Brilliant, on a curve of Skywalker

Ben had spent the week since the portal was discovered taking a speeder (they had a different name in Ender's universe, but to his mind, they'd always be speeders) out to it and staring at his comm.

He'd listened to the messages from home and from Fandom a dozen times, and he was working up the courage to finally return his calls.

...which was taking longer than he thought it would.

He finally took a deep breath and dialed the second number in his address book, just after Ender's.

A voice he hadn't heard in two and a half years replied on the first ring: "Skywalker."

Ben swallowed hard around a sudden lump in his throat. It was really, really good to hear that voice again. "Yeah," he murmured, "here too."

There was a long pause.

"BEN?!"

After assuring his father five or six times that he was all right, he got caught up on family news (and galactic politics, which doubled as family news when you were a Skywalker). Slightly more time had passed for Ben than for Luke and Luke seemed a little staggered to discover he had a son who was now twenty. Through some unspoken agreement, Jedi matters weren't brought up at all.

"You sound a little tired," Ben finally offered.

"Well, maybe a bit," Luke admitted.

"Would you like to come out and see where I've ended up?" Ben asked. "I can get you the coordinates, you could take this thing called a 'vacation'. They're pretty astral."

"I'd love that," Luke said quietly. "I've missed you, Ben."

"I've missed you too, Dad," Ben replied. "See you soon."

He disconnected the call and smiled, feeling kilos lighter.

The next message was sent via text to his entire address book, and wasn't nearly as fraught as the last conversation had been:

Hey there. Got all your limbs still?--B.

When you were a Skywalker, that was a valid question, all right?

[OOC: Open, open, open!]
Ender | Tony | Tara | Topher

( When we'd left our intrepid heroes, they were running awaaaaaaaaaay. They're still doing that. )

[And we're wrapped! Preplayed with the fabulous selfhelphero, screwyoumarvel, dollpocalypse, and hoorayimrich as Tony and as omnomnomtech. NFB, NFI, void in Japan.]