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Appearances are deceptive. Leia is good at maintaining facades; she rarely takes them down.
She puts on brave face as Chewie and Lando leave to try and catch Boba Fett on Tatooine. Luke speaks of meeting them there; but there are duties elsewhere to attend to.
Leia’s life after Bespin becomes three things: the Alliance (as always), getting Han back (tell him everything she couldn’t), and worrying about Luke. They are her anchors.
Worrying about Luke is new. He has a good head on his shoulders; overly-idealistic, but optimism never hurt the cause. Only now he is barely holding it together.
His life becomes the Alliance, the mission to save Han, and flying to Dagobah to complete his training. He juggles his obligations precariously – staying on the comm as long as the signal holds; trying to be two places at once, when his mind is in a third.
Leia sleeps little; he sleeps less.
He doesn’t reach out to people anymore. His confrontation with Vader eats away at him.
The clear answer is survivor’s guilt. Vader killed his father; killed General Kenobi. He has to be wracked he survived where they did not. Luke chose death over Vader; death did not choose him.
The clear answer is survivor’s guilt; intuitively, Leia knows it’s something else. (She knew where to come for him, as he knew where to come for her.)
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Han is not dead. She tells herself this over and over. She will see him again; he’ll laugh and she’ll want to yell at him, but she’ll want to kiss him more.
Luke tells her Han isn’t dead one day as they wait for some news, any news, from Chewie and Lando. He’s trying to make her feel better, but she shoots him an irritated look that says, “I know.”
The Falcon returns; Han is not dead, still frozen in carbonite. Leia can hear the machines hissing. Even though Lando openly displays guilt, she is going to blame him a little while longer. Keeping grudges is not worth the energy (she’s already tired), but she wants to cling to her anger for just a short while. It’s who she is; her father scolded her for it.
Lando leaves for Tatooine again. He’ll remain undercover at the palace; see what else he can find.
Other Alliance leaders are not thrilled with the idea of diverting attention and time to get one man back. A man, a newer officer notes, arguably wasn’t committed to the cause.
Leia’s blood boils, but it is Luke who explodes.
“You don’t think leaving one of our top pilots in the hands of one of the galaxy’s worst crime bosses sends a bad message?! And what’s this arguably committed –”
“Luke!”
“– to the cause?! He’s shot down more –”
“LUKE!”
She yanks hard on his arm and he sits, muttering, “wasn’t arguably committed…”
She’s not listening to him. It’s the first time she’s seen him snap in ages; before Hoth was the last time.
She refocuses her attention; mind rapidly whirring. There has to be a way to convince them going for Han is a good idea, there has to be.
“If we go to retrieve Captain Solo, we could also bring down the Hutts.”
Several in the room move to speak, but she cuts them off.
“They’re not our first priority – they’re not the Empire. But when the Empire’s gone and the Republic’s reinstated, universal freedom in the galaxy is a priority. Eliminating the Hutts will be a large blow to the slave trade; why not start now?”
There is a murmur of agreement in the chamber; Luke is calmer at her side.
Mon Mothma smiles and says, “You know that was a favorite crusade of your father’s.”
Leia waves a dismissive hand, “It’s something we’ll need to work on.”
She’s frustrated. Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?
She hasn’t thought of her father in what feels like ages. Not for the first time, she wonders how he managed it all: serving the Senate, keeping Alderaan at a distance from the Empire, starting the Alliance.
He had her mother: dependable and no-nonsense. Skeptical at first, she eventually embraced it with a fervor which matched her husband’s; hosting legendary (secret) anti-Empire dinners. She was the one who first braided Leia’s hair; she was the one who insisted Leia be taught how to shoot.
He had people like Colton Alde: increasingly radical and cantankerous, but fiercely loyal. She and Alde’s son, Ulic, used to joke they would become their fathers. Ulic didn’t mind, so long as he didn’t inherit his father’s hairline.
And he had her rarely-thought-of birth mother, Sidonie Panteer. She is faint in Leia’s memory, but she realizes now she was there in the earliest days of the Alliance. It was hers as much as anyone else in the Organa household.
Who does Leia have? Han’s gone. Luke’s not here.
