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The celebration was slowly dying out. Grim was still watching the skyline, even though the fireworks had ceased. She liked watching the stars, she always had. Sometimes, she could even imagine seeing Earth.
There were footsteps behind her. She turned around to see Luke approaching her. She smiled at him. “You did it. You saved your father and the galaxy.”
He didn’t return the smile. “You didn’t believe I could, though.”
Her face fell, “that’s not true, Luke. I had seen you do it before.”
“Then why didn’t you let me face him and the Emperor on my own?”
She went quiet, thinking about her answer for a long moment. “I knew you’d underestimate Sidious, I wanted to protect you from his torture.”
“Yeah, well you did a great job at that," He remarked sarcasticlly. "You could have just warned me, the same could be said for a lot of things.”
“Luke….”
“We could have avoided so many things if you had just warned us, if you had talked about things. You could have saved Han-”
“Please, don’t start this,” her voice was quiet. It did not belong to a Jedi Master, it belonged to a Padawan.
“Would you have been quiet even if we lost?” Luke asked. “You could have told me about Vader years before. You could have stopped Han from getting frozen. You wanted to protect me from being tortured, but all you had to do was tell me. Told any of us - about anything.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Luke. You’re right, there’s lots of things I should have said, to a lot of people.”
He stopped for a moment.
Grim looked up at the stars. “I’ve always felt responsible for you and your sister. I failed both of you by remaining silent long before you were born. I’ve hurt people this way, I could have stopped the Empire if I had just spoken out…but I let my fear get the better of me,” she sighed and looked back at him. “I know I’ve hurt you, more than you realize. When I was on Mustafar, I kept thinking about you, how I hurt you by not telling you the truth. I made the same mistake I did when I was a Padawan, and it cost you and Han, and it cost Leia too.”
They were quiet for a long moment.
“Is it really over?” He finally asked.
“I want to believe so,” She replied. “And Luke, I promise I’ll try to be honest from now on. No more secrets.”