans back in the booth, and the light reflects off of his thin framed glasses. Wedge doesn’t wear them often, at least not around Luke or the others, but Luke likes when he wears them. He looks softer, handsome even, when he’s wearing them. He doesn’t look quite like Wedge, the engineering student. Or Wedge, the musician. Or even like Wedge, his friend.

It reminds him of Biggs, in a way that he doesn’t quite get yet.

Now though, Wedge pulls his glasses off and rubs at his temple, and he goes right back to Wedge. Student. Musician. Friend.

Luke swallows the whiskey in his throat as it threatens to come back up.

Wedge chuckles lightly, and then he leans forward again. “I think… you’ll be great Luke. Don’t let anyone hold you down. Not with that brain. But I can’t put my heart into something that I don’t trust. That I can’t guarantee.”

When Luke says nothing back, only sinks back into his seat, Wedge stands to leave. There’s a frown on his face as he drops a twenty-dollar bill onto the table. It’s more than enough to cover three glasses of bottom shelf whiskey, but Luke doesn’t reject him. Despite the money he saved from working on the farm. Despite the deep pocketed savings and the money Beru sends every month. Despite scraping by, and trying so hard not to spend anything he doesn’t need, it’s starting to come up short. It might be why he wants this to work out so badly. It might be the only reason he’s still holding on.

Wedge lingers, fingers tapping lightly against the tabletop, just beside the bill. “Call me when you get that Grammy, yeah? I want to be able to say I knew you before you got famous.”

Luke doesn’t watch him leave, but he hears the bell above the door jingle as it shuts.

He stays for much longer than he should.

✦✦✦

“Please, Leia-”

“The answer is still no.” 

Luke’s hand props Leia’s apartment door open, even as she tugs on it to close the door. He doesn’t budge.

“Wedge is going to quit.” He says. 

Leia scoffs and tries to tug on the doorknob again, “No he’s not.” Luke blocks it again, “Yes he is. He told me last night that he doesn’t think this is going anywhere.”

It’s silent between them, if only for a minute that feels like an eternity, but Leia takes her hand away and crosses her arms in front of her chest. She stares silently, and then nods her head over her shoulder to invite him inside.

Luke is hesitant when he shuts the door behind him, but Leia turns and doesn’t look back at him. Instead, she moves across the room towards one of the big windows overlooking the city, her huge white shawl nearly brushing the floor. From just beside her, she must look like a queen overlooking her kingdom. From all the way across the penthouse, she looks so small. Luke has to remind himself that they’re the same age. They’ve lived for the same amount of time, and yet none at all.

He thinks of Aunt Beru at the bus station, hugging her nineteen year old nephew like he was five again. Luke doesn’t think Leia has anyone to hold her like that. Against what his first instinct is, he stays rooted in his place. Far, far away from his friend.

First he hesitates, shifting between the weight on each foot, and then he sighs. “He said we’re too messy. The fighting and the- the- well the one sided decisions. He wants something solid, and this feels like a waste of time… I guess.” He rubs one hand up the opposite arm, waiting for Leia to last out. To yell at him to get out. To prove Wedge and Han right.

Instead, she remains still and hangs her head. Her shoulders shake, not with sobs, but with defeat.

She shakes her head then, “I tried so hard. I just… It has to be perfect, Luke.”

When she turns, there’s water brimming at the bottom of her eyes and her cheeks are blotchy.  This time, Luke does move to her side. Her head falls to rest on his shoulder, and her arms come up around his neck. Luke has never been a great comforter, not to anyone else and certainly not to himself, but he hugs her back regardless.

“Why does it matter so much? We’re making music. We’re doing something we love. There’s gotta be a middle ground.” Luke whispers into her hair, another intricate weave of braids. Leia shakes her head against his shoulder, “Because people judge. They stare and they make assumptions when they see me. I’m not exactly… well, I’m not Han. I don’t fit in. But the music-” She leans back, and Luke can only see her splotchy cheeks through his own distracted eyes. He wants to look anywhere else but her eyes– a habit Luke remembers his father struggling with a lot in his last few months –but he tries to keep his eyes somewhat attached to her face.

She finally breaks away, hiding her face behind her hand, “The music. If they hear it first, then they just hear what I’m writing. They don’t know who I am. Just that I’m a damn good musician.”

Luke suddenly doesn’t want to be here, or having this conversation, but he swallows his stupid anxiety about the whole mess and tells himself that he has to get over it. He opens his mouth, feels the cold air from her penthouse stinging on his chapped lips, and nothing comes out.

Two whole minutes.

Luke counts the seconds as they pull and push past him. As Leia’s stifled cries begin to slow. As the unusual heat behind his eyes, pushing down to his throat, begins to finally fade into the blacklight.

Two whole minutes passes before he gains the courage to say, “What about Ezra?”

He knows it’s tricky territory, but he at least has to try.

And surprisingly, Leia doesn’t strike him down automatically. She turns her head to glance over her shoulder, wiping at her cheek with the sleeve of her shawl. She shakes her head, “What about Ezra?” 

There’s a terrifying moment of silence before Luke swallows his cowardice. “I think… if we invite him in. If we give him a chance to prove that he’s not the same as… whatever it was that he did to make you dislike him. Maybe then Wedge stays. Maybe we keep… this .”

He doesn’t know what he’s referring to when he says this , but he doesn’t think Leia does either. He’d rather keep it that way, truthfully.

Leia hesitates– Luke can see it in the way her shoulders tense and her fists ball –before she says anything else. And when she does, the shake in her voice is gone, instead replaced by the kind of fervor Luke hears in her songwriting. “Fine. We invite Ezra in. But we’re not bringing Han back.” She turns, “That’s my line in the sand.”

Luke, for what it’s worth, nods his head in agreement. He can feel himself breathe again.

Chapter Text

The first time Luke Skywalker meets Ezra Bridger, they should have already met before. He’s hesitant to come back, at least according to Wedge, but when they meet for the first time in one of the college's music rooms, he’s all smiles and dark hair that looks blue in the dying fluorescent lights. Every pair of drumsticks he pulls from his bag is wrapped in layers and layers of tape. Some are scribbled and painted on. Others look like they were hand-carved from the way they’re beginning to splinter and crack. Despite it, the old and used and cozy energy that surrounds Ezra like an aura, makes him feel young. Because he is. They all are. He’s fresh. He’s what they need– what Luke needs –to save this band.

While he’s playing a beat that he says he created, one of his sticks cracks down the middle and splits in two mid-bang. With the effortlessness of someone who’s been doing this for forty-years, he pulls the attention from the broken stick to the crash of his cymbals and snare at the same time that he motions for Wedge to toss him a new stick. He catches it one handed, and then ends his momentary interlude with a breakdown on the floor tom.

Luke thinks he catches Leia’s jaw-drop, but she quickly recovers herself if he sees it correctly.

The first time they actually play together, as a four-piece musical group with a clear goal, it’s while playing an original song that Ezra wrote the drum-beat for, which was “inspired” by a group that Ezra won’t stop talking about for the entire eighty-minutes they've known each other. Luke doesn’t catch their name, but he does catch something about their “super cool drummer” that he apparently looks up to a lot. Wedge rolls his eyes over the top of his bass, but Luke doesn’t ask. He, frankly, has other things on his mind.

Aunt Beru called this morning. She hasn’t before, at least not while he’s been in Atlanta. There have been sporadic text messages, and emails when she couldn’t quite figure out how to text, but they haven’t actually spoken yet.

Luke hasn’t had a chance to sit and chat.

He doesn’t know what her excuse is, but he’s willing to bet it’s partially Uncle Owen’s fault. Owen never liked technology on the farm. Not in a bad way, but in a “saving electricity” kind of way. A way that meant more of their electricity went towards the farm equipment. A way that meant that Luke was the only one who knew how to fix their machines and equipment when it started to malfunction. They only got a phone when he was in high school, and he only got his own cell phone after he got his first job that wasn’t working on the farm. 

But this morning Aunt Beru had called from the landline, and she’d asked about his classes and his roommate and had he made any new friends yet. The answers to those were good, Dak is fine but we don’t see each other much, and some.

He hasn’t been to any of his classes in two weeks, waking up late after late-night band practices and not entertained by the thought of walking into a lecture hall full of people, judging him for his tardiness.

Luke has seen Dak a few times since that night that they went to Echo Base, but they haven’t exactly spoken at all. They sleep, they wake up, they avoid each other, and they repeat it. Plus, most nights Dak is somewhere else, and sometimes if Luke is lucky, he wakes up on Leia’s plush couch with a blinding headache that means he won’t move until she makes him. 

He hasn’t told Aunt Beru about the band, simply because he’s scared. There’s no further reasoning except that he’s scared.

It’s all very complicated, and Luke is very tired.

Leia places her hand on his shoulder, while he’s midway through a run, and it ends with a frantic surge of chords through his amp. The rest of the group are staring, and Luke feels heat in his nose again. “What?” He says, as stale as he possibly could. His fingers hurt from the dig of his guitar strings, but he doesn’t look down in fear of seeing the calluses ripped open.

“You alright? You seem kind of spacey.” She says quietly, not quite under her breath, but as if she’s trying to give him some semblance of privacy. Except they’re in a 10x15 foot room, which eliminates most privacy anyways.

Luke shakes his head, and then her hand off of his shoulder. “Yeah. Sorry, just… long morning. Where were we?” 

“Done. We’re done with the song dude.” Ezra says from behind his drum hit, perched on the circular stool with his arms wrapped around his knees, sticks framing him in. Wedge has his eyebrows furrowed, in some kind of worry that Luke is too tired to actually place, but when he steps forward, Luke lets him place a hand on his shoulder in place of Leia’s. This one, he doesn’t shake away.

Instead, he closes his eyes, “Sorry. Probably a really shitty first impression.” He turns towards Ezra and peeks his eyes open, “‘M just tired, but I really liked that. I liked the shift from the chorus into the instrumental breakdown. What band did you say inspired that?” He asks, and as if everything that just happened never did, Ezra perks up and grins. 

“It was actually my dads band. Or well… he’s not my dad, but he’s the closest I have to one. He was my mentor when I was in high school, and he and his wife kind of adopted me.” And then he shakes his head and his hands at the same time, as if to put himself back on track, “But that’s beside the point. He was recording with this band when I first met him, and he always loved this one part in one of the songs they recorded but never released, so he never had any actual recording of the original demo but he remembered the breakdown and he taught it to me when I was still learning.”

Luke nods, and he leans on to one foot, putting more weight against Wedge than he’d like to admit, “So it’s like a legacy thing?”

Ezra contemplates, his head tilted, and then he nods. “I guess. Yeah. I used to use it in like… every song I wrote. But then I got better and realized that I needed to broaden my horizons, but it’s still great. You know, once I got a chance to play it for this band who was looking for a touring drummer-”

Admittedly, Luke zones out after this and misses most of the rest of the conversation. He finds himself a chair, and with his now-unplugged guitar cradled in his lap, he plucks out the chords to what he was just playing, trying hard to recall exactly what it was.

When Leia pulls up a chair beside him, he does his best to pretend he’s not feeling cornered. “Are you actually okay? Or are you doing that masking thing?” She asks, quietly again. Whispering actually, this time, so that the others don’t hear her. Luke looks at her from his peripherals, “What’re you talking about?”

Leia scoffs, and pulls her eyebrows tight together, lips rolled inside her mouth. Luke isn’t surprised that she figured it out, but he’s startled by how quickly it took. He sighs instead, “How do you even know what masking is?” he says back quietly. Leia raises her eyebrow in response, “Well I’m not dumb. You know, I did go to college.” “Yeah, for one semester.” “Yes. And in that semester, I took a psychology class, so…”

Luke rolls his eyes and looks back down at his guitar. “Are you diagnosing me then, doc?”

“Well no. But I’m pretty sure you’ve already heard that part from an actual doctor.” She says, once again with a whisper. Luke tries not to look at her, but it’s hard when she’s leaning down and into his space to meet his eyes. He shrugs, “When I was a kid, yeah. Doesn’t mean I’m not capable of doing this.”

