Work Text:
For Carrie.
I know my heart's in the right place
'Cause I hid it there - Carrie Fisher
It's been weeks, but Leia can’t get warm. Ever since those brief moments in space, she has been cold to her core, as though a rift to that vacuum is still open inside her, and won't fully close despite all her efforts.
She hides it as best she can. She finds blankets in the Falcon’s storage compartments and wraps them tight around her shoulders, trying not to think about where they came from, or whether Han - or whoever's hand or claw or tentacle steered this ship over the long years - might have washed them at some point. For all she knows, the fine grains of sand she flicks away came from Tatooine, not Jakku.
She finds excuses to sit close to Chewie, and keeps her grumbling to a respectful minimum when he loops a hairy arm around her and crushes her against his side, the way he used to in the days following Endor. When everyone, even hotshot smugglers and their stoic Wookiee co-pilots, was giddy with the prospect of the war at last being over.
She watches the young people bond, listens without interrupting as they make their plans for the future, trying to absorb some of their warmth, some of their hope. They have enough to spare, she thinks wryly. Despite everything they’ve been through in their short lives.
The sight of Rey and Rose, bowed heads nearly touching as they try to construct a new lightsaber from Luke’s shattered one, makes her smile. Occasionally a curious porg will waddle close, and one of the girls will reach back absently to brush it aside. Finn is watching them too, Leia notices, and she almost has to laugh at the naked conflict in his eyes. You don't have to decide now, she wants to tell him. And sometimes fate takes these decisions out of our hands. But the grimness of that thought makes her shiver, so she adds - for her own benefit, and any Force spirits who may be listening in - Then again, I think it rather unlikely one of them will turn out to be your long-lost sister. And who knows? They might be willing to share.
She sleeps with Poe Dameron. They're both aware that this is a bad idea for any number of reasons, and they laugh about it. If they didn't laugh, thinks Leia, they would probably weep. Or Poe would - because he's young and exhausted, and he's not used to losing so many people all in one go - and then Leia would have to comfort him, and in doing so acknowledge the fact that she is old enough to be his mother.
The first time he came to her alone after their escape from Crait, she could sense that he was close to breaking. His unshaven jaw worked helplessly for several long moments and his lashes twitched with the effort it took to hold her gaze. When he finally did start to speak, it was a stream of babble: he was sorry, so sorry for the risks he took, for losing their bombers, for not trusting Holdo, for sending Finn and Rose into harm’s way for what turned out to be nothing, for doubting—
She wanted to slap him again. She honestly intended to. But her palm came down gently against his cheek. He flinched anyway, and closed his eyes. So she drew him closer, until she could feel the quiet shuddering of his heart. She kissed his cheek as an offer of comfort, not absolution. Then she kissed the corners of his eyes, and then his mouth, and then he was kissing her back and--
Well, here they are.
It’s a bad idea, though she knows it won’t ruin either of them, so she lets it go on. She’s almost warm in his arms: when he's kissing the soft skin between her breasts, or when she's twisting his curls around her fingers, pulling almost tightly enough to hurt him, but not quite. He's nearly as good as Han was - though maybe she's only giving Han the edge because he's so completely lost to her now. Or because his ego would have needed it more.
Afterward, as she watches him fumble for his clothes, watches the bright play of color across his cheeks and ears, she wishes idly that she could at least feel the burn of shame. But she's too old for that shit, and anyway, there's a part of her that knows she deserves this: the physical pleasure and emotional emptiness both.
In these moments the rift inside her widens and she's almost too cold the breathe.
She talks to Luke. He comes to her when she's alone, when it's so quiet that all she can hear is the hum of the Falcon's engines. She'll be sitting with her eyes closed, her head tipped back and resting against a transparisteel viewport - she can't quite bear to look at the stars - and she'll suddenly be aware of his presence. She isn't startled, even though the first time he appears, his first words to her are, "Sorry about the porgs."
"Don't be," she replies, without opening her eyes. "I'm pretty sure Chewie and Rey brought them."
"No, it was me. Chewie would never have been so careless with this ship."
She wants to know when he was on the Falcon and why. To reminisce? To chat with Artoo? To see if Han had managed to cheat fate one last time and was hiding out in one of his secret storage compartments? But that's just idle curiosity - or wishful thinking - on her part, so she says, "Well, then. I accept your apology on behalf of Kaydel, who's enchanted with the little beasts. Please tell me they eat something besides protein bars and seat covers?"
He's quiet at that, but she can feel him smile, and she smiles too, and they sit in companionable silence until someone comes thundering down the corridor with an urgent question for the General.
Another time, Luke says without preamble, "She reminds me of me when I was younger. Rey, I mean."
"I knew who you meant," says Leia. "Is that why you were mean to her when she first showed up on your island?"
"She told you about that?"
"She told me everything." Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him bite his lip - an incongruous look for the ghost of a Jedi Master, perhaps, but he is still her brother. Yes, Rey told her - hesitantly, as if she thought Leia could still be hurt by anything - about what happened between Luke and Ben. As if she thought Leia hadn't already known - or hadn't suspected, at any rate.
A part of her does blame Luke for what happened, but that part of her is buried deep, and she hasn't the energy right now - or frankly the desire - to dig it up. What would be the point, anyway? Luke is dead and Ben is Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Given their family history, perhaps all of this was preordained.
