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Leia Organa-Andor, former princess, current commander and General of the Resistance, always tired, stares at the star charts displayed above the holotable. It's her command center, the place where all the data, from all her spies and soldiers, flows in, and all her orders, her missions, and her hopes, flow from. She can see any planet, keep any eye on any mission, as long as the soldier has their tracking fob, allowing her to see them as a pinprick of light on a glowing map. She's spent a great deal of time, lately, hunched over the table, staring down at various maps and datasets. She's spent even more time lately tracking just one being, one operative, on their missions. She rubs her face with one hand, her wedding band glittering with the reflected blue light, then, returns to staring at the map below her. Clicked to zoom in. Again. And again. It doesn’t work. The map of Batuu remains fuzzy.
She growls softly, in frustration, muttering a curse word she’d learned from Chewbacca. If she couldn’t see the planet, how is she supposed to provide information to her spy operative, sent there on a critical mission?
“Enough, Lee,” Shara Bey, former pilot, current pilot, probably also always tired, although with a good deal more fire in her eyes than Leia currently feels, replies. “You’ve tried seven ways to slice it. If the data isn’t working now, taking a nap won’t hurt.”
“I don’t want to sleep. Not yet.” She isn’t quite sure when she last slept. Time has gone so fuzzy here on the base ship for the newly-formed Resistance. The transport is large enough to house multiple floors of quarters and dock a dozen ships, but small enough to pass undetected in most areas of the galaxy. Leia figures she can blame her lack of keeping track of the days on their evasive maneuvers the ship has made recently.
‘You said that yesterday.” Shara squeezes her shoulder, the touch warm even through the thick cloak Leia’s swaddled herself in.
The cloak was handwoven by Wicket, as a wedding present from the Ewoks, years ago. It’s a style of garment that makes her think of Bail, a thought she finds comforting as they deal with this new, old, threat. Bail, who had lived through more than one set of wars in his short life. Leia feels that might be one thing she’s inherited from her father that she wishes desperately she could have avoided.
Batuu's outline blurs, and Leia cannot tell if it’s the holo projection’s fault, or her own tired eyes.
“I’ll sleep soon,” she promises.
Shara replies, “don’t make me send Kes in to carry you away.”
That earns a small smile. “He would, wouldn’t he.”
“With glee. Probably carry you all the way back to Yavin IV and drop you off in your hubby’s waiting arms.”
That earns a snort from Leia. “If Cassian heard you call him that…”
“It’s a good name. Suits him.” Shara’s eyes sparkle.
“Hubby?” Leia arches her eyebrow. “That suits… Cassian Jeron Andor?”
“Course,” Shara laughs, and both women try to pretend the laughter is as honest and true as it was before the First Order’s shadow appeared, blotting out so much of their joy. “He’s retired after all.”
“Of which I am very grateful,” she replies. So many of her friends had re-enlisted, lifted weapons once more to fight. But the war against the First Order is not yet publicly known, still fought in shadows and coded messages, and so, she has been able to keep Cassian from the front lines. It had taken him so long to heal, both physically and emotionally, after his rescue from Scarif, that she is terrified she might lose him forever if he knew the darkness of the Empire had not yet disappeared forever.
She spins her wedding ring around her finger, her finger brushing over the pearls set in the bright blue metal band. Cassian had made it himself. The metal came from Fest, from its scrap now being recycled and turned into far better things than weapons, and the pearls were from Alderaan. The blue ring, with the pearls shining like snow drifts, represented their pasts and promised them a future together.
A future Leia was very keen on getting back to living.
Leia cursed the politics that had led to Tarkin’s son taking control of the new Galactic Senate, as much as she cursed the military threat caused by the so-called General Hux. The one thing she was forever grateful for, in this new war, was that the Sith remained silent, hopefully banished forever by Luke’s actions.
And if not? Well, she had her lightsaber and years of Jedi training at the ready.