Leia sits back up, and she snorts, and Luke finds it relieving for some reason, “Oh god. I know you are more than capable of this. Trust me, you’re probably more capable than I am, but that doesn’t mean you should be stressing yourself over it like this. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

This grabs his attention enough to actually look up, “Oh wow. That’s reassuring. Thanks.” It’s sarcasm, and frankly, Luke didn’t even know he was capable of sarcasm until he met Leia. Beside him, Leia grins and pulls her knees up to her chest, “You know what I mean. You should take a day off or something. It’s why you’ve been getting those headaches, right?”

And Luke doesn’t like to talk about his migraines, or the prescription sitting at a pharmacy across the city that he’s been avoiding picking up for three weeks, but Leia prods at the bits that Luke doesn’t talk about in the same way that he does to her. And yet somehow, they’re both breaking through to the other. He doesn’t answer her this time, but he knows she’s satisfied by his silence as an answer.

“I can’t just… take a day off. Not now that we have Ezra…” he looks over to where Ezra and Wedge are speaking, laughing quietly as Wedge plucks out a series of chords that Ezra matches with his drums. “Speaking of which, he’s pretty good, yeah?” 

Leia shrugs, “Definitely better than he was in high school. Wouldn’t say good though.” She says it with a smirk, but Luke knows she’s lying through her teeth. 

He laughs in response and grins, “I think you're a fan.” “And I think you should shut up. And go sleep.” She shoves his shoulder, but stands to her feet, “I promise we won’t forget you while you're gone.”

✦✦✦

“I’ll stay. But-” Wedge hesitates, “But I need to know where this is going. What’s our end goal?”

Luke cocks his head in response, and Wedge places down his glass. This time, they’re huddled around Leia’s coffee table in her penthouse, Wedge and Leia on the couch, and Luke and Ezra on the floor across from them. Wedge clicks his tongue, “I mean like… are we aiming for an EP? An album? Eight albums? Global fame? What’s our plan?”

Ezra, who’s sprawled on his back with hands grabbing bunches of the fuzzy carpet as he stares at the ceiling, lifts his head slightly. “We can cross that bridge when we get to it.” He laughs to himself, over something that Luke obviously doesn’t understand. In response, Luke shakes his head, “I mean… I think every band's goal is an album. Maybe a pretty big fan base. Enough money from streaming and merch and tours to set ‘em up for life.”

From the couch, Leia hums, “I want everybody to know our names. That’s my end goal.”

Once again, Ezra holds up his hand into the air above him, “Technically, we don’t even have a name yet. Hera asked me the other day and I had to listen to her tell me that we had to have a name or we would never get signed.” Luke can’t see his eyes, but he’s sure that he rolls them based on the way his voice goes tight.

Leia leans back into the couch cushions, “What about… The Rebels?” She raises her eyebrows, and Luke does the same. Except his is in disbelief. Beside him, Ezra doesn't seem to hide the scoff that escapes him.

“Okay. Fine. Do you have anything better?” She prods, and Ezra rolls over and squirms until he's in the position to sit up on his knees. “The Ghosts.” He says, with the same bravado as he did when he was presenting himself as an available drummer. Ezra holds himself to a high standard, believe it or not, and Luke would be impressed if it wasn't occasionally annoying.

Wedge is the one who laughs this time, and when he’s done, he whistles, “ God no. Why does it have to be ‘The’ anything? I swear, we’re not gonna get anywhere with you two naming the songs.” He shakes his head, but his eyes slide to Luke, who meets them with his own.

He feels a headache forming in his ears, behind his face, above his throat. Wedge nods, “What about you? Got anything Luke?”

For what isn’t the first time in his life, but one of many, Luke feels breathless for no reason. He hesitates, clawing any semblance of an idea together before he can even try to speak. When he opens his mouth, the words he forms are not those that he would’ve ever thought up on his own. “New Hope.” He says.

Across from him, Leia says the words to herself, testing the weight of them in her mouth. Beside her, Wedge blinks and looks at his hands, folded in between his knees. Next to Luke, Ezra finally stops moving and settles onto the floor. The group is still, but Luke’s hands are shaky and clammy.

When Leia nods, Wedge does too. “I like it.” He says, “Feels… new. Fresh.”

Ezra chuckles. He doesn’t say why.

In his chest, Luke feels his pulse start to calm.

✦✦✦

Luke was never much of a writer in high school. He scribbled things sometimes, on ripped pieces of paper and sticky notes and shoved them into the front cover of notebooks and folders, intent on using them one day but never actually going back to them. Everything he wrote, from the day he picked up a guitar and a pencil, felt like they belonged to someone else entirely. Every word he ever sang belonged to another band. Another writer. Another Skywalker.

Now that he’s in college, in a real band of his own, he can’t seem to get enough of writing. He scribbles and he breaks down old writings into new composition books, and he freestyles verses while Ezra plays the most basic in-time beat that he can, trying to help the pacing of Luke’s words at the very least.

Wedge is, essentially, the same as Luke. He scribbles and he dashes his t’s and churns out verses for any style of music while he works, but nothing really comes of it. He uses what he has on demos and chorus’ and the occasional bridge, but he says it takes time to become a great songwriter.

He still tells Luke that he’ll be the greatest songwriter there's ever been someday, in between puffs of cigarette smoke while hiding from cold, drizzling November rain. Luke uses his hands to warm his face, if only to pretend like it’s not for any other reason.

Of all of them, Leia writes the most. She stays in her penthouse on the days when they don’t have practice or when Wedge and Luke have class, and she disappears for a few hours or days until she has something new in the works. Luke hates it, because it means he can’t talk to her. He decides that it means nothing and tries to focus on his own work instead.

The only bad part about it all, they very quickly discover, is that they haven’t exactly established what genre of music they’re going to be making. When Han was here, it was always a mashup of old rock and even older country, but with Leia holding the reins these last few weeks, they’ve been playing more modern songs than anything. He wouldn’t be able to place a specific genre on it, but Luke thinks it classifies as some kind of indie-rock.

It doesn’t help that, despite at least one of them being a “classically trained” musician, none of them know how to read sheet music. Give Luke a handful of chords, scribbled above lyrics and between verses and he’s squared away, but Ezra plays whatever beat comes to mind in the moment. Leia hates it. She clenches her teeth and balls her fist, and tries really hard to pretend it doesn’t bother her, but Luke can see right through her pristinely manufactured, white tooth smile.

At the same time, Wedge is playing what sounds like jazz. It’s not easy to just correct it mid-song when the bassist switches genres completely, and for the first time since they met, Luke gets genuinely frustrated at him.

Wedge apologizes for the sake of apologies, and they move on, but it makes his chest start to burn to match his ears. It doesn’t help when a few weeks later, he walks out of band practice altogether.

The confrontation starts out like any other argument between Leia and Ezra. She says he’s going too fast, he says she’s going too fast. She tells him not to mess with the songs that she wrote, he tells her that they’re supposed to be writing together.

“Okay, well when you finally start contributing to this band lyrically then you can get a say. Right now, I’m the only one writing actual whole songs, so I think worrying about exactly what songs we’re supposed to be writing together is less pressing than how we’re playing them.” She turns her chin upwards, and then away, and Luke can physically see Ezra’s eyelid begin to twitch. 

He glances Wedge’s way, but before either of them can take a step forward, Ezra stands up behind his drum set. “Oh you are so pretentious. You really haven’t changed at all since high school, have you?” He points an accusatory drumstick at her, “I’m sorry I’m not the greatest writer, and if you can’t recall, I didn’t exactly have full time nannies and tutors my whole lives. You know, Leia, sometimes people actually have to work for what they have. We can’t all just have our lives handed to us.”

Leia scoffs, but Luke can hear the hurt in her voice when she retorts with “You’re an asshole, Ezra. I never should’ve invited you into my band.” “ Your band? Last I checked, this is Wedge and Luke’s band too. And they wanted me here from the jump. You’re just incapable of letting go of the steering wheel for one fucking second .”

For the first time since Luke met her, Leia falters in her response. She hesitates to try and fire back, and it seems to fall flat on her tongue. Instead, her mouth hangs open as Ezra keeps his eyes trained on her. Then she turns back to her guitar without another word, and Luke watches as she carefully adjusts the tuner on the neck. When she turns back, it’s to six eyes watching her.

“Are we playing Ezra’s version or what? I don’t exactly have all day here.” 

She plays fast, but she keeps in tempo with Ezra. It’s Wedge who seems to struggle this time around, his hands slipping on what would be simple chords if it wasn't for the speed at which he should be hitting them.

On the second time they’ve played through, one of Wedge’s blisters breaks open during the bridge. Blood drips down the front of his bass and onto his shoe, and he curses as he lets the chord go with an unpleasant whirl of sound. It buzzes, and Luke watches as it pools scarlet onto the floor. Behind them, Ezra’s sticks clatter to a stop.

The whole world stops, if only for a minute, as Wedge yanks his bass off from around his neck and reaches for a napkin from their take-out lunch to staunch the bleeding. It’s not much, but it makes Luke’s stomach churn nonetheless.

“Let’s take five.” He says, “Give Wedge time to get… that in order.”

Ezra walks with Wedge down to the desk in the lobby to ask someone if they have a bandage, leaving Luke and Leia to take a minute. When Luke turns towards the window, Leia scoffs, “You look like you're going to pass out.” “I’m fine. Just… I don't like blood is all.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “It’s just a broken blister. Should be all set by the next practice.”

“I don’t know if we will…” Luke says, mostly to himself. That Leia is listening is not by any fault of his own. She leans against the wall, “Whadda you mean?” She asks, leaning her head close enough around to meet his eyes. 

Luke sighs, “I mean… maybe Wedge was right. Maybe we’re just not cut out for this. Maybe it’s too hard for-” He almost says us , and then he almost says me , and then he says nothing at all. He lets the final word dangle in midair, up for grabs for Leia’s imagination to run wild with. When she doesn’t answer right off the bat, he turns for his guitar, propped up against his case.

Leia laughs again, just a single loud chuckle that sounds more like a huff, and it seems almost pitiful this time, “Luke, I don't-”

“This isn’t working. I thought it could. I really tried, but no amount of practicing can make you guys like each other. I think we’re all great. I think we’ve all got an insane amount of talent, but I don’t think it’s with each other, Leia.” He zips his guitar into the case, waiting for it to catch on his finger in his haste, staining two types of blood into the carpet today. Leia reaches out a hand, but Luke just dodges it. “Luke-” “This isn’t fixing us. It’s a pipe dream. We can’t be a band.”

Luke walks out, hears the door shut softly behind him. Leia doesn’t come after him, and he reaches the front door before Wedge and Ezra even realize he’s gone.

If he pushes them all away first, it won’t hurt so much when it all inevitably fails.

✦✦✦

Biggs leans close, “Do you want to kiss a boy?”

Luke feels his face grow flush, fire curling at his cheeks. He turns his face away, pressing his cheek into his shoulder. The fabric of his T-shirt is rough, scratching at his jaw, but he rubs his face into it regardless. The comforter on Biggs’ bed is dark blue and a quilt pattern. Luke runs his fingers along the stitching of the fabrics.

“I- uhm…” his voice cracks in his throat. There’s nothing stopping him from saying what he wants to say, so why is it stuck behind a swallowed down lump?

Bigg’s hand slides up Luke’s face, in between his cheek and his shoulder, pulling his face towards him. His other hand falls on Luke’s leg, just barely cupping his inner-thigh. “Luke…” he whispers, “You don’t have to be… scared. I’ll kiss you, if you want. So you can see if you…” he trails off, eyes tracing Luke’s lips before coming back to meet his eyes. Every particle in Luke’s being is telling him to look away, but he just can’t bring himself to drag his eyes away from Biggs’.

“I don’t-” Luke starts, and then stops just as abruptly. Biggs moves away, “Or not. It’s… it’s up to you. But…” he glances towards the door, and then back to Luke, “I would if you want to.”

Despite Biggs moving his head away, his hands linger. His body heat lingers. Luke leeches what he can get.

He opens his mouth, inhaling what little oxygen is available between them, “I’m just-” “It’s okay. I get it.” Biggs takes his hands away, and then his body heat away.

Luke follows, hands outstretched to hold onto Biggs face. His fingers trace cheekbones, thumbs delicate on jawlines. When he pulls Biggs into him, there’s no hesitation. There’s no waiting. He takes because Biggs kisses him back, hands pressed so deeply into Luke’s sides that his fingers may as well be tangled in his ribcage.