She's been silent for more than a minute and he's still there watching her with that chagrined look. So in a more gentle tone she adds, "I see it too, for what it's worth. Not just because she came from a desert planet, or her connection to the Force." She should say something about their compassion, about how both Luke and Rey can see the conflict even in those long-lost to the Light. But that's more dangerous territory; she doesn't believe in redemption the way he does. She never cared if there was a spark of good in Vader, and she's glad Luke wasn't able to bring him back alive. Vader was a war criminal, a torturer. Her torturer. And as for Ben…
"She was very lonely on Jakku," Leia continues. "Much as you were on Tatooine, I imagine. And she isn't someone who's really solitary by nature." She thinks about Rey, and her easy rapport with Finn and Poe and Rose and Kaydel. She thinks about the moment she first met Luke, when he came bounding into her detention cell, eager as a ring-dog puppy. Then she hears herself say, "You were alone for such a long time. I'm sorry you died alone."
And Luke says very quietly, "I was never alone. Even when I wanted to be."
I'm alone, thinks Leia. Even on this ship, surrounded by all these people. Even sitting beside you. I'm cold and alone.
And still another time, he says, "I'm sorry about Han."
She's been waiting for this, and she has her response prepared. "I lost him so many times, in so many ways, I became used to it. And he somehow always came back. I can't quite believe he's never coming back."
"He's never coming back," Luke says, not to be cruel but because he knows it's what she needs to hear. "But I meant what I said: no one's ever really gone."
"Please don't tell me he's part of me, or part of the Force. Han would laugh, but I might--" cry "--scream."
"All right," says Luke. "I won't."
And somewhat to her surprise - and perhaps her disappointment - he doesn't.
And once, while the Falcon is moored for repairs on one of the Nandrian system's many insignificant moons, she's the first to speak. "I feel as if I have an imaginary friend," she tells him when he shimmers into view at the foot of her cot. She sets her portable aside and draws her knees up to her chest. "I had one when I was a child, you know. I think many children do. Mine was a young woman with long brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. Sometimes, when I was having a nightmare, before I was really awake … I would see her, standing by the foot of my bed. Waiting with me until I was fully awake, or until my pa-- Until someone heard me sniffling. When I was ten years old, Ben Kenobi told me about visions he'd had of his family ... and so I think I knew she was my mother. But imagine my shock the first time I traveled to Naboo and saw an image of Padmé Amidala. I went white. I think I frightened Evaan Verlaine, who was with me… Do you remember her?"
Luke nods, but the crease between his brows tells her he's not certain.
"She was from Alderaan," continues Leia. "One of the few survivors. She was very loyal to my mother, Queen Breha. In fact…" She trails off as she's struck for the first time by the irony of Evaan's presence with her on Naboo that day. "In fact… She didn't like me, at first. I didn't sufficiently mourn my parents, in her view. She even called me - oh, what did she call me? Frost-blooded. Not very original, but she called me that to my face. And she questioned whether Vanoorian ammonia runs in my veins. I denied it, but I wonder sometimes…"
"Do you?" says Luke, the crease between his brows deepening. "Do you really?" He leans closer, with something like sorrow in his blue eyes, and yes, now would be the time for her confession. Now would be the time to break down and weep for all she's lost and all she still has to lose. Now, while no one is watching except for the ghost of her twin brother. But even as the tears gather, the void overtakes them and it's all she can do not to double over as the shivers race through her every vein and artery.
"I'm sorry." Luke's voice comes to her from what seems like a very great distance - and she supposes that it is. "I'm sorry for this, and so many things. But Leia, you can't give in to the darkness. You have to be strong."
"Why?" She lifts her chin, looks him square in the eye. "Why do I always have to be the strong one? Why was it all right for Han to run off after what happened with - after what happened? Why do you still get to be the legendary Luke Skywalker when you hid away on your island for years? Years," she repeats, her fingers curling around the folds of her blanket. "Why were you allowed to fail, but not me?" She's angry now - oh, is she angry - but there's no heat behind her words because there's no heat in her. Frost-blooded. Evaan was right.
"Leia," Luke is saying, urgency in his tone. "Listen to me. What Han did wasn't right. What I did wasn't right. I'm sorry. We loved you and we failed you and--"
"Go away." She says it quietly, but it cuts through his apologies with the precision and finality of a lightsaber. "You can't help me. Just go." She looks away; she doesn't want to see the hurt in his eyes, doesn't actually want to see him leave. She knows when he's gone by the sting in her chest, and now her body does clench around itself, her fingers interlocking tightly around her knees. She has to be strong. She can't fall apart. But she's so tired after all these years, and so cold.
She wants her mother; not her old invisible friend, whose face and voice somehow lodged in Leia's infant mind. She wants her mother, the queen. Breha. The one who was real and flawed and wonderful and there; the one whose deft hands plaited Leia's thick locks; whose throaty laughter rang in Leia's ears as they rode their thrantas through the early morning mist over Alderaan's green hills; whose parting words Leia can still hear, from across the long years: Remember, to rule is to serve.
She wants Han, the way he was just after the end of the last war: invested and optimistic, open, and touchingly dumbfounded by the fact that she'd chosen him. As if she'd had time to fall for anyone else between Hoth, Bespin, and Endor. She curled in his lap in the cockpit of this very ship, her head on his chest, and he loosened her braids and her clothing with a surety that his awkward love talk belied. I can do this, she remembers thinking as her body responded to his touch. I can be a regular person. Finally.
She wants Evaan Verlaine, the one person she swore she'd never call upon for help. Evaan, with her dry humor and her memories. Evaan left long ago to lead the survivors of Alderaan to a new home, and Leia has not contacted her since. She knows that Evaan would come if she asked, without question, just as she did when Leia asked to be flown to Naboo all those years ago. But there are so few Alderaanians left, and there is no power in the galaxy that can tempt Leia to place even one of them in danger.