For now, though, her skills are better suited to planning and leading, devising missions for her brave Resistance fighters to complete. Each one more dangerous than the last, each one requiring her to be more and more detached from what she is asking of them.
It’s a skill she’d had plenty of practice developing, through Hoth, through Endor, and yet, it’s a skill that still breaks her heart, each time she asks someone to risk their life for the greater good.
Now, she stares down at the holo-screen, watching the blinking lights that represent ships above the now-hostile planet.
“Poe’s reported back, safely,” Shara says. “From his mission to Tevel.”
“I’m glad,” Leia manages to say, still trying to remain detached. She wants nothing more than to hug her friend and apologize that this has happened, that they now send their children to fight in a war they were sure they had won. They had fought for peace for their future, and instead, only found more war. It’s enough to make her feel more weary than she should be, at not even fifty years of age. She was supposed to be a doting aunt to Poe, not his commanding officer.
Leia was supposed to be many things once the war had end; a loving wife, a retired political official, a quasi-simple-homesteader on Yavin IV, if the former princess could ever be called simple. But currently, she is none of those things. Instead, she is a military officer once more, and the war seems to have never ended at all.
Shara nods at the screen. “Still trying to look for the Operative?”
Leia nods. “I don’t like that they vanished.”
Batuu's atmosphere should have allowed a comm link back to the ship. Not that the Operative, as Leia thought of her best spy, ever used the comm to communicate by voice. Nor would she break protocol and comm them, either.
“They’re probably busy on their mission,” Shara replies. “They’re good. How many times before have they failed?”
Never. Each time she asked the Operative to seek out new information, they succeeded. They were faster, more cunning, better, than any of her other spies. And so, each mission they were sent on was more dangerous, because Leia had so few resources, she could not lose any.
Resources. She grimaces, hating how that sounds, even in her own head. Beings. Living beings. Each soldier, each spy, is a life, one that she risks by sending on missions.
“They’re good,” Shara says again. “I’m sure they’re safe.”
“Or, the First Order could have gotten them. Their ship could have malfunctioned. There’s too many variables.” There always is, in war. Leia had forgotten that.
“But they’re clever,” Shara shakes her head. “Whoever they are, they’re damn good at what they do. Sure you don’t want to meet them in person?”
Leia shakes her head. “All my spy leaders are safer if I do not know their faces. It’s better this way.”
It was to preserve their anonymity, to keep them from having to hide even more away in mental locked boxes if they were captured. And yet, Leia cannot help but wonder about the Operative who was so skilled, so good at slicing into tech centers and sabotaging enemy ships. More than one battle had been won by the Operative’s brave actions, and yet, there would never be a medal, or even a whisper of thanks to their name.
Leia yawns. Sleep pulls at her, reminds her, annoyingly, that she is both human, and older than she was in her first war.
“Go. Rest.” Shara grips Leia’s shoulder and steers her away from the holo screen. “Just for a couple minutes.”
Leia caves, and heads over to a small bunk, where Artoo is waiting. He chirps happily as she approaches. “Hello friend,” she replies, patting his dome. “You can tell Luke I’m fine.”
Artoo whistles, confirming that yes, Luke’s worried messages had reached his data systems. She shakes her head, ruefully. Luke’s worry-wort nature had only grown over the years, not that she could blame him. But he needed to focus on training new Jedi and she needed to focus on winning this war.
And by focusing, she knew that meant to stop worrying about some Operative that she would never meet.
“Artoo? Could you set up a comm call with Cassian for me, please?” Leia pauses, bites her lip in worry, before adding, “and please adjust the background to the preprogrammed one? The footage from Endor.”
Endor, where Luke’s school was set up, and where Leia was supposedly staying, according to what she’d told Cassian.
Artoo whistled once more, low and gentle, before setting up the call. Leia takes a minute to settle on the bunk, wrapping the cloak more tightly around her, attempting a more relaxed smile than she feels inside. Even still, with all her stress and worry, her heart thuds a little faster when she hears him say her name.