If he could, Luke would kiss away the pink in his lips.

✦✦✦

He expects it to be Leia, but instead he gets Ezra.

“Oh good, I think I knocked on like four doors before I got the right one.” He says, leaning against the door frame. Luke suspects that it's so he doesn't slam it in Ezra’s face. He wouldn't do that anyway.

Instead, Luke leans back, and then opens the door fully to allow him in. “Which one sent you?” he asks as he turns back into his room, ice along the ridge of his spine. Behind him, the door shuts just a step above softly, and he winces at the noise. Ezra sucks in air, “You think I didn’t come on my own?” He asks. When Luke turns and raises one brow, Ezra nods in defeat, “Yeah you’re right. It was Wedge.”

Luke can’t help the deprecating laugh that escapes him, “Not Leia?”

“Nah. She’s still mad at you.” Ezra drops down into Dak’s desk chair, reaching down to adjust the height of it without caring that it’s not his. Luke doesn’t try to stop him from doing it.

Luke doesn’t sit, just stands against the headframe of his bed with his arms crossed. He’s not good with people in his space, especially when he barely knows them. It took a lot of time to get used to Biggs and his incessant need to be anywhere but his own house when they were kids. It didn’t take nearly as long with Leia, but he thinks he knows Ezra even less than either of those two.

Ezra picks up one of Dak’s pens, scribbling against the wood grain on the desk until blocky letters spell out EWH . Luke cranes his neck to see, and Ezra grins, “Ezra Was Here” he chuckles, then he moves a pile of Dak’s scattered papers to cover it and puts the pen back into place.

“So, did you come here to try and convince me to come back, or just to vandalize my roommate's desk and leave?” Luke sighs, standing up straight despite the uncomfortable feeling running through his feet. Ezra shrugs, spinning the chair with his feet pulled up onto the cushion. Despite himself, Luke rolls his eyes and turns away. He stops himself from saying what's on his tongue, which is to tell Ezra to go if he has nothing else to say to him. Instead, he falls backwards down onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling like he’d been doing mere minutes ago.

His eyes are just barely shut when Ezra finally says something else. “You’ve never been in a band before, right?” 

Luke pops one eye open, rolling his head to look over at Ezra, who’s staring down at the ground. He exhales before he speaks, “No. No I haven’t.”

Ezra nods once, and Luke can see him picking at the fraying denim on the knees of his jeans. He picks until a long strand of fabric is pulled out of his jeans, and he leans it across the toe of his white sneakers. “You know, the fighting is normal.” He says quietly, “I don’t know why, but it always is. My… Kanan says so.” Luke has never heard Ezra this quiet, or seen him this still before.

“Yeah? What else did he say? That it takes months for everyone to figure out what they like about each other?” He doesn’t mean it to come out as apathetic as it does, but he doesn’t change his tone. Luke hasn’t been sleeping as of late, so he doesn’t have the energy to pretend to be nice. Ezra doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, doesn’t seem to mind it.

To his credit though, Ezra laughs. “The way he tells it, he’s never been in a band that didn’t immediately love each other in and out.” His voice falters, quiets as his glances upwards towards Luke, “He went blind a few years ago. There was an accident and… nevermind, my point is… he still plays like he’s beating the devil out of his sticks. He was good before, but he’s even greater now, I think.”

He looks towards the ceiling where Luke was previously staring, but Luke doesn’t follow his gaze. He says quietly, “Kanan has always said that the beginning of one thing, doesn’t always mean the end of another. I don’t really… know what he meant by that originally, but it always seemed like pretty solid advice, y’know?”

Luke knows. But he doesn’t nod because he knows, and he doesn’t nod because he agrees. He doesn’t move at all, just watches as Ezra goes back to picking at the skin around a healed-over blister on his thumb. From here, across a room the size of what feels like a continent, Ezra is the only person Luke has never seen before.

And Ezra is oddly fascinating.

They’ve known each other for weeks, Luke’s not too positive on the amount anymore, and he hasn’t tried to know Ezra yet. He hasn’t tried, and he hasn’t given Ezra the same chance either.

“My best friend was killed last year.”

Ezra looks up. He doesn’t say anything, but it’s obvious he has questions. Luke indulges them.

“He enrolled in the Air Force right after high school. Rolled through boot camp like it was nothing. That’s just the kind of guy Biggs was. Motivated to do…” Luke sighs, “whatever he wanted. Nothing like me at all.”

He clicks his tongue and swallows the bile crawling up his throat, “We both wanted to get out of Ohio, and he was gonna do it one way or another. He did, and I stayed behind. Now he’s there forever… and I’m nowhere near him.” Luke can feel heat behind his eyes, tears welling at the bottom of them at the same time. He inhales, trying to stop himself from crying over a dead man.

Biggs had been the one that told Luke to apply to Georgia State, that he was better than he thought. In return, Luke had run as far as he could’ve gotten after the funeral, leaving Biggs buried in the sandy Ohio ground a mile outside of town.

Nothing is said between them again, and Luke feels like he said too much when Ezra doesn’t respond or offer anything else up, but he has a feeling that he will eventually. He’s shared enough as is about Kanan, when Luke’s never said anything about his own dad.

When Ezra leaves, making Luke promise to think it over, Luke can’t seem to get what he said out of his head. He turns it over, like a coin between his thumb and his knuckle, waiting for it to drop.

The beginning of one thing doesn’t always mean the end of another.

✦✦✦

Ezra is right, is the thing. Luke hates to admit it, because he’s the same kind of stubborn that Leia isn’t afraid to pretend that she isn’t, but Ezra is right about most things. He’d never say that to his face, but he’d at least acknowledge that he isn’t wrong.

That’s what Luke is thinking about while he stands under the awning of the music hall, hiding from the drizzling rain that’s coming down around him. He’s never seen so much rain so late in the year, but it’s cold when it runs down his face on the days he forgets to bring an umbrella, and Luke has already decided that he dislikes the rain.

However, it’s Wedge that finds him sitting on a bench when he comes out to smoke. Maybe it’s Luke’s fault for hanging around as long as he does, knowing his friends routine as well as his own now, but it doesn’t stop him from waiting around regardless.

“I’m not the one you should apologize to.” Wedge says before Luke even gets his mouth open. Wordlessly, he passes an unlit cigarette and a lighter to Luke, a silent ritual they concocted so many months ago, who presses it between his chapped lips and cups his hand around the flame. He doesn’t take a drag– he never takes a drag –but he passes it back with the satisfaction that he’s left his mark on the rolled paper.

Luke presses his hands to his neck, “I didn’t realize I needed to apologize.” It’s a lie, and not a good one either, but he tries regardless. 

Wedge chuckles, “You shouldn’t have to, but you know Leia.” He does, probably better than any of them do, and he knows she doesn’t want an apology. “She up there?” He asks instead, and when Wedge nods, Luke stands and claps a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry I left. I’m not sorry for what I said though.” Is what he settles on when he reaches their usual practice room to find Leia alone. Leia stares at him for a moment, waiting for anything else, and when she realizes he’s done, she smiles. “You shouldn’t be sorry for what you said. You were right. We’re a mess.”

Luke sighs in relief, “For what it’s worth, I felt bad the first few hours afterwards. Not anymore though.” It feels, partially, like he’s taking a mask off and leaving it at the door with his things. He drops his bag onto the floor and steps further into the room, taking up what feels like too much space in a too small room.

Leia laughs quietly, “Not anymore?” 

“No. Not anymore.”

It’s quiet between them as Luke watches Leia tighten her high E-string, her hands wounding until the tuner clipped on to the neck of her guitar registers the note as an E. Her guitar, her tuner, her hair, her clothing. It’s always been much nicer– fancier, even –than Luke’s. He learned how to tune by ear, and he’s sure that Leia could do it too. She’s a fancier person in general, and from an entirely different world than Luke could ever imagine experiencing, but playing with her feels as natural as breathing does. Like they’ve been playing together for forever. Like they’ve known each other since birth.

“We’re taking a really big leap ya’know.” He says next. Leia falters in her movement, hands pausing ever so slightly as she strums her next string. Instead of responding, she opens her mouth, and then closes it. Luke continues in her place, “I just don’t want you guys to leave me in the dirt.”

And to that, Leia laughs outwardly this time, “You’d be a fool if you think that we could ever do that. You’re the reason we’re a band in the first place, remember?”

✦✦✦

When Luke Skywalker was on the cusp of ten years old, his aunt and uncle took him to a psychologist for the first time. In the height of it all– in the days and months and years that had since past –he had forgotten exactly why they had done that, but the end result had stayed with him well into adulthood.

Perhaps they had seen how unadjusted he’d been in the five years since coming to live with them. How the feeling of sand on his skin made him start to cry. How he could never quite make eye contact with anyone, and if he did it was never for long. His behavior. His discomfort. 

His anxiety.

So Luke doesn’t know what caused them to bring him there in the first place, but he knows that the doctor had lowered his voice as he said the words “Autism Spectrum Disorder”, as clinical and clean as any professional would. They had walked in with no answers, and walked out with a list of licensed physicians and a prescription for anti-anxiety medication.

And for almost ten years, they protected Luke from most things, except for from himself. They did it out of love, or some kind of obligation, but Luke got barely any reprieve from overbearing and watchful eyes.

Except now he’s on his own, and when he walks down a street, people's eyes skip over him. Luke likes the anonymity. He likes that people have to ask for his name at the coffee shop. He likes that they recognize him because he’s always around, not because he’s in the news.

Except, of course, he forgets that the goal of this band, a passion project and a hobby and something that Luke never stops thinking about, is that everyone knows their names. He forgets, until Leia reminds him about a song she’s writing. He forgets, until Ezra is slamming his sticks against his drums like he’s never beaten out a rhythm as important as this.

He forgets, until Wedge tells them that he signed them up for an open mic night to debut their first song ever.

“It’s at Echo Base-” He says to Luke, “You know the one where you met…” he trails off before he says the name, but all four of them know who he’s talking about. Luke hasn’t been back to Echo Base in a while, he’s been too busy and now that he’s spending most nights crashed out on Leia’s couch, he has an entire collection of old wines and whiskeys to steal from.

Luke sighs, and it’s not malicious, but Leia winces nonetheless and Ezra hides his gaze. Wedge tilts his head to the side, “Oh, c’mon. There’s no way he’d even be there.” His hand falls, watch clacking against the noise. Luke closes one eye, and then the other, and then he squeezes until the twitching behind them stops.

When he reopens them, Wedge is staring right at him. Leia and Ezra are looking just about anywhere else. “He’s there every weekend , Wedge.” Leia says quietly, “Even when he was in the band, he was there. You remember.”

Wedge nods, and he lets out a groan. He says nothing, but Luke knows he’s thinking about withdrawing altogether.

Ezra speaks up again, “Then we should show him what he’s missing out on. If he’s there.” He shrugs, and then his lips twitch, “And when he begs to come back, we tell him we’re all full up. No room at casa de New Hope .” He grins, spiky canines on display, and Luke hates that he finds it a compelling case.

The group sits in silence, one that drags on a lot longer than any silence they’ve ever shared before. Luke looks to Leia, who’s looking over at Ezra. Ezra is still watching Wedge, whose eyes Luke can feel on his face. It’s a web of people who would have never met otherwise, staring around at some of the closest friends they’ve ever made, and wondering what their next step is. Not a single one of them knows what to do. Luke feels like he should say something. Leia beats him to the punch.

“Fuck it. Let’s do it.”

It’s agreed upon. Luke doesn’t have to worry about whether or not Han is going to get beat to smithereens for taking Leia’s side in the whole thing either. Ezra promises to punch him in his stupid, square face if he even tries.

And despite Wedge’s excitement over the open mic night, a side of him that Luke has never been privy to before, Luke still feels his stomach turning over every time the others even mention it. He hasn’t played in front of anyone besides his friends since that first time at Echo Base.

He hasn’t cradled his guitar in front of a crowd of onlookers since, only having held it harshly and softly in the comforting presence of his friends instead. And he’s not even trying to think about the fact that they’re going to be playing an original song in front of these strangers. Strangers who crave bad wine and bad karaoke. Strangers whose opinions don’t matter in the long run, but will for the time being. Whose reactions encourage New Hope to play again, or break before anything else can make them.

He’s only glad that the crowd is sparse on the night that they debut Dawn .