She could have Poe, but then she'd have to get up, to move. And she can't unclench her body. She can't even lift her head to assure herself that she's in her bunk aboard the Falcon, instead of floating in space, her blood hardening in her veins. She hugs her body and waits to turn to ice.
The fire is worse.
She's jerked roughly from her stupor; deprived of blood flow, her hands spasm, knocking her portable onto the floor. "Luke?" she rasps, her wide eyes searching the darkness for his familiar image, though she knows damn well it wasn't Luke’s voice that she heard.
There's no one in the room with her, neither ghost nor living, breathing human. But there was. For one moment, while her guard was down, there was. And now she can’t stop moving; her hands shake, her heart pounds, and the breath moves rapidly in and out of her lungs. Kicking the blanket aside, she stumbles out of her cot, nearly tripping over the discarded portable. She moves to the door, her hand outstretched to open it - but then she stops. She's still shaking, the cold sweat gathering in her armpits, but she can't take another step.
Instead she reaches out with her feelings, briefly touching the mind of everyone aboard this ship, taking inventory, making certain that the only ones here are those who should be.
Rey is in the cockpit, hunched sideways in the pilot's seat, her legs hugged tight against her chest, as if to take up as little room as possible. Leia can sense her agitation; she's thinking about her next encounter with Kylo Ren, when she'll have to kill him. She's not sure she can do it. She's not sure she wants to.
Leave him to me, Leia wants to assure her. I made him; he is my responsibility. She's not sorry that Luke failed to bring Vader back alive; had she been in his place, she does not doubt she would have killed him, father or not. And if any Force spirits are still listening they would do well to remember that. If she can kill her father, she thinks, she can kill her son.
Be at peace, child. This burden is not yours.
Giving Rey her privacy, she turns her thoughts to Finn, Chewie, and Rose, whom she finds in the Falcon's access crawlway, hunched over a tangle of multi-colored wires and a haphazard pile of data chips. She isn't sure what they're working on exactly, though she knows they've been having trouble with their sensor jammer and subspace radio ever since a TIE-fighter scored a lucky hit in the Devron system.
Chewie feels old. He's tired of human beings; they talk too much, and they die too easily. Even Jedi. He misses Kashyyyk, and for a fleeting moment Leia sees that planet through Chewie's eyes; the dizzyingly high branches of the wroshyr trees, the heady scent of the jungle air, the soft green glow of the undergrowth far below. But he can't return to his home planet with an unpaid life debt. So he can never return.
So Leia, who understands what it's like to be forever cut off from one's home planet, retrieves a memory that they both share: Han, on Bespin, as he's about to be frozen in carbonite. He was so young then, and frightened; he really believed they wouldn't come to get him. But he turned to her and Chewie, the two people he loved most, and he said, The princess. You have to take care of her.
She leaves Chewie with that reminder, and turns to Rose, who misses her sister. She smiles at whatever it is Finn is saying, but she feels Paige's absence like a sharp pain in her side - and she wonders what really happened, if Paige died because of something she missed during an inspection, if it's somehow her fault. Take care of each other, her parents said when they sent their daughters away from Hays Minor. Rose tried, even though Paige was older. What if she didn't try hard enough?
Gently, so gently that Rose can't know the thought isn't her own, Leia tells her, It's not your fault. There was nothing you could have done.
Leia has lost count of the number of times she's said those words. She isn't bitter, though, just tired. At least now there's some warmth behind Rose's smile, and her fingers move absently to touch the Haysian ore medallion that she wears around her neck. Paige died so the Resistance could escape D'Qar, Rose tells herself. She died saving what she loved. But I still miss her.
Well, there's nothing Leia can do about that; nor would she if she could. Ultimately, she supposes it doesn't matter much if her own soul freezes; she's had her share of love, in all its many forms. And it may be the only way for her to do what must be done in order for her to win this war. But these children who've put their hope and faith in her, who've pledged their lives to her cause - they must continue to feel, even if some of what they feel is pain, or what's the point of any of it? The side that tries to control how people feel is the wrong side.
And so she turns to Finn, who is his usual tangle of conflicting emotions. He can't stop thinking about the children he and Rose saw on Canto Bight. He wants to go back for them, to load them up in a freighter and whisk them away across the galaxy. But where would they go? He doesn't know any worlds except Canto Bight, D'Qar, Takodana, and kriffing Jakku. He's hardly been anywhere. And how can he just up and leave Rey and Poe and all the rest? And Rose - what did she mean about saving what we love? And what did she mean by that kiss? He's always trying to run away; it's time he stayed somewhere. But how can he just forget about those kids? And now his thoughts fly to Phasma, whom he's known and feared since he was a child. Whom he never really thought of as human until he glimpsed the face behind her cracked helmet. She must have seen thousands, tens of thousands of children just like the ones on Canto Bight. Just like Finn. How could she…? If she were truly human, then how could she…?
Peace, Leia whispers in his mind. At least in this moment, be at peace. There's nothing you can do for those children right now. But remember, we go back for our own.
We go back for our own, Finn thinks, and the queasiness that was building in him subsides slightly. I guess we do. Poe went back for BB-8. I went back for Rey. A cynical part of him - the part that reminds Leia just a little bit of Han - wonders if maybe they'd have a better chance against the First Order if they did leave people behind. But he looks at Rose and Chewie, he thinks of Rey and Poe, and he quickly quashes that thought.