“Leia?” he asks, just as gently as ever. He says her name, Leia thinks, like it is the most lovely thing in the galaxy.
A moment later, the visual connection of the comm fuzzes into view. Cassian looks tired, but comfortable, a blanket pulled over his shoulders. The years have done nothing to dampen his handsome charm, even with the few streaks of grey now in his hair.
“Calling me from bed?” she teases, nodding at the blanket on his shoulders, nearly a match to her own cloak.
“It’s where I miss you the most,” he says, with that brilliant almost-smile that’s worth more to her than ten thousand grins from someone else. “How’s Luke?”
“He’s doing better,” Leia says, which isn’t a lie. It’s simply that she’s not taking care of her sick brother at the new Jedi temple, as she’d told Cassian when she left. But rather, she’s directing the Resistance and taking care of Luke by ensuring his young Jedi recruits are kept as safe as they can be.
“Glad to hear it.”
“How’s home?” Leia asks, trying hard to keep the yearning note from cracking in her voice. She hadn’t been able to bring anything of home aboard the command ship, because it would have been too suspicious to take. She misses the view from their bedroom window, the tree with the chair beneath it that they used to sit and watch the sun set behind the Massassi temple, and most of all, she misses waking each morning to see Cassian’s face smiling back at her.
“Good,” he replies. “Crops are growing well. We’ll have a nice harvest. I’ll have to find room to set up a canning operation, maybe, for all the soup I’ll be making.”
It’s such a simple, mundane thought. Rows of freshly made soups. Cassian, humming as he works in the kitchen. Their comfortable little cottage. Leia feels her throat tighten. “I miss you.”
“I’m by your side,” Cassian says. “Always.”
Leia closes her eyes, so he cannot see the tears that threaten to spill. His words echo inside her. She knows it to be true, deep in her heart, deep where the Force itself whispers to her.
But oh, how she wishes he was closer, now, sitting beside her here on this command ship, and not lightyears away.
The days pass. She checks on her Operative, though she feels the smallest twinge of guilt thinking of the brave soul as that. The Operative isn’t hers. They are part of the Resistance, of the good fight, the same as Leia. They are a single thread in the fabric woven to protect this new-found peace.
But there’s always been a connection between her and their best spy. A bond. Leia knows, even before the report comes in, when they’ve been successful in gathering data. It feels, to her, like a lightness in her bones, a joy she cannot name.
And the two times they’ve sent back that they’ve been injured, Leia’s known that too. It’s strange, thisbond she has to the Operative. There's something there, something that knits them together, as if perhaps, once, they had fought together. Sometimes it feels as if the Operative is watching her back as much ashe watches theirs. Other times, it feels as if the Operative needs her hope, her confidence in them. She wonders if perhaps they’re a Jedi, or a Force-user who was never properly trained.
She makes the mistake of telling her brother this, and he begins to fret that the Operative might be recruited to the Dark Side.Leia doesn’t think that’s possible. She trusts this Operative, knows that whoever they are, they would never betray the cause in such a way.
When she tells Luke that, he only arches an eyebrow in one of those expressions that reminds her they truly are twins.
Her next call to Cassian is cut short, from what he says is a connection error. It’s not that unusual, given that so much of Yavin IV is still wilderness, and yet, it’s strange to her that her tech-genius husband hasn’t found a way to make their comm calls less shaky.
It’s been two weeks since she left home, to jump into what was supposed to be a short mission against the First Order. She’d left before, in the past year, but only for a weekend, easily explained away to Cassian as a quick trip to see a friend or a Jedi obligation. But now, she’s begun to wonder how she’s ever supposed to return home, when the Resistance needs her.
When her Operative needs her, like now.