He counts maybe fifty people. Still fifty too many, but Leia is buzzing. Her eyes bounce around the bar, eyeing the progressively-getting-drunker crowd clustered around too-tiny tables. Ezra seems bored, tapping a straw against their corner-booth table and sighing as the night progresses and more and more acts pass without them being called up. Wedge nurses a single glass of brandy, and when Luke asks why he’s not drinking like normal, he grins. 

“Because I want to remember this.” 

Luke only fumbles over a few lines, sweat-slicked and shaky hands sliding too far up the neck of his guitar as they pass from the chorus into the bridge. When he sings, he tries hard to keep his voice steady and his head cool, staring either above the heads of the crowd or directly at his friends beside him. He only cracks once, and he wonders if Anakin ever felt like this. If he started out in bars, with sweat dripping down his brow but not from stage lights.

He wishes, silently, that Anakin had left anything of himself behind for his son except for the guitar against his chest.

✦✦✦

If Dawn is the best thing they have to start with, Luke thinks that Red is their peak. Their current peak, at the very least. He thinks the same of Starfighter when they release the Leia-penned ballad about the stars and running off to distant planets to start fresh in the new year.

Really, it’s all four of their shared efforts put into Hope that gives New Hope their first sliver of popularity.

Luke can barely believe it when Leia bangs on his dorm room door hard enough to wake him, yelling his name through the door as Luke falls out of bed and scrambles to fling the door open in an effort to get her to stop. He shushes her as she barges past him, flinging her stuff onto Dak’s empty bed.

“Why aren’t you picking up? I’ve been calling!” she says hurriedly, tongue stumbling over every word as Luke tugs on a shirt so that he's not standing half-naked in front of his friend. It doesn’t seem like Leia minds anyway, but Luke can already feel himself turning red.

He stares at her for a moment, before turning to pull his phone off of the charger. The bright home screen says half-past midnight above eighteen missed calls and over a dozen missed text messages from Leia. He blinks to save himself from being blinded, and then he squints up at Leia’s gigantic smile.

Luke shakes his head as he reaches for the light switch, “What happened? Did Ezra die?” 

He means it as sarcasm, but for the briefest of moments, Leia’s face flickers with confusion. In the same amount of time, she goes back to grinning. “What? No. Guess who called me!” She prompts, and Luke drops back down onto his bed. 

“Did you drive all the way across the city and wake up half my building to tell me about a boy?” Luke rubs at his eyes, groggy enough to think he’s still dreaming, but awake enough to know the carpet under his feet is itchy and uncomfortable. He curls his legs beneath himself instead of dealing with it.

Leia, in response, rolls her eyes, “When have I ever tried to talk to you about a boy?”

Luke shrugs, “Maybe today? Am I finally one of the girls?”

Leia might be too giddy to sit, but she settles for long enough to drop her head, “You’re the only one in that group, you know.” What she means is she doesn’t have enough friends outside of the band to clump Luke into an actual group, but Luke frowns a bit at the sentence anyway.

Minutes pass. Leia says nothing about her mystery caller. Luke still hasn’t found out why she’s here.

“Are you gonna tell me who called?” He looks away, as if glancing away towards a hidden camera. It’s like Leia is suddenly slingshot back into action, and her energy returns as she hops up and down in her slippers. She falls down onto his bed beside him, holding up her phone.

A voicemail begins to play.

Hello Ms. Amidala. This is Aayla Secura, the media-representative for 32.7FM, Chatter&Hamm Radio. I was just calling because the station heard your band's new song Hope, and we were hoping to give it its radio debut this week on our morning show! If you could give me a call back at…

The voicemail ends, but Luke’s heart is still hammering in his throat.

They’re silent, first.

Second, they’re holding each other tightly.

Leia is grinning ear to ear, and her hair is curled up into two tight buns on either side of her head. She’s dressed in her pajamas, which is what reminds Luke that it’s still the middle of the night. He pulls back quickly, “Wait. Did they just call you?”

She hums, “No, a few hours ago. But I just got the voicemail. I figure I can call back in the morning-” 

“Leia, what no. You need to call back now!” 

“They’re probably asleep now, Luke. Or at the very least, setting up for the morning show.” 

“I don’t think radio stations close.” 

“I’m gonna need you to start listening to the radio, because they absolutely do.”

Luke offers a fake laugh and stands, “You do get that there's literally nothing to do in Ohio except for listening to the radio, right?”

Leia tilts her head, “And did they close?”

“I have no idea…”

Leia laughs loudly, a snort and a cackle that Luke has never heard from her before, as she falls backwards onto the bed, flat on her back. She clutches at her ribs, howling with laughter. On the wall that’s flush with Luke’s bed, a fist pounds against the wall as someone calls out to shut the fuck up .

She calms, and Luke’s racing pulse finally begins to as well. He sits again, raking a hand through his own mop of hair and pushing it back off of his forehead. “We’re gonna be on the radio…” he whispers.

At his side, Leia finally sits up straight, still grinning. “We’re going to be on the radio.”

✦✦✦

Hope debuts at eight in the morning, which Wedge spends an entire day arguing is better than a night-time debut. He says that the early commuters, people on their way to work and school and people getting off of their graveyard shifts, are all listening to the radio. Ezra says he’s not even awake that early in the morning. Wedge tells him that he should probably start.

It’s the very end of December when New Hope accepts their very first booking. An opening slot at a local New Year’s Eve party. One of six bands, they’re the second slotted to be playing, and Luke really couldn’t care less that their set is only twenty minutes. 

Despite all of his nerves, the sweaty hands and the shaky breath and the mere thought of getting on stage and playing in an unfamiliar venue, he’s actually excited . Maybe it has to do with the fact that they’re gaining a following now. 

The morning of the party– because Ezra makes sure to update them on it every morning –their Spotify page is at over four-thousand followers. By the new year, he hopes it could be double that.

The party itself is at a local venue, much bigger than Echo Base and with an actual, proper stage too. For the first time, when they get to the venue just before noon, a PA walks them through the back stage and into a green room. It’s not fancy and it’s nothing like Luke remembers from being backstage at the few 501st shows he does remember attending as a baby, but the other bands grin and welcome them and it hits Luke like a ton of bricks then.

These are his peers. People on the same level as New Hope. People who appreciate their art, enough to want them to play a show with them. 

The lead singer of another band, a woman with facial piercings and a row of tattoos across her nose and cheeks, shakes hands and introduces herself as Barriss Offee. Leia gawks and says she’s a fan, has heard their new song, and is absolutely in love with the concept they’re going to be running with. Barriss seems shocked, but then she grins wide and thanks her. No one outside of the band seems to think that their genre-change has been a career positive. Leia tells her that she should stick with it.

When Barriss leaves, Luke whispers “I’ve never heard of them.” over Leia’s shoulder. Leia grins and raises her eyebrows, “Neither have I, but I looked them up before we got here. New song with low ratings is what I got.”

Luke looks back over his shoulder, “So why did you-”

Leia grabs his arm and shushes, “This is our first actual show on a lineup. We need to play nice. Mingle and shit. Get other bands invested in us by saying we’re invested in them.”

For what should be simple, Luke doesn’t really get it, but Leia is pulled away by an employee before he can ask her any other questions. On the other side of the green room, Ezra is already chatting up another performer and making her laugh with whatever jokes he’s pulling out of his ass. Wedge is perched on a couch, crossed legs pulled up beneath him and a laptop in his lap. He’s typing quickly, but not saying a word to anyone else. When Luke peers at the laptop from over Wedge’s shoulder, he very quickly changes the tab and quietly says “I still have assignments to do.”

Instead of mingling like Leia had said, Luke resigns himself to sitting quietly in the corner with his guitar, tuning and re-tuning until the blister on his thumb is about to burst open.

In his pocket, his phone starts to ring.

Aunt Beru’s name flashes twice, three times, on the home screen. It rings all the way through, the green answer button pulsing on the bottom of the screen, before the call ends. Luke feels a pit in the bottom of his stomach when the call screen goes away, and it only deepens when he realizes that she left a voicemail.

Luke has never been sick to his stomach before. Nauseous, yes. Nervous, yes. Stomach pains, yes. But he’s never felt so horribly guilty about a single action, because he knows exactly what the call was about before he even plays the voicemail.

Hi Luke sweetie! It’s your Aunt Beru! Your uncle and I were just hoping to catch you. We- we ran into the Darklighter’s today, and they wanted us to wish you luck with New Hope? They were saying that it’s a band and that you were in it? You didn’t say anything about it when you came home last week. We just-

The line quiets, and there's shuffling and muffled voices as it sounds like the phone is being passed over. Uncle Owen’s gruff voice takes his aunt's place.

Luke. Call us back. I want to know about this band. 

There’s another shuffling sound, and then Aunt Beru is back.

I know it’s New Years, so you’re probably busy with your friends. Just… call back in the morning if you can. Love you. Happy New Years, Luke.

The voicemail ends with the click of the farm's landline hanging up. Luke sighs and shoves his phone back into his pocket. A headache is beginning to form between his eyes.

✦✦✦

Luke decides that, if New Hope can get through this party without choking, he’ll call Aunt Beru back. At least then, they’ll be on the other side of a career-changing show. They can’t be mad about it after that.

And even though their set is only twenty minutes, just enough time to play their four released songs and a Nirvana cover, the pulsing of Luke’s heart hammers against his fingertips for at least three hours afterward. His face, his hair, his clothing, are soaked in sweat by the end of it. And maybe it’s because they’re playing so hard, or maybe it’s because of the bright LED lights shining in his face, but for some reason he can’t get enough of this feeling.

The cold air conditioning in the green room kisses his skin, and the ice water that gets thrown at him by a PA might be the greatest thing he’s ever had, but the high stays with him through into the new year.

The headliner goes on just before midnight, stopping mid-song for the countdown.

Luke thinks it might be the greatest night he’s ever had.

In the morning, sunspots dancing on the ceiling of a house he doesn't belong in, on a couch he doesn’t own, his phone rings. An unknown number flashes on screen, but he’d given his number out to so many people last night that he’s not sure if it’s another musician or a wrong number. He answers it with a groggy “Hello?”

“Luke? It’s Ben Kenobi.” An old but familiar voice greets him, “Something has happened. You need to come home now.”

Chapter Text

Luke returns to Risingsun, Ohio without his band and without his guitar.

In the earliest hours of the first day of January, the Lars family farm burned to the ground with his Aunt and Uncle inside. There had not been any survivors.

He doesn’t even tell Leia what happened, or where exactly he’s going. Luke sends one single text to their group message, a quick Going home. Don’t know when I’ll be back as he boarded the Greyhound bus back home and then shoved his phone into his backpack and stared at the back of the seat in front of him until they were in Columbus.

Ben meets him at the station.

His first words to Ben Kenobi in months is a breathy and helpless, “What happened to them?”

“Nobody knows for sure.” Ben says quietly from the passenger seat of Uncle Owen’s old truck, as Luke speeds down the highway towards his hometown. “There’ll be an investigation, of course, but it looks like it very well could’ve been… just an accident.” He sighs, fingers pressed to his top lip. 

Luke’s knuckles are white against the steering wheel. “But they didn’t get out.” He says quickly, like he’s trying to disprove what Ben is saying. Ben clicks his tongue, “It’s possible they were… gone, before the roof collapsed. Smoke inhalation, the sheriff said-”

“The sheriff could've been wrong-”

“Luke… slow down.”

He hadn’t even noticed the steady weight of his foot on the gas getting heavier and heavier, the roaring of the accelerator over the radio, the surge of the tachometer needle towards the other side of the meter, the shaking of the truck body as it increases speed. Ben’s hand pats Luke’s shoulder once, and then twice. 

“Luke… take a breath.”

The truck begins to slow, his foot raising slowly as the acceleration finally begins to fall. The speedometer begins to fall too, finally catching and resting at just above forty-five. A car behind them catches up, and then speeds around and past. The feeling in Luke’s hands begins to return. Any longer, and he’s sure that he would’ve ended up in a similar hole to his aunt and uncle.

Beside him, Ben withdraws his hand and returns it to his lap. Luke can seem him clenching it into a fist out of the corner of his eye.