Speaking of Poe… Leia has been aware of him since she first reached out with the Force, but she's ignored him until this moment. Why, she isn't sure. Maybe it's because he's in so much need, and there's really nothing she can do for him right now. Her young paramour is a coil of nervous energy; he can't stop moving, and Leia doesn't need to probe deeply to know that he'd like nothing better than to jump into an X-wing and blow something up. At the same time, he's sharply aware of the fact that his brash, impulsive nature is one of the reasons they're in this mess. It's one of the reasons Vice-Admiral Holdo is dead; one of the reasons--
Leia can't hear this litany again. She has no comforting thoughts for him, and no energy to distract him with her body. Kaydel is with him in the cargo hold - they seem to be inventorying the Resistance's dwindling supplies - and for a brief moment Leia considers playing matchmaker. Nothing too manipulative, nothing that would excite a Sith Lord. Just a nudge. Kaydel is already leaning hard in that direction and her youthful adoration brings a smile to Leia's lips. If Poe should turn around now and see the way she's looking at him, see the hunger in those soft brown eyes…
Leia considers it.
He's better off with Kaydel. She's far closer to him in age. She's clever and energetic. Doubtless she can do things that have been beyond Leia for years. And she doesn't have Leia's baggage; she doesn't have a dead brother who occasionally drops by to offer ghostly words of wisdom, or a son who's very much alive and has just declared himself Supreme Leader of the Galaxy. Not that Leia was exactly carefree at twenty-four, or even significantly less burdened than she is now. But at least back then she wasn't alone.
At least back then she wasn't alone.
Abruptly she severs her connection to the Force. Her own small corner of the Falcon clamps back down around her, momentarily disorienting her. She stumbles backward until her calves hit the edge of her cot, and then she sags. The screen of her forgotten portable still glows, but outside its wan beam, the darkness is thick and deep, and full of eyes. A shiver rolls through her and she claws at her blanket, biting back a cry of frustration when it doesn't immediately come free. Once she's managed to yank it free she wraps it tightly about her shoulders and stares into the darkness. The eyes aren’t real. She knows this. She's completely alone in her bunk. Still she mutters, half in hope, half in fear that he glimpsed what was in her mind, "Luke?"
There is no response, just as there wasn't during the long years following Ben's fall to the Dark Side.
"I wasn't going to do it," she says - for her own benefit. She wants to hear herself say it, even though her reasons are hardly noble. The truth is, she isn't ready to give Poe up. Even though it's wrong. Even though nothing can ever come of it. There's a look he gives her when they're alone, a hopeful, trusting look - and yes, there's desire there too, and it doesn't make her feel young and beautiful, but it helps her forget for a moment that she isn't - and nobody, not even Han, has ever looked at her like that. And she isn't ready to give that up. Nor the startled flutter of his lashes when she whispers something filthy in his ear. Nor the way his curls tickle as he kisses his way down her body.
She'll take the shame with the pleasure. That's fine. But she isn't ready to give him up.
So everything continues as before, except that she no longer talks to Luke.
* * * *
They travel from system to system, seeking allies. Leia pleads their case before countless planetary leaders. Often she has Poe or Rey accompany her: Poe because he's charming and could stand a few lessons in diplomacy; Rey because she's far and away their best fighter, and people need to see that the Jedi still exist.
Some offer shelter, some weapons and fuel. Few show any interest in joining the Resistance themselves, and she keeps tight control of her anger as she's forced to listen to excuse after excuse. Once she nearly loses it, when the governor of Excarga tells her, "I'm sorry, Senator Organa. There's too much at stake. I remember Hosnian Prime. I remember Alderaan." At least he has the grace to flush bright orange as the enormity of his blunder hits him, and she doesn't feel compelled to spit back, Remember Alderaan? I'm from Alderaan you half-witted skrogging pile of Bantha poodoo! Instead she hooks him with her glare and says in as measured a tone as she can manage through clenched teeth, "Neutrality has never been a guarantee of safety."
As they're leaving, Poe mutters, "That almost sounded like a threat."
"It was," she says dryly.
She calls in every favor she can think of, save one, from former queens of Naboo to old associates of Han - those few he didn't die owing money to, anyway. In Theed, Sosha Soruna greets her with open arms. In the years since Operation Cinder, she's been training pilots to fly and fight in the updated N-1s, and she gladly offers her service - and a warning.
"Stay on your guard," she says, taking Leia by the forearms and drawing her aside while Poe, Rose, Finn, and Rey inspect the starfighters now at their disposal. "The First Order is not your only enemy."
"I've always been popular."
"I'm serious." Leia feels the tips of Sosha's nails as her fingers tighten. "Before I was queen, I was a handmaiden, essentially a bodyguard. I learned how to listen to rumor. There are some--" She lowers her voice, though the four young people are babbling about engines, and can't possibly hear their conversation. "There are some who seem to blame you for Hosnian Prime. There are some who say you deliberately provoked the First Order."
The afternoon sun is warm on her shoulders, but Leia is suddenly icy cold. Nonetheless, she manages to say blandly, "Do they now? Anyone in particular?"
"I don't know. Just promise me you'll be careful."
There isn't time for careful, Leia thinks. But she promises.
Lando offers her money, fuel, his entire cache of weapons - and much the same advice. "Please, Leia," he says, capturing her hand and holding it against his heart. "I hear things. There's talk of bounty hunters."
The earnest concern in his dark eyes unnerves her, but she responds with the same dry bravado she gave Sosha, "There's been a price on my head since I was nineteen. Have I at least gone up in value?"