“Message for General Organa!” someone shouts from the command center. No one here knows the rest of her last name. O one but Kes and Shara, and they know to keep it a secret. Safer for Cassian that, way, and safer for Leia too. Even most of the Rebellion had no idea that Cassian had survived Scarif, had lived and fought and nearly died a dozen more times for the cause.
The command center pages her once more. Leia looks up from where she had simply been staring down at her hands, wishing they could do more than simply type and direct. Staring down at her wedding ring too, at the metal band and pearls that represented so much to her, and right now, felt like her only proof the home she’d left behind, with her husband, wasn’t a dream at all. “Operative Azure is hailing.”
That was the Operative’s formal name, and so, Leia runs to the command center. It’s a simple request, even if it was written in a complex code, and she hurries to supply the data they need; a new ID card, a new docking code, and a few other variables.
The Operative had enlisted a few days after Leia began her first work for the Resistance. They’d patched in, offered their aid, and showed that they still remembered all the old codes from when the Resistance had been known as the Rebellion.
Lando had scoffed at Leia’s quick trust of the Operative, but Leia had pointed out she’d learned to trust Lando on much less than that, and so, she was going to do just as she pleased, thank you very much.
At that, Lando had laughed and completed the necessary paperwork to welcome the Operative into the order, complete with letting them pick their codename.
Azure, blue in High Aurebesh, seemed like a strange choice to Leia, but spies picked their code names for a thousand different reasons.
“Perhaps the operative is from Mon Cala,” Lando had mused, rubbing his beard. “And the blue reminds them of the waters of their homeworld.”
“Or maybe the operative is Max Rebo’s brother, and this is all a scam for him to set up a new band,” Han had retorted.
Leia had told both of them to get their boots off of her command table and get back to their assigned tasks. Somehow, she’d gotten stuck with not just a twin brother, but two annoying adoptive older brothers, their bond forged through the war. Leia, though glad for their help, found herself wishing to be home, with Cassian, all the more while Han was around. The last thing she needed to be reminded of, in times like these, was an ill-thought-out kiss long in the past.
But all of that had been months ago. Han had gone deep undercover, relying on old smuggling contacts to pass information back, and Lando was in charge of the Resistance’s finances. Leia missed them now. Not nearly as much as she yearned to see her husband again, but she missed them all the same.
Idly, she spins her wedding band around her finger once more. The pearls are cool to the touch, like snow. The metal, though, is warm, as warm as the sun on her skin under a bright blue sky.
The next two calls Leia makes to Cassian, there’s no answer. Eventually, he writes back to her. “Out in the shop. Sorry.”
It’s the only sort of message he’ll leave her; written in code and set to disappear in a matter of seconds.
“That’s fine. Enjoy.” Leia pauses, looking at the message. It seems too sparse. He doesn’t know how much she depends on his calls right now, how much his normal conversation matters to her. So, she couldn’t blame him for being busy. She adds, “love you more than the stars in the sky.”
“And I, you, more than the snow in all the drifts.”
It’s a line from an old Festian poem, and it makes her heart soften. She lets herself imagine him with his hands stained with oil, a smile on his face. Lets herself be back there, in their small, simple house, for a moment.
Reminds herself that’s what they’re fighting for. For her home, for her husband. For all the promises they'd made to each other in bunkers on Hoth and under the trees of Endor. For all of the futures they had dreamed of and all of the hopes they had yet to name.
She opens her eyes and finds her resolve still strong. Cassian is safe. There is a war to win. She needs to get to work.
A week has passed, in much the same way as the last, only, now it’s the Operative’s most dangerous mission yet. Leia watches every moment, every second. Watching. Waiting. Her Operative, her favorite spy as the others teasingly say, needs her. Even if there’s nothing she can do for them from her command table, no aid she can send with them this deep undercover.
Tonight, not even Shara is at her side. She’s out on her own mission, yet another glowing dot on another holoscreen for Leia to track, once she drops out of hyperspace.
For now, Leia’s entire universe has narrowed to the view in front of her. A glowing map. A pulsing dot, representing one life.