Luke’s lip trembles for only a minute before he stops it, biting the inside of the bottom until the taste of metal blooms on his tongue. He holds his teeth in place, chewing slowly on the inside of his lip until it threatens to tremble again, this time for different reasons. He feels himself sigh. “I don’t know how to plan a funeral.” He says quietly, and he wouldn’t be sure that Ben had heard him if not for his response.

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

✦✦✦

The Lars’ had a lot of friends. Mostly other farmers, but there’s also the occasional business partner. The people who bought from them, and the people they bought from. The farm hands that Owen hired on after Luke left. The family friends, from church and from high school and from the community. The people Luke grew up knowing, but who barely acknowledged him as a part of the Lars family. And he has to reach out, one by one, and tell them that Owen and Beru are dead and that there’s going to be a funeral and what’s a good place to send all of the information.

On the third day of this walking nightmare, waking up in the guest room of Ben Kenobi’s neighboring home and driving the truck a mile up the road and trying to sort through the still smoldering memories of Luke’s childhood, his head starts to go blurry with the feeling of it all. His vision is vignette, fading into the dark marks on the burnt wooden frame of the farm house and the decimated fields. His hands are shaking as he hauls blackened debris back and forth, looking for anything that survived, leaving dirt caked under his nails and breaking the calluses on his fingertips until they’re bleeding. He’s sure it’s unsanitary, but he doesn’t quite care.

Luke could lay amongst the rubble and not care about what it would do to him, because as much as he wanted to leave his old life behind, he never wanted it to burn to the ground.

On the fourth day of moving through motions he didn’t know he could possibly go through, Ben asks him to help pull some things out of the attic. Luke thinks he could be using his time to do other things, like having meetings with lawyers and funeral homes and deciding what he’s going to do with the family plot, but he doesn’t protest. Instead he helps Ben pull down a dozen dusty boxes and an old guitar case, and he sits on the living room floor as they go through them.

Half is junk. Electronics from the 80's that have grown corroded from the batteries, tattered belts and tangled wires and a metal thing that’s purpose Luke can’t figure out. The other half seems more sentimental. Journals and photo albums and novelty mugs from various vacations.

He cracks open one of the albums, flipping through the filled pages. Half way through, his smile drops.

It makes sense that Ben Kenobi has photos of his dad. He’d been neighbors with the Lars’ for a very long time and had known them even longer. What doesn’t make sense is why Anakin’s bandmates are in the photo too.

“I met your father when I was in college. It was a Big Brother program of sorts. He had no father or siblings, and your grandmother… well she worked very hard to take care of him. So he was often alone. I would pick him up from school sometimes. We’d go to the park. See films. I would help him with his homework.” Ben smiles, and then he sighs. “That was… over fifty years ago, of course.”

He bends over, slowly, and props up the old, dusty and ripping leather guitar case. When he unlatches it, it clicks open slowly. The bronze buckles are corroded and it squeaks, but inside is a beautiful brown acoustic six string. He picks it up carefully, strumming the out of tune strings once. He winces when it makes a thunking noise instead of playing a note.

“This was his, but before it was his… it was mine.” He places it back into the case, but he doesn’t close it. Luke can’t help but stare at the grain in the wood, streaking down the body of the guitar.

“You… taught him how to play?” Luke asks quietly. Ben doesn’t answer at first, but he looks away solemnly. “I taught Anakin a lot of things. He was always better than me though. He could’ve outplayed me in a heartbeat.”

And Luke, despite his week, begins to laugh.

Almost fifty years ago, Ben Kenobi taught Anakin Skywalker how to play the guitar, and he’d launched his band into worldwide fame with a guitar that he passed down to his son.

Almost forty years later, Ben Kenobi taught Luke Skywalker to play on his fathers guitar, and here he is, running away from his own band.

Luke laughs into his hands, rocking up onto his knees as he kneels and leans over. When he looks up from in between his fingers, Ben is staring at him in bewilderment. “Ben-” he starts, trying to contain his laughter, “I’m in a band. I started a band, Ben. And we’re… we’re fucking great.”

Through the feeling in his chest, the aching of his ribs as he hiccups over his own laughter, sobs start to rip through. His chest heaves, and for the first time in a very long time, Luke cries. Ben watches, but he doesn’t reach out.

Luke doesn’t want him to. He wants someone entirely different beside him, but he’s not sure which one. He’s not even sure if they’re alive.

On the fifth day, the fourth morning waking up and rubbing his eyes and expecting to be back in his Atlanta dorm room and being disappointed by the reality, Ben knocks on the door of the guest room wearing a long brown robe and a frown. 

“There’s some people here who are looking for you. They say they’re your friends.” He says, a mug clutched to his chest. 

The last people Luke expects to be sitting in Ben Kenobi’s living room, a mug of tea in each of their hands, are New Hope. Leia sighs in relief when she sees him, standing quickly and passing her mug off to Ezra’s clumsy hands. She clings to Luke in a second, arms around his shoulders as his own hands hover awkwardly in the air. Behind her Wedge stands and approaches slowly, sliding his outstretched hand onto Luke’s shoulder from a safely acceptable distance. Ezra lingers by the couch, watching with a worried expression.

Leia pulls off, stepping back. She looks at him with a long face, and then she reaches out again and hits him on the shoulder. “No explanation! Nothing except a text that said I’m going home! Do you know how hard it is to find someone? I almost filed a missing persons report on you!”

Luke rubs at his shoulder, and he looks to Wedge, who looks away and shakes his head. “Don’t look at me. You’re the one who disappeared.”

Instead of looking towards Ezra, who he can already see avoiding eye contact, or looking towards Ben, who's hiding in the doorway, Luke tightens his jaw. “How did you even know where I was?” He asks.

Ezra finally stands, “Leia’s… family helped out with that.”

She spins to face Ezra, and then turns back with her mouth parted, “I’ll explain later. But… you could’ve told us what had happened.”

Ben must have already told them about the fire, so Luke sighs and hangs his head. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Ben slink out of the room. He hears a door shut further into the tiny house, but he knows their conversation will still be overheard despite the oak door between them. “I didn’t… I wasn’t really thinking. I just kinda knew I needed to get home as soon as possible. I didn’t think you’d all come after me.”

It’s then that Wedge pipes up, brows furrowed as his entire body pulls back in what must be surprise, “Why wouldn’t we? You’re one of us. Of course we came.”

Something in the back of Luke’s throat pulls, and he tastes something sour on the back of his tongue. He swallows it back down, and rakes his fingers through his hair, pushing it back off of his forehead. He can tell it sticks up when Leia laughs quietly, but he makes no effort to fix it.

“That’s uhm…” he tries to clear his throat, but the air catches and it turns into a choke, “That’s really nice to know.”

It’s silent between the four of them then, and Ezra creeps to the skirts of their huddle, setting both mugs down on his way. “Do you- do you need help with anything? We drove past the farm on our way here… if you need help with… I don’t even know man. I’m sorry, I’ve never-”

“It’s okay.” Luke stops him. He can tell even Ezra is struggling to comprehend what’s happening. He may not have known Owen and Beru; he may not understand what Luke is going through; but Ezra is empathetic. He has his own issues, his own problems, and he’s still upset by it. By tragedy. By loss. Luke speaks again, “It’s better just knowing you guys are here. Though I- I might need some help with the funeral. I’ve never- I’ve never-”

Leia lays her hand on Luke’s, “We’re here. We’ll do it together.”

✦✦✦

Luke isn’t alone, he knows that well enough now. And he knows he doesn’t have to be ever again.

When he escapes to the roof of Ben’s house with the old acoustic guitar from the attic, having restrung and tuned it early in the morning before his friends had even arrived, as the sun finally begins to set on one of the longest days of his life, he anticipates Leia following him up. He’s right when, after only five minutes of being alone, her head pops up over the gutter.

“Ben said I could find you up here.” She says as she crawls across the shingles, hesitating on the spots that creak, until she reaches Luke and turns to sit beside him. She draws her legs up to her chest, hugging them.

Luke doesn’t say anything in response, but he picks at the strings on the guitar and watches the orange in the sky begin to turn blue. Leia rests her cheek on the top of her knees, head turned to watch him. “Whose is that?” She asks, “I’ve never seen it before.”

He has to clear his throat before  he says anything, but eventually he quietly says “It was my dads. It’s the guitar Ben taught my dad to play with.”

He very pointedly does not point out that Ben taught him to play too.

Leia hums, “I didn’t know your dad played.”

“Yeah. Actually, my guitar was his when he was younger. He passed it down to me when he died.” He says quietly again. He strokes the neck of the guitar, and imagines Anakin’s fingertips doing the same forty years ago.

“Was he any good?” She asks.

And through all of it; the singles and the shows and the tiny fan club they’ve started to gather for themselves, Luke realizes he’s never talked about it. He’s never mentioned Anakin Skywalker to his friends before, because he doesn’t need to. He doesn’t want to. Ever. Despite the last name. Despite the blood. Despite the guitar.

Leia takes it better than he imagines most people would.

“Your father was The Anakin Skywalker? Anakin Skywalker from The 501st?” She says louder than she usually speaks, her mouth hung open and her eyes wide.

Luke winces, but he tries to keep his tone casual, “Yeah.” 

Leia scoffs, “They were the only band we listened to when I was a kid. My mom was a big fan.” 

He has to laugh, so he does, “Your mom had good taste. He wasn’t always… a great guy, but he tried, I guess. I don’t know. He died when I was pretty young so I don’t remember him much.” Luke shrugs, but Leia nods beside him. “I remember that. Mom was heartbroken when she found out. Cried for days.“

Luke plucks at the guitar strings again, “Sometimes, I wish he was still here. Not even alive, just like some kind of ghost. A ghost that could tell me if I was doing the right thing.” 

“The right thing?” 

“The band. Giving it all up for the band.” 

“Isn’t that what he did?”

“Yeah, and look where that got him. Single dad. Washed up rockstar. Member of the 27-Club.” He kicks at a shingle, and a piece of it breaks off and falls off of the roof to the ground below them.

Leia cocks her head to the side, furrowing her eyebrows a little as she watches it go, “Your mother wasn’t around?” 

He shakes his head again, “No. No. She died giving birth. He never really got over it. Never talked about it either. I never even knew her name, and now I probably never will.” 

“Mine did too.” Leia says, and then she pauses and shakes her hands in front of her, “I mean, my dad left right before I was born. Mom remarried when I was four.” “That must’ve been nice. Having a step-dad that wanted to be around.”

Leia grins beside him, “Step-mom, actually. She was my mom’s best friend for years before they fell in love. Sabe always said that she loved her the whole time, though.” She pulls her knees back up to her chin, “They died in a car accident a few years ago. Before I turned eighteen. Some of their friends took me in though. That’s how I found you.”

He looks at his friend– he’s scared to call her his best friend, but Luke thinks that it’ll be hard to consider anyone else as such –and smiles. She looks comfortable. Like she belongs up here with him. Like they should have been doing this years ago. 

“You gonna tell me how they found me? They cops or something?” He laughs. Leia presses her forehead into her knees, “Or something. My adoptive-dad is… the Senator of New York. He called the Governor and asked around.”

Luke laughs loudly this time, head tilted back against the bruising Ohio sunset. He passes her the guitar, a practiced fluid swapping of hands that they’ve never practiced before. They’re mirror images of each other, down to the way they sit. Luke thinks she must be his soulmate, in some shape or form. 

Leia plucks at the strings on Anakin Skywalker’s guitar.

✦✦✦

Luke has a few new songs to add to their collection when he returns to Atlanta at the end of the month. The others had come back right after the funeral, too busy with their everyday lives to disappear for a month. Luke had not been as lucky.

But on the day he comes back, Leia offers him a key to her apartment. “Come move in with me.” She says. Luke laughs, “I can’t just move out of my dorm. I already paid for it for the rest of the semester.”

“I don’t care. I need a roommate and you need to… be away from Dak and in a space where you can actually focus that beautiful brain on songwriting. I’ll pay you back for whatever you spent on the room.”

And she’s serious. Dead serious. 

By the next week, Luke is completely moved into the second bedroom in the penthouse. It’s not like there's much to move anyway, but Ezra and Wedge each grab a box out of the back of the old pickup truck that he brought back to Atlanta with him and carry them upstairs and call it done. All he possesses fits into two boxes, a suitcase, and a backpack. 