"Leia." Now his expression is pained, and she regrets her glib tone. "Please. Han wouldn't want you doing anything reckless. I know that sounds kind of rich, but the man loved you very much. I don’t want you doing anything reckless. C’mon, just promise me you’ll be careful. Or do I have to tell Chewie to keep an eye on you?”
“I can keep an eye on myself,” she says. “And I will - I promise.”
“Good. Because I couldn’t bear losing you too.” He brings her hand up to his lips; his mustache tickles her skin and for just one moment she feels girlish, and almost warm. But then Lando looks up over her shoulder and says with a shake of his head, “I can’t believe that’s Kes Dameron’s boy. He couldn’t have been more than three years old the last time I saw him…"
And she feels inexpressibly old again.
From system to system, from true friend to fairweather friend, from narrow escape to narrow escape, she feels the weariness of everyone aboard the Falcon like a heavy mantle that she can't shrug off, and her shoulders ache with it. She feels their confidence in her beginning to slip. Not that any of them - except Threepio, but it would be strange if he ever stopped worrying - will question her leadership. Even Finn, whom she knows is chafing to lead an attack against the First Order, stays uncharacteristically silent in her presence, though he'll toss a furtive look at Poe or Rey or Rose when he thinks she's unaware. It's like a death watch, she muses, and there is nothing she can do but wait and hope, and try to keep them all bound to her by sheer force of spirit.
It's exhausting, and these days she almost prefers the company of the droids, who have no link to the Force and are therefore easier to tune out. Even Threepio.
Poe's devotion grates on her. If she truly had a plan, perhaps she could stand the way his gaze stays riveted to her whenever they're in the same room, or the ardor with which he defends every decision she makes. They're not sleeping together anymore by this point; she has no sex drive, and he's too tightly wound. She sees him training Finn and Rose in hand-to-hand combat, the three of them sometimes teaming up with Rey against Chewbacca - the humans essentially bounce off the Wookiee - and just looking at him exhausts her. He's here, he's there; bouncing on the balls of his feet; coming at Rey from behind and landing flat on his back when she flips him over her shoulder; then up again, before the breath has even returned to his lungs, and tearing off after Finn…
He needs to move. They all do, to maintain the illusion that they're doing something, moving toward something. But they can't keep moving in place indefinitely. In her heart, Leia knows this. Whether she comes up with a viable plan or not, they are going to reach critical mass sooner rather than later. The storm has to break.
It breaks on Geonosis. She takes them there out of desperation. Geonosis is a dead world, or nearly dead; there are rumors that some of the native population survived by hiding in tunnels deep underground, but there's been no contact in decades, and the Falcon's scans of the gutted, crumbling cities detect no current signs of civilization. "The Empire did this," she says grimly.
"Why?" Finn sounds heartbreakingly young.
Before Leia can respond, Rose answers him flatly, "Because they could."
"And they'll do it again," says Poe.
They did do it again, thinks Leia. On Alderaan. And the First Order did it on Hosnian Prime. They're the same. And they'll keep doing it. Again and again. They'll never stop. It never stops.
They land, and Rey, Rose, and Finn go off in search of supplies. Leia isn't sure what they hope to find - and Threepio morosely informs them that the odds of finding anything of value on this forsaken world are exactly eighteen-thousand-five-hundred-and-thirty-seven to one - though given what the Geonosians liked to do for entertainment, she supposes there could be weapons lying about. Whether they still function after all these years is another question, but if anyone is likely to find something worth taking, it’s their scavenger, their engineer, and their good-luck charm.
“You could still go along,” she tells Poe and Chewie as they watch their friends disappear down a debris-strewn avenue, half-hoping that they will.
But Poe shakes his head. "I'll stay," he says, and Chewie gives a firm whuff of agreement.
"Fine," says Leia, with a dismissive flick of her hand. "I'm sure Kaydel could use some help with--"
"With you," Poe says. "We're staying with you." She catches the look that passes between him and Chewie, and she wonders at it. But she's too tired to probe either of them, and it probably doesn't matter anyway. They'll do what they do.
Which apparently means following close behind her as she moves away from the Falcon, out of its shadow and into the harsh Geonosis sunlight. I'm not an invalid, she wants to snap at them. At least, not right at this moment. Instead, she decides to ignore them. Now that she's off the ship, away from the confusing, frustrating tangle of so many thoughts and emotions, she can feel it: a chill that runs even deeper than her own, and beneath it, emanating as if from some fissure in the earth … a restlessness. Something is waiting for her on this planet, and has been waiting a long, long time. Chewie and Poe should leave her, she thinks. Go back to the ship, where it's safe. But this thing on Geonosis is waiting for her, not them, so perhaps it doesn't matter.
Just don't be a Force spirit, she thinks. I'm so damn tired of Force spirits.
She has no particular destination in mind. She doesn't really know this world, apart from its tragic interaction with the Empire, and there's nothing interesting in her line of sight. She simply walks, assuming that whatever is waiting for her will meet up with her when it's good and ready. Chewie and Poe are mercifully quiet; the only sound she can hear, apart from her own heavy breathing, is the stale wind that yawns through the skeletal buildings.
Her mind wanders as well. It wanders back, bizarrely perhaps, to Ben. Infant Ben, when he was first placed in her arms: red, wrinkled, squawling. And tiny. So tiny, he fit perfectly just over her heart. Do I love you? she wondered in a daze of drugs and exhaustion, as she touched her fingertip to each of his. What if I can't love you enough? Frost-blooded, Evaan had called her. Darth Vader's daughter; it still didn't seem possible, and yet… She glanced up at Han, who was gazing down at her with an expression that said plainly, Oh Leia, what have we done this time? And she thought, as hot, helpless tears formed in her eyes, What if my love isn't enough?
