The Last, In Life

by Selinthia Avenchesca

They were all standing in a row, their robes long and flowing, their eyes solemn and uncomprehending of his loss, and despite his eternal discipline, he hated them for a single, intense moment. He was able to keep it to himself, the emotion, by use of the many shields he'd erected about his mind. He could well imagine what their reaction would be, should they have felt it. They'd have turned his own disapproving, pitying eyes upon him, all the colours of the rainbows collacing into pale blue. Or better yet, Leia's own sharp, spicy, and sarcastic brown.

Luke Skywalker could not bring himself to care about the Jedi Knights who lined the funeral procession, pretty wizardly soldiers who didn't, couldn't, understand what he'd lost. He was the last Skywalker. The last real Skywalker. His sister, the other half of his soul, was gone. Forever. Oh, he knew what he himself would say to any one of his students should one of their loved ones die. That the dear departed would live on through the Force, that they'd be with the living in their hearts. Yes, he knew. It seemed that many of his own mannerisms were coming back to uselessly haunt him this day. He'd lost many in his life. He knew what death was, and he knew how it felt. But he'd never felt it so sharply as this. He'd loved her so much, in an almost desperate manner. She'd been so close to him that he could feel her heart before he even closed his eyes, and see her warm brown gaze--or not warm, or angry, or brilliant with joy--wherever he was, and wherever she was.

So, he was the last. Their parents were long gone, decades gone, they had no other siblings, Leia was gone, and Leia's children were Solos, not Skywalkers. Luke had no children, and was not likely to ever have any. He was the last.

Luke nodded to himself, and said in an almost exasperated voice that was, none the less, choked with grief. "Yes. That's all there is to it."

One of the Knights, one of his prized students, flicked his brown eyes over to Luke, a brow raised in question. Luke ignored him. What in the Force did they think he was supposed to do? Gracefully except his misfortune and wait like a peaceful monk for the afterlife to come along and claim him as well? No doubt. He was Luke Skywalker, perfect Jedi, the one who'd been hero to the Rebellion, teacher to the new Jedi, brother to the Chief of State, faithful uncle to his sister's children, chummy brother-in-law to Han Solo, and all around good guy. He was infallible, wasn't he?

'Of course,' Luke thought with a curled lip. Now that that question was settled, he turned his own cool, calm eyes upon his family, his *extended* family. Han was standing there with his three children, unfeeling mask in place, reminding Luke of himself in a distant and none too significant manner. 'Just all of us trying to be macho, that's all,' Luke thought with a sort of twisted humor. 'The center and light of our lives has been put out of existence, but we still have to pretend that we don't care. It's our duty, after all. We can't have the galaxy thinking that it's okay for heroes to cry, now can we? We have to strong on the damned holovid broadcasts that will show in front of every damned sentient in the Republic. We have to strong for the history books, and for future generations. Give a bit of dignity to the end of the great woman's life.'

It hadn't even been out with a blast of fire, with a heroine's inspiring battle cry, like all of those years of Rebellion, of tearing down the Empire, and then, later on, defending the New Republic. Leia would have liked that, no matter how much she would have denied it to anyone's face. She didn't like her own vanity, and so she buried her awareness of it's existence, Luke knew. But Leia would have liked to be a martyr, a rallying point in death. In her heart, she would have liked that. Instead, she'd been poisoned in her sleep, by some being who'd made it past security. A trained assassin, who wasn't working for anyone. He'd simply thought that Leia had been in power for too long. He didn't like her policies, and he'd finally figured out a way to kill her correctly. And so, he'd done it. He'd committed the perfect crime, but apparently had not perfected the perfect escape. The guards had caught him, and when the assassin had found that he could not escape, he had figured he'd brag some. An idiot, if one adapt at poisoning people in their beds. He'd told all, and he'd been executed for it soon after. Leia would have been indignant at the indignity of it all.

Luke had been informed of her death soon after, but it hadn't been necessary. He'd felt her slipping away as it happened, and he'd felt the connection between them snap as she had crossed over into death. He'd been teaching one of his Jedi students. He'd blinked hard, wanting to disbelieve it as he sat down in a nearby chair, almost wondering at his own desire to disbelieve. The sensation of her passing had been more real than life itself, but he had been able to convince himself that he was mistaken. And so when his student had asked what was wrong, he'd smiled at her and said 'Nothing. Nothing is wrong.'

She hadn't believed his words, but she had believed that the Great Jedi Master would know if it was important enough to interrupt a lesson for, if it was important enough to run from that sterile training chamber until he reached his own quarters, to throw himself onto his bed and weep his heart out, weep every fluid of his body out until he dehydrated and died, and then he could join his sister, his beautiful, fiery sister, in death, and then everything would be all right, and he wouldn't be here to grieve so deeply. He wouldn't be so careless of everything and everyone else in the galaxy but the memory of a dead woman. Leia would say he was selfish if she could listen to his thoughts, now, and Luke knew that he was, but that didn't matter either. He liked being selfish right now, looking at that white satin casket in which his sister's pale, wane, tiny body was contained, now bereft of the strong spirit that had always made her seem larger than life.

The ceremony was over now, Luke noted distantly, and the people were walking up to look at the corpse. He didn't want to see the corpse, to see that lifelessness and smallness that he knew would be there. He wanted to preserve her memory as the girl with the huge double buned hair and pure virginal gown whom he'd rescued from the Death Star, as the young woman with the looped up braids who'd comforted him on the Millennium Falcon after he'd so recklessly confronted their father in Cloud City. He wanted to see her as the princess with the trailing tresses, dressed in simple peasant attire in the Ewok village, as the young mother who'd beamed happily over her infant twins and smilingly asked if he'd like to hold one of them. As the sister who'd offered him understanding words when, one after the other, Luke had lost the loves of his life. Even as the politician who'd refused so many of his requests, who'd stood for the people, who knew what sacrifice meant, and was not afraid of it.

Luke's unthinking cynical smile transformed into something tender and tragic as he realized the ultimate answer.

He wanted to remember her alive.

Han was returning from his last glimpse of Leia, his dead glimpse of Leia. Han, who'd been away on a trip when Leia was poisoned. Han who hadn't been there in that bed where he may have been able to save her. Luke knew that was what Han was thinking. Han was indulging in a selfishness of his own.

We grieve for ourselves, never for the dead, Luke thought absently, and knew it to be true.

They were carrying the casket now, the Knights who'd served as direct honor guard for that long, slender box, escorting it towards the monument where she would be buried in the cold, hard steel of Coruscant's unfeeling heart.

Leia had not wanted to be buried here, Luke knew. She had once spoken of it with him. She had said that when she died, she wanted her body to be cremated, and the ashes scattered in the space where Alderaan had once been. Perhaps she hadn't had time to place that desire in her will, or perhaps the government, always concerned with it's figureheads, had simply ignored it in favour of it's showy monument idea. Most likely the latter. Leia wouldn't have hesitated to enter the order into her will, as she knew that, as many enemies as she had, death could have come at any time. And it had.

The Knights were filing out after the departing funeral party, now, and the huge domed room where the funeral had been held was almost empty. Some of the Jedi looked as though they wanted to ask him if he was coming with them, just as he knew that some of them had wanted to ask if he was going to take one last look at his sister's body, but his cold funeral eyes and forbidding aura had deterred them from doing so.

He was alone now. In the dome, in his heart. He would not go to the monument, he would not watch as they put his sister's dead, dead body into the cold, hard steel, colder to the spirit than ice.

He would not watch.

Selfishly, desperately, Luke, the last of the Skywalkers, determined to remember his sister, his Leia, as she had been in life.

END