Dak shakes his hand and wishes him well. He tells him to call if he ever needs anything. Luke doubts he’ll ever be doing that, but he agrees regardless.

Luke won't let Leia pay him back, but she refuses to accept any type of rent money from him at least until he’s made back what he already spent. They agree, apprehensively, on the terms of the deal. Luke is sure that she’s not going to let him pay anything at all even after the semester is over.

Wedge starts coming around more now that Luke isn’t living in a dorm room. He’s got his own apartment, but it’s small and cramped with a roommate and he has to keep his bass and all of his equipment in his tiny car because they just don’t fit anywhere else. He brings wine and sits cross legged on her- their couch and laughs at stupid stories, and it isn’t long before Leia tells Wedge to just start leaving his stuff at their house so that he’s not toting it around everywhere. Eventually, both Wedge and Luke know their way around the Penthouse at the same rate that Leia does.

Ezra is always around, but it becomes more static-y than anything. He’s prickly around the edges, like a cat on edge, but he’s there and he plays the same. Luke likes Ezra– he loves Ezra, in a weird way that only applies to two other people in his life –but even he can tell that Ezra feels like an outsider within their group. He shouldn’t. He has no reason to feel that way, but he stays on the outskirts of their trio. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t really write, or maybe it’s because he was the last member to join, but Luke knows it’s not something that should become a solidified part of their group.

The move into the penthouse, in the end, is a much better decision for all of them. Even if it now involves commuting to school, for the first time in a very long time, Luke feels rooted in a place. Like Atlanta could be a forever kind-of place.

Of course, that means that three weeks after he moves into Leia’s penthouse, and four weeks after getting back from Ohio, New Hope is given a record deal.

✦✦✦

Empire Records, a rock-label that seems to have their hands in the back pockets of every DIY band on the East Coast, reaches out first. 

Leia screams loudly, and then Luke is yelling, and then they’re standing in each other's arms in their pajamas in their living room. 

It’s enough of an occasion that Luke goes and buys a suit the next day, with what little money he received from the Lars’ estate, to wear into their meeting. Leia drags her lawyer with them, and even grouchy Ezra seems in good spirits when Luke’s old truck sputters into a parking spot outside of Empire Records headquarters.

Luke tugs on the collar of his shirt. Wedge calms him with a hand on his shoulder as he readjusts his tie so that it isn’t so tight. “We’re gonna be fine.” he says, to Luke but also to himself, “We’ve got good stuff. They’d be dumb to decide against us after all of this.”

“I hope you're right,” Luke whispers, “If this falls through I might have to come sleep on your couch.”

Wedge laughs, “You always have a dorm room.” 

“You think I’d move back into that room while Dak’s still living there?” He pretends to shutter, “I’d rather die in a back alley.”

The inside of Empire Records is more classy than most places Luke has ever been in. Round-edged, black furniture is pushed against the waiting room walls. Abstract, but monochrome art hung above them, Luke stops to stare at one that looks like a naked woman, but Ezra grabs his arm and tugs him away. Men in pristine, all white suits walk in groups, chattering quietly about things that Luke can’t hear. A robot with a package on the back of it zooms through the quiet lobby area.

“This place looks like a super villain base. Not a record label.” Ezra whispers, turning around in circles as he eyes the decorations. Wedge leans closer to them, “Don’t say that too loud.” he says through gritted teeth.

When the secretary guides their small group through back hallways towards a conference room, Luke holds his breath. The walls are lined with action photos; artists on stage, mid performance, holding guitars and microphones in front of hundreds of thousands of people. Luke’s breath stutters in his throat as he imagines a photo of himself on these same walls.

“It’ll be an album-by-album contract. To ensure that we’re not signing onto something that would be… invaluable to us.” Mr. Tarkin turns to face New Hope on the other side of the table from where he stands against the large wall of windows, hands clasped behind his back as his army of lawyers share notes with the band's measly one. 

Mon Mothma, a headstrong woman with fiery red hair, takes it in stride. She double checks every contract pushed their way, and she still listens to everything being said. Her eyes never leave the stack of papers that have been stapled together, but she nods and asks questions at every stipulation she comes across. “My clients would still be compensated for any royalties and the potential commercial use of any song released under your label if they were to be dropped, correct?” Her tone turns sour, and so does Tarkin’s face. He twists his lips up as if sucking on a lemon, “I’m sure it’s written in there that financial compensation should we choose to let you go is confirmed with a twenty-five percent interest to Empire Records.”

Mon Mothma flips through several pages, eyes scanning every word. She looks back up, and then shakes her head, fire around her face. “Would one of you show me, then? I’m having a hard time finding it.”

Beside Luke, Leia elbows him softly. She says nothing, but he has an idea of what she’s thinking, and it’s not good. Mon Mothma pushes the stack over towards the other lawyers, and one hesitantly reaches to grab it. He flips to a section, drags his finger over it as he murmurs to himself, and then closes the packet. “It must not have been written in. We’ll have a new contract written up with the clarification in it.” He says quietly, and then rises from his seat and leaves the conference room.

Mon Mothma sits back in her chair and grumbles.

Mr. Tarkin finally takes his seat, directly across from Leia. Luke picks at his cuticles underneath the table, pulling until the skin around his nails is raw and stringy.

“Apologies for that. It’s a good thing you caught it, ma’am. I would’ve felt horrible.” He says, voice stilted and curt. Mon Mothma hums in agreement, but her arms are crossed across her chest. Mr. Tarkin turns his attention towards the band, and Leia straightens her spine immediately.

He clears his throat, “Empire Records thinks that you all… New Hope… has something special. When I was just starting here, my job was sorting through local acts and sending any worth our time to upper recruitment. I’ve heard hundreds of thousands of bands and artists. Demos and basement-recordings. Scratchy acapella too. And when my assistant sent me your band's newest single-” he half-scoffs and half-laughs, “I was amazed.”

Luke doesn’t believe him. It sounds about as pre-written and practiced as their very first demo, but he takes it in stride anyway.

Mr. Tarkin leans forward in his seat, elbows propped on the table-top, “And I know that we would be honored to sign you all for your very first album.”

✦✦✦

Outside of Empire Records, Wedge hands Luke a cigarette and a lighter. Luke lights it between his lips, and then passes it back.

“Mothma says we shouldn’t trust them.” Leia says as soon as they’re grouped together.

By her side, Mon Mothma rubs the heel of her toe into the concrete. “The contract move they pulled… they aren’t good people. If I hadn’t been there- if I hadn’t caught that, they would have milked you until you had one very successful album, and then dropped you and bled those earnings.” She looks around at the passersby, more executives in white suits and gray suits and carrying on without paying the band any attention.

February is starting to recede, but the cold-bite of winter has stayed. He crosses his arms and tucks his hands into his armpits as a gust of wind comes through, messing up his hair.

Ezra, who had been unusually silent for the majority of the meeting, scratches at his temple. “I don’t know guys. I think Mothma’s right–” Wedge scoffs, but Ezra continues, “I think we should wait. See if anyone else reaches out before we actually sign anything. That seems like the smartest move, right?”

For once, Ezra leads with the most logical idea. Wedge rolls his eyes, “But there's no one else reaching out. Empire’s the only one.” “You sound like you actually want to sign for them, Wedge.” Leiai says, “That Tarkin guy is a creep too.”

Wedge shakes his head, exhaling smoke as he speaks, “Empires the last place I want to be at, but fuck-” he looks around at Atlanta passing around them, “We’re not exactly in the position to be waiting it out. They could rescind their offer before anyone else reaches out. If anyone else reaches out.” He drops his cigarette butt to the ground, but he doesn’t squash it with his shoe.

The rest of them sit in silence, and Wedge elbows look in the bicep, “What about you Luke? You’ve been quiet since we got out here.”

Luke doesn’t really know what he’s thinking anymore, nor does he know what he wants. He wants to sign a contract, make an album, and make some fans. But he doesn’t want to upset Leia or Ezra. He doesn’t want to wait around, either.

He opens his mouth to respond, but it hangs open, pushing out steam into the cold air instead. In the end, he shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t like it but… Wedge is right. No one else is asking. We aren’t catching anything else.”

Leia’s face falls, dismayed as her mouth turns sideways. Mon Mothma sighs, “Well, I don’t want any of you taking a meeting with any of them without me present. I just…” she turns to look up at the giant window-walls, “I have a bad feeling about it.”

✦✦✦

Leia drops her phone onto the kitchen counter, and it clatters loudly on the marble. When it finally calms, Luke can hear it buzzing furiously. She flicks her wrist, and the phone goes flying across the kitchen, landing against the dishwasher before shattering. The buzzing stops.

She looks up at him and simply says, “Shit-kin wants us to pick a manager by next weekend.”

Luke pauses, looking up at her and then back at his laptop once, twice, and by the third time he’s only staring at the laptop perched on his bent knees. There’s a half-written essay on his screen, a blinking text cursor staring back and waiting for Luke’s next written word. Instead, he closes the laptop and sets it on the coffee table, and then pulls his own feet beneath him. 

“And you don’t want to choose any of their managers?” He says in response, dropping his head back against the plush couch. Leia rolls her eyes, “I don’t want one of their ding-bats.”

In the stretch of silence between them, Luke’s phone on the coffee table begins to ring. Leia groans as she stomps forward, clunky boots under her white skirt leaving loud footsteps as she does. She reaches for it, and then hurls it across the room in the opposite direction of her own. Luke can’t help but stare at the broken plastic on the hardwood floor.

“That was my phone.” “I’ll buy you a new one. I just can’t stand to listen to them blabber about a manager anymore.” “It could’ve been my chem partner.” “Oh well.”

Leia drops down onto the loveseat beside the couch.

Luke sighs, breath heavy in his chest. He loves Leia, and he thinks she might be the only person on the planet that understands him the right way, but right now she’s pissing him off. He’s not the type to yell or fight, and nine times out of ten his actual thoughts go unspoken. This might be nine.

He stands, sweatpants bunching at his socked ankles, and collects his laptop. And then he goes and picks up the broken pieces of his cellphone and shoves it into his pocket. Leia follows him with her gaze. “What’re you doing?” She asks when he grabs the keys to his truck, “Where are you going?”

“Wedge’s.” He says simply, slinging his guitar case onto his back and shifting the rest of his belongings to one arm to open the door. He doesn’t wait for Leia to say anything else.

When he does show up to Wedge’s apartment, Wedge is hanging off of his fire escape with a cigarette in his mouth. So he can light it himself, Luke thinks as he looks up at him from the sidewalk, watching as Wedge watches the city skyline. The sky is blurring into a hazy gray, clouds overtaking the sunlight as rain starts to move in.

He taps the ash from his cigarette onto the railing, and it flutters down to the sidewalk. Luke has to step to the side to avoid it.

“Hey!” He shouts up, and Wedge peers down from his third floor apartment, brows furrowed. He blows out a cloud of smoke, “Luke? Did I miss your call?”

Luke would rather not yell it out on the street, so he points towards the front door, “Can I come up?”

For the amount of time that Luke has known Wedge Antilles, he can count the amount of times he’s gone to his apartment on one hand. He’s got a roommate, a guy named Wes who Wedge says never takes anything seriously, and the tiniest bathroom that Luke has ever been in. He’s never been past the living room though, never having been in the apartment long enough to even need to use the bathroom for more than just a glance in the mirror to fix his hair. 

It’s an old building, with an old buzzer that barely works and no elevator. Luke doesn’t mind the hike though. It just means he has longer to figure out what he’s going to tell Wedge when he gets up there.

The door is already open when he gets to the top of the stairs, and light music is drifting into the hallway. Wedge is waiting for him in the kitchen, cracking the lids off of two beer bottles and extending one. Luke shakes his head in rejection, and Wedge purses his lips. 

“Is Wes out?” Luke calls out, setting his stuff down on the counter. Wedge hums a confirmation, and shuts the fridge with his foot.

Luke drops down onto Wedge’s itchy plaid-covered sofa. He thinks it might be from a thrift store, with the amount of mismatched patch-work and embroidery that covers it, but right now he digs his head into the spot between the cushions and lets his legs dangle over the arm. The couch is barely big enough for two people, but Wedge lifts Luke’s up and sits where they once were, before propping them back up to hang over his lap. Luke would feel embarrassed with how easily it had been for somebody to manhandle him, but it’s Wedge, so he doesn’t really care.