They all sense the fourth presence at the same moment. Its malevolence rolls through Leia, leaving her breathless, jolting her from her thoughts and slowing her reaction time. Chewie and Poe are faster. Even so, they seem to move so sluggishly, as figures sometimes do in her worst memories. When Alderaan explodes, when Ben stabs Han, when the bridge of the Raddus is hit and she's sucked into space, it always happens so slowly.
In this moment she's sharply aware of every detail: of each individual tuft of fur on Chewie's arm as he raises his crossbow; of every lash shading Poe's beautiful eyes as he looks at her, says "I love you," and then steps in front of her just as the shot rings out.
The energy bolt hits him squarely in the chest and he falls without a sound. Crashes into her, knocking her to her knees and the breath breath back into her body - without a sound. Somewhere close by, Chewie fires his crossbow and the would-be assassin dies - all in perfect silence. It makes a dim sort of sense: there is no sound in space.
In her mind, and in her heart, the spark that was always Poe flares for an instant, and then goes out.
Then Leia screams.
It tears her throat.
It tears whatever invisible threads bind her to this moment, and all the moments that led her here. To this place and time. To the living, to the recently dead, and the long dead. She feels them break away: her tethers, her mooring, each one leaving a raw wound in its place. She could clutch at them, try to gather them back to her, but instead she clutches Poe. “Don’t leave me,” she whispers frantically into his hair. “Not you too.” She can’t feel his heartbeat. She can’t feel anything.
She's alone in space. She always has been. Long before the Raddus. Long before Ben and Han and Luke. Long before everything. Frost-blooded. The unrelenting darkness and absolute cold, the sheer, devouring emptiness - it’s who she is.
Still.
Out of habit, perhaps, or sheer stubborn denial, she reaches out with her feelings, searching for some ember of life in Poe.
"Please." Too many losses. I can't take any more, she told Amilyn Holdo. Sure you can, her old friend said, before flying her cruiser at lightspeed into Snoke's flagship. You taught me how.
She buries her face in Poe's curls, rocks him gently back and forth.
I can't. Please. I can't.
"You can save him. You have the power."
Leia does not look up. "I thought I said no Force spirits."
As if she hadn't spoken, Anakin continues: "Darth Plagueis - Emperor Palpatine's old master - became so strong with the Force that he gained power over death itself. Though not his own," he adds, for an instant sounding so much like Luke that Leia has to bite back another throat-rending scream. "He could channel the life force from one living thing to another."
Now Leia does fix him with her glare. "You dare," she snarls, "you dare come to me now, here, and talk about Sith Lords? Of your master's master?"
His expression unchanging, Anakin spreads his hands and says simply, "I came to you to talk about power. And possibility. You can save this boy if you want to. You are strong enough, even without the training. I would have traded any life for Padmé's, if I'd had the choice. How much is this one life worth to you? You, who have already lost so much." There's no irony in his tone, and the knowing glitter in his eyes is only the glitter of stardust behind him. "Who would you trade?"
She doesn't want to think about it, but when she closes her eyes to deny Anakin's presence, she sees Chewie, his head thrown back in a silent howl of loss and rage...
And she sees Rey, her face gone suddenly white as she realizes what has happened to Poe, and that she will have to tell Finn and Rose...
And she sees all the ones who would not stand with the Resistance after Hosnian Prime, after Crait. Cowards, like the execrable governor of Excarga…
And she sees Ben. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. Her son, whose tiny fingers she counted as he lay across her heart, after almost killing her being born. Who grew up to murder her brother's apprentices. Who grew up to murder her husband, and countless others. She sees him alone in a dark place, hunched in his cloak. There's a light source, though she can't see what it is, illuminating his pale cheek and the paler scar that cuts across it. His eyes are closed.
She could do it. Luke could have killed Ben in his sleep, but he hesitated, and look what it cost them. She could do it. She can feel his mind across the lightyears, so strange to her now, but also achingly familiar. She remembers the first time her mind touched his, before he was even born: that faint little glow that warmed her heart. She can feel his heartbeat.
And she knows, finally, what she has the power to do.
Dismissing Ben, Leia turns her sight inward. Somewhere, buried under all her darkness, there must be a scrap of light, even if it's only the reflected light of those who have loved her through the years. Padmé, she thinks. Her mother and father. Evaan. Luke. Han. Ben Kenobi. Chewie. Lando. Amilyn. Her son as a child. Her ragtag band on the Falcon. Poe. We are the spark, he said once, on Crait.
You are the spark, thinks Leia. You are my light, my warmth. All of you. I love you. And I can only hope that my love is enough. The frayed threads that bind them are still there, glowing faintly, and she uses them to draw that spark to her, cupping herself around it to protect it from the chill and dark of space. She turns to Poe, whose skin has already begun to turn waxy with death, lowers her lips gently to his, and breathes her light and her life into him.
It's easier than she ever imagined it could be, letting go. More peaceful than falling asleep. I wonder if I'll see Han again, she thinks dreamily. I wonder if he'll say "I told you so." Then her vision darkens and everything goes away.
Except for the spirits.
"I told you this would happen," Luke says.
"Fine, you were right," says Anakin - rather petulantly for a Force spirit, Leia can't help thinking. "Does it feel good to be right?"