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She doesn’t feel like Bail Organa’s daughter most days.
Bail’s daughter was taught the importance of debate and policy. Taking down the Hutts and ending slavery may have been one of his goals, but the Alliance’s increasingly terrorist-like tactics are not. She’ll have to steer them back to legitimate government eventually.
She’s never held a military rank, yet is the undeclared head of an army. She shoots, she flies (never the X-wings – too claustrophobic), she swears (her old school marm would wash her mouth with soap). She’s learning ship engineering; something she would never have picked up in finishing school. But she works at it, and damn well, these days.
She’s stood in the hangar bay as Imperial ships rained down fire. Their merciless pound has slowed down, only slightly. Spies come back with intel: there is to be a new Death Star. The Empire would rather protect it than eliminate the rebels at the moment. They’ll make them watch as they obliterate planets, as they made her before.
She isn’t a politician; she’s a soldier.
There is widespread alarm in the Alliance at how fast it is being built. Speculations on what ‘improvements’ will be made to the Death Star II fly.
At a war council hastily called to alleviate fears, Wedge Antilles speaks to the previous model’s flaw.
“They’ll make the reactor shaft less navigable. They’ll still need one to function, but they’ll work their asses off to make sure we don’t get in this time.”
Luke, over the comm, “You’ll need to find better pilots; run more rigorous trials.”
He isn’t planning on playing the hero and destroying this one. Whatever his Jedi Master has him up to worries her. It is fitting: Leia Organa, traitor to the Empire, may be best friends with an avenging knight and in love with a feckless thief. Her Royal Highness of the House of Organa may not.
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New reports from Tatooine: Jabba’s put out a bounty for Chewie. Having one pilot of the infamous Falcon isn’t enough for him.
Chewie suggests they plant him; they’ll need someone to pose as a bounty hunter. Leia immediately volunteers. She was the last person Han saw; she’ll be the first one he sees.
Since his last trip to Dagobah, Luke seems more interested in caution. He suggests they send R2 ahead (3PO as cover) with his lightsaber. It will get it in past security and it will be easier to take out the palace with four instead of three.
“What the hell is he teaching you?”
Luke remains silent.
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Leia catches Luke as he climbs into his fighter, leaving yet again.
He’s been stewing for too long; she’s going to ask. She doesn’t care that he probably shouldn’t fly angry. Acting like Bespin didn’t happen is worse.
“Luke, you’re going to have to talk about it sometime.”
He doesn’t look her in the eye. Instead, he examines the back of his right hand. It looks real, feels different.
He looks up. “We’ll get Han back.” Firm and automatic.
“I know that.” Thinking about the mission makes her dizzy. She sounds scared because she is scared. Point-blank is the only way. She exhales.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty because you survived, when your father and Ben Kenobi didn’t.”
Luke’s expression is hard to read; he’s focusing intently on the floor.
She presses on, “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
He looks absolutely miserable. She doesn’t understand, but it makes her feel miserable too.
Terribly quietly, “Can we talk about it later? Please?”
Mollified, and in equally soft tones, “Yeah, later. So long as we do – I hate seeing you like this.”
“I know.”
He passes her his new lightsaber; it feels oddly natural, but she’s glad she’ll have a blaster.
“Make sure R2’s got this stowed away safe or we might be screwed.”
He moves to climb up the ladder and she backs against the wall. Halfway up, he stops and comes back down and grabs her in a tight hug. She squeezes back.
“See you when you’re a Jedi.”
He laughs weakly, “See you when you’re a bounty hunter.”
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The armor she’s wearing was found in an abandoned bounty hunter hideout from Galactic Republic days. She’ll probably look too short.
“This thing’s going to stink soon. Full body armor in the desert is a terrible idea.”
Chewie rebuts: he’s got nothing but fur, he’s got no choice. He goes off on a tangent about a friend of his who knew a guy who used to live here.
“What’d they think of the place?”
He barks that he has no idea.
Awful is probably what they thought. She can see exactly why Luke wasn’t eager to come back. It’s nothing to the universe.
Still, when she sees the palace come up on the horizon, her heart swells.