“Out with it,” Wedge says after a sip of his beer, “why’d you run away from home?”

Luke scoffs, “Why else? She’s rampaging again.” He sighs, and then shoves his hand into his pocket, closing his fist around the broken plastic and glass. The splinters dig into his palm, but he drops the remnants of his cellphone on the coffee table, where they clatter and then fall still. If anyone is calling him, he’s definitely not picking up. Wedge stares at the sad pile, and then points at it with his bottle, “She… did that?”

“She threw it at a wall. Did the same to hers because the label was calling about picking a manager again.”

Wedge is silent for a minute, and then he raises his bottle to his lips, “Damn the Man,” he takes a sip, and when he pulls off, his lips make a smacking sound that makes Luke’s face grow hot, “Save the Empire.”

Luke finally sits up, pulling his feet down and planting them on the floor. He reaches over to the coffee table, picking up the second bottle of beer that Wedge had originally offered him. “More like Save the Man, Damn the Empire.”

Beside him, Wedge chuckles, “You ever seen that movie?”

“Seen what movie?”

✦✦✦

Luke Skywalker hates Wedge Antilles, if only because instead of preparing for a presentation in his physics class, he’s watching Empire Records and trying to pretend that it doesn’t make him insanely jealous to not have a friend group like theirs. Wedge is grinning beside him, head rolled to the side as the characters on screen dance across the roof of their music store. Luke wants to throw the remote at the screen, but he restrains himself from acting out in the same way that Leia had.

“It’s nice.” Wedge says, “How they all got each other like that.” He clicks his tongue against his teeth. Luke just stares at him from where he’s laid up across the couch again, legs perched up like bridges with his feet shoved under Wedge’s thighs.

There’s something about Wedge that Luke doesn’t, and probably won’t ever, understand. He grins sideways, lopsided as the camera pans out. His humor is something Luke doesn’t get either. Dark and quiet, a clap on the shoulder, the punch of a bicep, the nudge of an elbow. Wedge is tactile and touch-starved, and yet…

Wedge laughs when the credits roll, clapping his hands together twice and then reaching forwards for the remote. 

“What next?” Luke asks, and he rolls his head over again to look back at the TV. Wedge laughs through his nose, “Now, I need a smoke.” He stands, and Luke immediately misses the warmth. He digs his feet into the impression left in the couch, but it doesn’t last. 

“Didn’t you just have one?” He asks, sliding his feet across the couch until the soles of them are against the arm. And then he pushes some more until the wood is creaking. Wedge slaps his feet and scoffs, but he hands Luke his cigarette pack and a light. Luke scoots to sit upright, slipping a cigarette into his lips and lighting it before passing it over. 

Wedge winks in thanks, and then heads towards the window, leaving it open behind him after he crawls through, smoking rising into the air behind him.

Luke doesn’t follow him, not at first. He takes a second to look around. He’s never really looked around Wedge’s apartment before, not with the same observational skills he used the first time he visited the penthouse. The walls are a pasty, gross green. The same shade as swamp water, and the shag carpet is the same disgusting shade, just a tad bluer. The walls are bare of pictures, save for a few crude posters and a painting that looks like it came from a garage sale in the hallway between the two bedrooms.

He drags his feet down the hallway, fingers tracing the peeling paint on the way towards the bathroom.

The door to Wedge’s bedroom is cracked open, and Luke lets curiosity take the better of him. He pushes the door open wider with two fingers, peeking his head inside. Unlike the living room, his bedroom is much more lively. Teeming with signs of his interests and his life before moving from Arizona to Atlanta. There’s an ache in Luke’s chest as he looks at the photos on Wedge’s shelves. There's one of Wedge at his high school graduation, surrounded by his parents and his younger sister and brother, sitting next to an older looking photo from his childhood of him and his younger sister on what looks like Christmas morning. In it, Wedge is holding what must be his very first guitar, still half-wrapped in paper.

Below that one, on another shelf, is a mason jar of confetti with a drumstick stuck in it. Beside it, another framed photo that Luke picks up. This one is of New Hope, crowded together on the stage at their very first show on New Years Eve. Luke doesn’t even have any good photos from that night, let alone ones worthy of being framed. But they look so happy, holding onto each other as they take their final bows for the crowd. Luke’s eyes are squeezed shut, but Wedge is looking right at him and smiling.

“Snooping?” Wedge asks, leaning against the doorway. Luke jumps, almost dropping the framed photo.

“Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t- I’ve never been in here and I- I can-” He stumbles, looking for the words that are spilling over the carpet as he puts the photo back. When he tries to move past Wedge, his path is blocked. Wedge laughs, “It’s fine. I’m just kidding. You’re welcome to snoop whenever you want.” He pushes off of the doorframe, dancing over his own feet until he’s sat on the bed. Luke watches him, hands clammy.

He gestures to the photos, “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

A beat passes. Two. Three. Luke swallows dryly.

“What’s with the jar?” Luke asks, the first thing his eyes connect with. Wedge grins, and then flops back onto his back, arms raised above his head just enough so that his shirt rides up. Luke looks away and towards the shelf again.

“The confetti is just from a bunch of shows I’ve been to. You know, you collect so much but what do you do with it? So I just stuck it in a mason jar.” He shrugs, blowing air up. Though he can’t see any smoke, he thinks it must be the remnants of the cigarette he just smoked still on his tongue.

Luke takes a deep breath in. “And what about the drumstick?”

Wedge laughs, shoulders rising once, “I got that at the first show I ever went to. I was eleven, and my dad took me to see this band he liked at one of the more… local venues. He had me up on his shoulders, and after the show the drummer came out and gave it to me.” He smiles at the ceiling, and then he tilts his head to look over at the shelf.

“My dad’s the one who got me my first guitar, and then my first bass. He’s the reason I play music, I guess.” Wedge frowns, and then turns his head away, “He died a few years ago. Never got to see me play properly.”

When Luke moves to sit beside him on the bed, the mattress sinks deep enough to throw him off balance. Wedge grabs the neck of his t-shirt, pulling him down to lay beside him. It feels silly, laying on his friends bed in silence, staring at the ceiling while they both think over the hurt they’ve been dealt. Luke sighs, “So did mine. To both of those.” He says quietly.

Wedge turns his head, and Luke bites his tongue at first, but he doesn’t look at Wedge. He can’t. Not when they’re this close.

“My dad was a musician. He died when I was five. I learned how to play all of his songs on his old guitar, you know. That’s the only reason I know so many 501st songs.” Luke slips, a jolt of laughter escapes him at the accidental mention of Anakin Skywalkers band. Wedge says nothing, so Luke continues. “I probably wouldn’t even be here, at Georgia State, if he hadn’t died. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have even finished school.”

He swipes his tongue across his teeth, “You wanna know somethin’ funny?” Luke asks, but he doesn’t wait for Wedge to reply, “I’m doing all this to honor a dead guy that, frankly… I don’t even know. I barely remember him. Just… outlines and shadows pretty much.”

The shadow of Anakin Skywalker still haunts him, just in the corners of Luke’s peripherals, out of reach and out of sight for the most part. He likes to think Anakin would be proud of him. That Owen and Beru would be too, in their own way. So would his mother, if he even knew her name.

But the ghost of his father cannot supersede the potential for his future, so instead of dwelling on him any longer, Luke sits up. He shuts his eyes tight, rubbing the bridge of his nose to stop the dizziness that threatens to make him fall back down again. The shadow in his peripheral vision is gone. Only Wedge is beside him now.

“Sorry…” he says, “Didn’t mean to trauma-dump on you.” 

At his side, Wedge laughs again, his stomach rising as he does. Luke should like to press his hand into the exposed skin and push his hand higher and higher until Wedge gets the message. Instead he reaches over and pulls his shirt down.

Nothing more is said between them, at least not on the topic of fathers, but Wedge yawns a few times before Luke gets the idea that he should leave. At the door, Wedge lingers, “So what’re you gonna do about Leia?”

What is he going to do about Leia? Wedge is smart, but obviously not smart enough to realize that Leia isn’t someone who can be dealt with the same way that Ezra can. She’s too stubborn, too independent for her own good sometimes. The most they can do is hope, and maybe pray.

Luke sighs, and then he shrugs, “Don’t know. Hope that one of Empire’s managers is smart enough for her to keep up with, I guess?”

Across from him, Wedge bites the bottom of his lip. It’s something he only does when he’s nervous, or hiding something. Luke cocks his head to the left, “What?”

“Hm?”

“You’re hiding something. What is it?”

“No idea what you mean-”

“Wedge Antilles…”

Wedge exhales, not in a sigh or a groan, but of exhaustion. 

“You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

Luke rolls his eyes, “Just-”

“You remember Solo?” He asks. Obviously, Luke does. He nods in assurance.

Wedge taps his feet nervously against the floor. “I've been… talking to him. Kinda.” Luke draws back, a half step as he shakes his head. If he wasn’t so scared of breaking another electronic, the laptop in his arms would probably be shattered on the floor. “Why in the world would you be talking to Han Solo of all people? Don’t y’know Leia would kill you for a lesser offense than that?” 

Hesitantly, Wedge looks around before shrugging, “Well he wanted to ask a couple questions, but he didn’t want Leia to catch wind of it so… please don’t tell her. I don’t want her to kill me.” 

“Okay. Well what about Han? What was he asking about?” “Oh, well he was just asking me about synths and stuff for his new band but… we got to talking and The Wookies aren’t going anywhere. And he mentioned that he’s looking into getting into the managerial business.” He looks towards the floor, eyes skirting up once, and then twice, before staying glued to their shoes.

Luke groans, for real, this time, “Please don’t tell me you’re implying what I think you’re implying…”

✦✦✦

Luke hates Wedge Antilles, if only for the fact that he’s conspiring with the enemy. 

Wedge hits his shoulder lightly, “Enough of that. He’s never gonna hear us out if we keep calling him the enemy.” Luke huffs, “Well he is.” And crosses his arms. Wedge rolls his eyes, but he pulls the door to the meeting spot open and lets him through first.

Han’s new band– a rock duo called The Wookies with his friend Chewie –practices in what Luke can only describe as an old, dirty warehouse. There’s electricity at least, and the walls are somewhat suitable for acoustics, but Luke eyes the damp floors and furniture and has to wonder if Han has obtained use of this place legally or not. The metal door shuts hard behind them, and Luke nearly jumps out of his skin.

He’s not completely shocked when they finally find Han, arms crossed around his middle and waiting for them. Luke hasn’t seen, or spoken, to Han since he quit the band, but it seems that he’s not all too happy to see Luke. Behind the drums, a man with a long beard and even longer hair and who Luke can only assume is Chewie, grunts at them. His grip on his drumsticks seems tight enough to snap them, but Luke can hold his own. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Skywalker.” Han’s voice is the same drawn out, Texas-accented and he droops his head to one side. Luke fights the urge to scoff, but he plays along anyway, “Solo.” 

“Still kneeling at the Princess’ feet?” “Still living out of your van?”

“Alright, enough you two.” Wedge’s hand slides up and onto Luke’s shoulder, squeezing once. Luke feels his ears go hot, and he pulls away with his head ducked. Wedge steps up, taking his place. “Listen, Han. You mentioned wanting to get into a managerial area. And we need a manager.” 

Han scoffs, “And what about Leia? What’s she need out of this?” He waits for a beat, eyes ticking back and forth between Luke and Wedge. Luke looks away again. Han hums, “She doesn’t know you two are here, does she?” He leans back, hands shoved into his pockets, and laughs heartily. Behind him, Chewie crosses his arms but says nothing. “If you want me to come work for you guys, I need the Princess to agree to it too. And that new kid. Erik or whatever.”

Luke balls his hands in his pockets, but the malice comes in the form of his words, sharp through gritted canines, “His name is Ezra.” If he was closer, if he had the chance, he might do something he regrets. Luke isn’t a violent person. Or a loud person. But Han pisses him off enough to make him so.

Wedge’s arm appears across his chest, keeping Luke tucked close to him and away from Han, “We’ll talk to them. Give us a couple days.”

On the way out, back towards Wedge’s car, Luke shakes his head. “We don’t need him. We could do it ourselves, y’know. We didn’t need to sit there and listen to-” Wedge swings around, planting both hands on either side of Luke’s arms and holding him close. “Don’t be an idiot.” He says, “The whole point of this is that we can’t do it by ourselves Luke! I know he’s an asshole, and I know Leia’s gonna tear us a new one for going behind her back but fuck! We’re desperate. We need him like he needs us.”