Luke is quiet for a moment, and Leia imagines him chewing on his bottom lip, like the bashful farmboy that he'll always be, deep down. Then, softly, he admits, "I don't know. Maybe a little."
Leia looks up. Her brother and Anakin stand before her - though stand may be an inaccurate description, since there is no ground beneath the hem of their Jedi robes. There's nothing beneath the hem of their robes, just light. She raises her hand instinctively to shield her eyes, but lowers it again as she realizes that the light, though intense, isn't blinding. It's a warm light, though she isn't warm. Nor, for the first time in what feels like a very long time, is she cold.
She could weep with relief. Instead, she asks what seems like a most pertinent question: "Am I dead?"
"Yes," says Luke.
"No," says Anakin.
"It has to be one or the other," says Leia.
"Not really," Anakin says. "And if you'd trained as a Jedi, you'd understand that."
"Excuse me, I was busy trying to save the galaxy from your upstart generals, not to mention your grandson." Oh, for a normal family with normal reunions. Do those even exist, I wonder?
Anakin looks as if he would like to make a retort, but Luke cuts in. "The past, present, and future are not discrete things, not to the Force. The way we think of time and distance - it's meaningless to the Force. Everything is happening at once. Does that make sense?"
"No," says Leia.
Luke moves a little toward her, holding out his hands; they're limned in warm light. He smiles. "Are you saying that because it truly doesn't, or because you're angry with me? With us?"
"Yes," says Leia. And then, with a helpless shrug-- "No. I don't know. Luke, I'm tired. I'm so tired, and I don't want to fight anymore. If I'm dead--" How can she be dead if her hands are trembling? "--let me be dead. Let me be. If I'm not dead, then I need to figure out … I need to figure out…" She can't go on, but it's all right because his arms are around her, and this isn't some Force projection; her brother is here, and if they're finally both in the same place, then she must be a ghost too. Which must mean that she gave her life for Poe. She has to smile a little because that's not something she ever imagined doing for any man, and yet… Oh, the things I could have accomplished, if I hadn't had men in my life. It's fine. She's finally come inside and she isn't cold anymore. It's over now. Let it be.
But she's Leia Organa, and not once in her life - or her death, it now appears - has she been able to simply let things be.
Lifting her head from Luke's shoulder, she sees that Anakin has drawn closer as well, and his eyes meet hers. His eyes are the same pale blue as Luke's, but there's a restless, almost hectic light behind them. This is the first time she's seen his eyes, she realizes.
"What were you wrong about?"
He blinks for a moment, and then he bursts out laughing. Anakin Skywalker - Darth Vader the Sith Lord - actually laughs. And it isn't a sinister chuckle like Jabba's, nor Emperor Palpatine's supercilious snicker. It's full-throated, spontaneous, and Padmé loved him once, she thinks grudgingly. Obi-Wan Kenobi trusted him. Luke saw good in him. Still, she flinches when he says "Oh, daughter," and she's glad that Luke stands between them because, even now, only one man is permitted to call her that and it is not this one.
A look, not quite of chagrin but of something in its proximity, crosses Anakin's face and he stops about an arm's length from where she stands. "I thought you'd choose differently," he says, sounding more frustrated than angry with her. "You weren't supposed to give your life for that boy!"
"What else was I supposed to do? Take someone else's life? Join the Dark Side? You asked me who I'd trade. Well. Who should I have chosen? What was the right choice, in your opinion? My son? Someone who couldn't see me, who had no idea I was--"
"You were supposed to let him go!" Anakin hurls back at her. "You were supposed to realize that sacrifices must be made if you really want to win this war. Between the Light and the Dark there are almost infinite shades of gray. I had to die to learn that! You can't save everyone, Leia. Sometimes you can't save anyone. I asked who you'd choose to try to shock some sense into you."
"I knew what you'd choose," Luke says softly, and Leia looks at him. The corners of his eyes crinkle but his mouth remains a thin, somber line. "I knew," he continues, "because I know how much love is in you, and how powerful it is. I don't think you know - or, if you do, I think you've buried that knowledge so deep that it's become trapped. Because you've been hurt. Because you're afraid. Because you're tired. I'm so sorry, Leia."
She senses there's more he wants to say, and his hesitation confuses her. Then she remembers how she snapped at him the last time he tried to apologize. She wasn't ready to hear it then, but she is now. Even so, it's hard to make the words come; despite all her years in politics, she isn't used to accepting apologies, never mind giving them.
He looks away momentarily, then back at her, his pale lashes twitching downward to shadow his eyes, and once again she remembers the farmboy from Tatooine. Impulsively, she wraps her arms around him and hugs him close. Here we are again, she thinks with a twisted smile. The Skywalker twins: together in the beginning, together in the end. On opposites sides of the galaxy for pretty much all the time in between. And now they have eternity together. Or however long Force spirits last. Hmm, maybe she should have studied.
Luke's beard tickles her ear, which strikes her as oddly mundane, considering - well - everything. Leia's smile widens.
"I love you," she tells her brother, and feels his arms around her tighten. "I forgive you."
She's half-forgotten Anakin, but a small, strangled sound draws her attention back to him. Peering around Luke, Leia is struck by naked hunger in his eyes. It shifts something inside her, some final barrier - and all at once, she reaches an understanding: it will never matter to her that there is or ever was good in him; she will never call him father, as Luke does. Her love isn't quite as powerful as that. But she can look him full in the face - she can look into his true face - and acknowledge the fact that he is part of her, that he always has been and presumably always will be.