Luke scoffs, “What could he need us for?” “Money. A job. He’s flat broke, practicing, and probably living, in a rundown warehouse with a guy who… well let's be honest, Chewie is terrifying. It’s between that… or a job with a band that already has a label. What do you think he’s gonna pick?” Wedge lets go and takes a step back towards the car. Luke misses the closeness immediately. He feels sick for wanting it so bad, when Wedge is obviously angry with him.

“Sorry.” He says quietly. Wedge turns, “For what?”

And to that, Luke doesn’t quite know. He shrugs.

✦✦✦

Leia is furious.

Luke knew she would be. What he didn’t know is that she would be angry at him for leaving too.

“You stupid-” she hits him in the shoulder, “fucking-” she hits him again, “idiot! You left and I couldn’t call you and now you show up saying that you went and saw that stupid-” another slap to the arm, “brain-dead-” once more. “Nerf-herder!” She raises her hand again, and then stops. Wedge has moved to stand between them. He says nothing, so Leia says nothing, but she steps back and presses her palms into her temple.

Luke would like to tell her not to hit him, but the words don’t come out. Instead, he just stands there. On the couch, Ezra looks up and whispers, “What’s a nerf-herder?”

Leia sighs from across the room, “I can’t believe you’d go there without me.” She says quietly. There’s a vibrato to her words, like someone has slashed through them with a knife. Her voice shakes, but Luke knows her well enough to know that she won’t let a tear spill.

This is the farthest apart the two of them have been in months. Leia doesn’t turn back to look at him, and Luke doesn’t try to get her to. There’s an ocean between them now.

Beside him, Wedge sighs, “Listen, Leia.” He opens his mouth, hesitates, and then breathlessly says, “We need to make this decision together. No more… yelling and threatening to quit and… throwing phones. You might be the lead singer but…” he looks between the four of them. Luke averts his gaze. Ezra remains quiet. Wedge raises his shoulders, but he does not relax them afterwards, “we’ve got opinions on stuff too.”

There’s nothing else to be said. Wedge has said his peace. To Leia, it looks like them versus her. Luke supposes that’s what it is, really. He’s preparing to ask Wedge if he needs another roommate when Ezra finally pipes up.

“I know I’ve never met the guy but…” he looks nervously towards Leia, “I think this is the best we can do. I mean, he was in the band. He knows how this works uphand and personal. And he’s gotta be less… white collared than the label-assigned doofuses are, right?” His long hair is falling into his face, and his eyes are wide and wet, “It’s gotta be worth looking into.”

When Luke goes to bed that night, having successfully avoided everybody else following their tumultuous band meeting, he can only stare at the blank walls around him as he lies on his side. With the lights off, his bedroom is illuminated a sea-colored blue through the windows. It looks like he’s underwater, which might be why Luke feels like he’s drowning.

He still hasn’t fully unpacked yet, the fear of getting the boot from Leia too ingrained into his skull. The room looks nothing like Wedge’s, and nothing like the one he left– and lost –in Ohio. He supposes it could be, if he had had more time here, but he’s sure Leia’s going to turn him out now.

There’s a knock on his door, pulling Luke’s attention away from the walls. When the door creaks open, Leia is standing in the doorway, pajamas on and head tilted down. She bites her lip, twisting her fingers around each other, “Can I stay in here with you tonight?” She whispers towards the floor. He doesn’t need to nod or speak, but he flips the comforter back to allow her space to climb into the bed.

Leia slides beneath the comforter, pulling one of Luke’s pillows against her chest. She’s silent, yet Luke turns to face her. 

They lay together, facing each other and not speaking, and Luke feels acid in the bottom of his belly. He kind of wants to vomit. He kind of wants to cry. He kind of wants to beg Leia to think it over.

“I’m sorry for earlier.” Leia whispers, her eyes shut tight against the pillow she’s clutching, “For all the… hitting and yelling and stuff. For calling you an idiot too. You’re not an idiot.”

And Luke, despite himself, feels a hot bubble in his chest burst. “So you’re not gonna… kick me out?”

Leia lifts her head, eyebrows furrowed. “What?” 

“I just assumed…” he turns his face away, “I know I went behind your back. You must… hate me for it.” He grits his teeth, and then turns onto his back and stares at the ceiling.

✦✦✦

“Come on Luke. I don’t hate you.” Biggs rolls onto his back, arms folded beneath his head. He turns his head to peek one eye open at Luke. For the first time in front of Biggs, Luke shies away, crossing his hands over his body. 

The field behind the Darklighter farm is wide and always empty. His mother and his older brother have been gone for three days of a planned week-long vacation, which means that there's no one out here to catch them. They could be in Biggs’ bed, safe under his covers and under the roof of one of the biggest houses in Risingsun, but Biggs had clicked his tongue and said Just one night. One night under the stars and then we can go inside and stay there forever.

Luke hated how Biggs rarely looked past the immediate future. Very rarely did Biggs think about next steps, or about what would happen because of his actions. The only time he ever did was when he was thinking about getting out of Risingsun. He didn’t need to worry, yet all Luke did was worry. About himself. About Biggs. About everything all the time.

But he rolls away, grabbing his shirt and pulling it back over his head, hiding himself away. He sits up, hugging his knees to his chest. Biggs rolls onto his side then, following him with his gaze. Through his shirt, Luke can see the outline of a tattoo, the one he got on the day of his eighteenth birthday and has been hiding from his mother since. 

He has to look away. Biggs probably doesn’t want his eyes on him anyway.

“I should go.” He says, grabbing his jacket from the grass beside the blanket they’re laid out on, “I’ll see you.” 

With his hand bunched in his jacket, Luke goes to push himself up. Biggs grabs his wrist, “Hey. Don’t go.” “I- I think I should. I just completely embarrassed myself by thinking that-”

“You didn’t embarrass yourself.” Biggs says it quietly, enough so that the wind could pick it up and send it flying across the field. Luke sits back down on the blanket, but he has to look away. He pulls his knees back to his chest again, propping his chin on the tops of them.

He can’t believe he’d been so stupid to think that Biggs could want him like that. A kiss, and then another, and then hands across his back had made Luke think that, just for a second, somebody had wanted him. That somebody in his stupid small town could look at him in adoration, and not disgust. That somebody as attractive, as popular and as widely wanted as Biggs was, could look at Luke in a way nobody else had ever looked at him.

Biggs doesn’t know it, and he probably won’t ever know it, but Luke would offer him every drop of love if he asked for it.

“I don’t… like you… like that. I like what we’re doing. I like…” Biggs drags his fingers down to Luke’s hand, the light scrape of nails across his skin makes his skin shiver, “I like touching you, and kissing you, and staring at you but…”

And Luke gets it.

Biggs doesn’t love him like that. He’d never want to be with him. He’d rather stay friends. Friends who kiss and touch and get each other off when they need to. Friends who won’t stay in touch after they leave this place even though they swear that they will.

It’s all so complicated.  At the same time, Luke doesn't get it.

A silence stretches between them. Luke wants to cut it with one of his uncle’s wheat scythes. 

Biggs inhales, and then exhales deeply beside him. His chest rises, and then it falls, and Luke feels his jaw shake despite telling himself that he wouldn’t cry if this ever happened. He knew it’d happen, but never did he think it would happen with Biggs.

And then Biggs says, “I’m joining up. After the summer ends. Ma’ and I went down to the enlistment offices last week.”

Of course. Of course. Of course. Luke thinks, Of course he’d leave me like that. Of course he doesn’t want to upset me now. He needs me until he leaves for the fucking army.

Luke shrugs, but he presses his feet deep into the blanket-covered Earth and lets himself rock. Biggs’ hand finds the small of his back. He flinches at the touch. At the feeling of Biggs’ thumb in the rungs of his ribs. He thinks about saying goodbye to Biggs as he boards the bus that will inevitably take him away to boot camp. He thinks about sending letters, and never getting any back. He thinks about Biggs coming back, and telling him that he met somebody. He thinks about Biggs-

“I’m happy for you.” He says. Biggs has laid back down on his back, eyes shut, but his hand still lingers above cloth-covered skin. “I’m sure you’ll be a great… army guy.” 

Biggs laughs once, a quick inhale and a grin, “Air force, actually. I’d be training up to be a pilot.” “Like Tom Cruise in that movie-” “Top Gun?” “Yeah. Top Gun.”

They sit in silence again. Eventually, Biggs takes his hand away and Luke stands. Biggs doesn’t try to stop him this time.

“Do you need a ride?” Biggs asks. Uncle Owen has the truck, and Biggs had picked him up from the Lars’ farm to drive down to Fostoria to grab new guitar strings and picks. Luke shakes his head, “No. I’ll- I’ll walk. Don’t worry.”

“Be safe.”

“Yeah.”

✦✦✦

“Oh, come on now Luke. I could never hate you.” Leia whispers into the blue room. 

Luke struggles to respond, “It’s not that hard to.”

✦✦✦

It turns out that when Han Solo doesn’t have a guitar in his hands, he’s actually easier to talk to than when he does. Specifically, when he’s not actively playing with Leia, they’re a pretty well-oriented team. When Leia comes up short on words, specific variations of a riff that Luke can't quite place, Han pieces together what she's trying to say quickly. When Han suggests elevating one instrument above the others, Leia says that she had similar ideas.

When Empire asks if they’ve found themselves a new manager, Leia says yes. Han grins and signs paperwork the same day.

And it turns out that when they’re not yelling at each other every other hour of every other day, recording an album is pretty easy. Though they can’t decide on a proper tracklist, Wedge suggests just recording everything they have and deciding as they go. Ezra tells them it’s a pretty solid plan. Han has to grapple for more studio time, but he smiles toothily when Leia thanks him and Luke knows that whatever it was they had at the beginning never really went away.

They make the decision to record the first four singles they ever released. Singles that were hastily put together in a recording booth at Ezra and Wedge’s workplace. Singles that Luke spent weeks scrubbing and rearranging on his laptop. Singles that got them here in the first place.

Their official producer, a man with gold-blonde hair that everyone in the studio calls Threepio, tells them that he thinks this could be something really great for them. He says that New Hope is gonna be the next big thing, and Luke thinks he means it.

“I’m gonna drop out at the end of the semester.” Luke tells the band on the day that they’re supposed to finish recording their self-titled album New Hope, while sitting on the floor of the studio with his guitar pulled into his lap, “I don’t- I don’t have any reason to keep going. We’re gonna make it big, and I’m not gonna need a college degree.”

Han rolls his eyes, “You better hope to God that you’re right, kid.”

Wedge looks more concerned, “I think you should think that over, Luke. We can’t guarantee-” “Wedge, look where we are.” Luke gestures around him, “I bet it’s gonna be better than we think it’s going to be.”

It barely makes sense, but Luke can barely make sense of it himself. He’s in a studio, recording his music with his band while signed to one of the biggest labels on the East Coast. It’s not easy to wrap his head around, but damn is he trying.

And if to make things better, Mr. Tarkin comes to them with an offer on the very same day.

“A tour?” Leia asks, “Supporting who?”

“Oh, no, my dear. Not as support. This would be a co-headliner.” He says, cracking his knuckles, “It’s becoming quite popular amongst smaller bands. Especially with bands who share… similar fan bases.” He grins, shark-teeth and all. Luke doesn’t know what he’s implying, but he doesn’t think he likes it.

Behind him, Han crosses his arms, “Who’s the other headliner? We’d like to know who we’re getting involved with before we do.”

Tarkin clicks his nails against his desk, “Plagueis and The Wise. They’re a newer band as well… been in the industry just a bit longer than you all have been, though. The tour is slated to start the same day that your album would release-” “We don’t have a release date yet.” Ezra speaks up, drumming his fingers across the back of Leia’s chair where he stands behind it. Tarkin hums, “Empire Records has already picked a day. It’s the end of May now, and we’re hoping to have it ready for mass-release in July. The first of July, to be exact.” 

“That’s less than two months from now-” “I’m aware.” Tarkin cuts Wedge off from arguing, a hand held between them to silence him. Wedge’s voice dies out.

Luke feels his own fight die on his tongue.