And in the moment she does, it comes to her - like clouds parting, like an unexpected peal of bells: "It's not finished. I'm not finished." She moves away from Luke, but it's Anakin she addresses. "I'll tell you what you were wrong about: I can save everyone. I'm going to." Inexplicable laughter flutters inside her; she feels giddy with it, even slightly demented, and perhaps that's exactly what she is. "I'm going to save everyone. Everyone," she says again emphatically, so they know exactly who she means.
She waits for them to deny her, but Anakin only looks to Luke, his head slightly bowed as if in deference, and Luke only looks at her, his brows pinched together over inexpressibly sad eyes.
What now? Oh, right: I died. Or maybe I didn't. If everything is happening at once, who knows? I'm a Force spirit talking to two other Force spirits. Maybe I'm also at home on Alderaan, refusing to eat my ruica. Maybe I'm in bed with Han. It certainly doesn't feel that way. I really should have studied.
"What?" she asks finally. "What is it that I still don't understand, except for the way back to Geonosis?"
"Leia." Luke seems farther away somehow, though neither of them have moved. "You can go back. That is, it's possible for you to go back. But you don't have to." When all she does is stare, he goes on in a voice that's rough with sorrow and love: "A moment ago, you were at peace. You can stay and be at peace. If any of us have earned that right, it's you. Think about that, just for a moment. You can just be part of this…" He gestures broadly--
And Leia sees her life in its entirety, in a cascade of images from her earliest of early memories--
the light fading from Padmé Amidala's eyes, her bloodless lips shaping the names of her children--
--to her very last. Not in any particular sequence, and not in discrete stages or even moments, but all at once.
Leia sees victories and losses, opportunities taken, and opportunities missed. She sees moments of happiness glittering against a whole galaxy of regret. She sees the face of everyone who touched her life, for good or evil; the many she's forgotten over the years, and the few that she never can. She sees a number of things she can honestly say she's proud of, and much that is still unfinished.
Perhaps that's just the way things are, she supposes. Perhaps some things aren't meant to be finished - not by one person, anyway. We try. We try our hardest, and sometimes we win, and sometimes we fail. Or maybe there is no try; didn't Luke explain that to me once, when we were much younger? Or maybe he only tried to.
She laughs to herself - ruefully. She can't simply let things be.
To rule is to serve, her mother said.
The vision passes, and she's once again looking at Luke and Anakin. "Peace is not my purpose," she tells them. "Winning is. I'm going to save everyone." Now it sounds like a mantra but she doesn't care.
Anakin's face twists in anger, but Luke says, "I know." He puts his hands on her shoulders. "Can you find your way back? Listen," he says when she shakes her head. "Listen carefully."
So she listens, and at first she hears absolutely nothing and she wants to roll her eyes - but then, faintly, as if from very far away--
"Leia! Come on, Leia. Breathe! Try again."
"I'm sorry. Poe, I'm so sorry. She's gone."
"No! You said you sensed something. Try. Again."
She knows those voices; their need and grief burns to her very core. She turns in their direction, and Luke's hands drop from her shoulders; she misses their warmth immediately, but she can't turn back. If she does, all she'll want to do is stay. In fact, if Luke calls out to her--
But it's Anakin whose voice she hears. Anakin, whose gruff tone makes her wonder if his flash of anger wasn't for her choice, but the fact that she had to make it at all. "Leia. We'll always be here. All of us." And she knows he doesn't just mean himself and Luke, but everyone whose life shaped hers, whether they were Jedi or not; they're all part of the Force, part of her.
She knows.
Then they're gone, the light is gone, and she's plunged back into a cold so absolute, she can feel each individual particle inside her freeze solid. It's a cold that obliterates, that annihilates, and it's impenetrably dark; it's worse than being shot out into space, where at least she could see the stars and the wreckage of her ship.
But somewhere beyond the cold and the dark, there are people who need her, and she grasps that knowledge, that hope, like a tether, using it to guide her…
She doesn't know how long she's in that cold place. It feels like forever, but it could easily be a few seconds; time means nothing to the Force. Then it's over and she's somewhere else. Someplace loud and bright and … hairy.
It takes her a few moments to understand that she's on the ground - on real, solid ground - and Chewbacca has his arms wrapped around her. He's hugging her and mussing her hair with his huge paws, and there are faces all around her - ashen, anxious faces that come into focus as she blinks. There's Rey, and Finn, and Rose, kneeling in a semicircle around her and Chewie. There's Poe, somewhat closer than the others, his handsome face dirty and streaked with - are those tears? The front of his shirt is a mess of charred fabric and blood. But he's breathing. And when, with profound effort, she manages to raise her hand and brush his chest with her fingertips, she can feel the reassuring, if rather frantic, beat of his heart.
He seizes her hand and kisses it fervently.
"Leia," Finn whispers. "You were…" He can't finish the sentence.
"You were dead," sniffles Rose. Her skin is blotchy, her eyes puffy. "When we got here, you were-- Your heart stopped, Chewie said. But then…"
"It started again," says Rey, and Leia looks at her intently. But she seems as wonderstruck as any of them, so perhaps there's nothing to worry about.
She feels like she's been chewed up and spat out by a rathtar. She feels like she's been trampled by rancors. But Poe's lips are warm. Chewie's arms are solid and reliable. Rey, Finn, and Rose are gazing at her with eyes that are bright with hope, and for a few minutes Leia allows herself to lie still in Chewie's arms and let their love shine down on her, envelope and renew her.
Then, grasping Poe's hand to indicate her readiness to stand and her need for assistance, she says, "Come, my children. We have much work to do."
2/17/2019