Representing one soldier in the vast war. One flame in the blaze ignited once more to repel the dark.
And yet, that tiny light is everything to her. She's glad the Operative still has their tracer, that she can follow their movements in this mission, even if she cannot help them.
Her personal comm buzzes. It's set to only receive holo-calls from two people. One is Luke, who would never call her this way, not when they have the Force. The other...
Cassian.
She needs to answer. He’s her husband.
But he’s safe on Yavin IV. Safe in their little cottage, tucked away amid a garden and a workshop.
The Operative is… not safe. Not at all. They’re deep inside a First Order warship, in disguise, trying to slice into the databanks to gain access to where the Order is training new Stormtroopers. The Operative is in grave danger. Leia can’t shake the feeling if she looks away, if she blinks, she’ll lose them.
Her comm buzzes, alerting her that he’s left an audio message. Odd. He never does. Too many years of training not to leave a trace, she figures. The same way that there’s no holo photos of him, either.
Cassian only exists in live calls, in rare coded text messages set to disappear seconds after receipt. He’s never recorded, has no legal documents to his name, not even their marriage certificate.
In some ways, Leia thinks, he’s never quite stopped being a spy.
The holoscreen below her flashes red. The operative has made it past the three secure walls. He’s in.
She dares to listen to the audio message, though her eyes never leave the dot, still blinking, on the map.
Cassian's voice is little more than a whisper as it crackles through the recording on her personal comm. “More than the stars, more than the snow, I love you.”
Leia tilts her head. Odd. Why would he… what a strange message to leave. Cassian isn’t sentimental, not like that. He's sentimental in a thousand other small ways, the sort to know her favorite baked goods and bring them to her, freshly made, in bed. The type to steal a kiss before he headed out to the garden, or dance with her under the stars.
But recorded poetry is quite unlike him.
Leia shakes her head, trying to shake the feeling of unease spreading through her.
Below her, amidst the maps and data sets, Operative Azure's dot wavers for a second, as if the link from their map tracer to her data systems might be interrupted by a First Order attack.
No. No, no. Leia squeezes her eyes shut, wishing she could somehow deploy the Force like a protective blanket around the Operative.
They need these plans.
But she needs her Operative back safe and sound too.
Her knees tremble and she steadies herself against the table. The weight of her wartime duties threatens to suddenly crush her. The Operative is just one life, one soldier, she knows, but she cannot lose them.
She has lost so much already.
Opening her eyes, she sees the Operative's dot is now glowing blue once more, as strong as if it had never wavered. Now, she feels foolish. Who was she to worry more over a spy than her own husband? Quickly, she tries to call Cassian back on her own comm. She’ll tell him the truth now. She’s been foolish, hiding this from him. But the call cannot reach him. It fizzles out, as if there was never anyone on the other side of the connection. As if Cassian has disappeared, like smoke.
She tries again.
And again.
Nothing. The line is silent, as if the entire network on Yavin IV has been shut down.
But that makes no sense. Unless… had they been attacked? What if Cassian hadn’t been safe at all?
Her heart pounding, she pulls up a second screen, overlaying half of her Operative’s map. Memories flicker, of those horribly fast hours of evacuation from Yavin IV, a lifetime ago. Of Star Destroyer's dark shadows and blaster fire. Leia remembers running alongside Cassian's stretcher, refusing to leave his side.
She had refused then. But now, with this war, she had broken that promise. She had left him behind, left his side, left the place she had sworn she belonged. Guilt washes over her. Rapidly, she types commands, until she’s able to pull up the satellite monitor over Yavin IV. It takes a moment to connect. Leia breathes a sigh of relief.
The planet is safe.
There are no Star Destroyers looming, no sign of conflict. Her home, her husband, her heart, are safe.
She turns back to the Operative’s maybe and muffles her scream behind a hand.
The Operative’s flashing light is completely gone.
“No!” she cries out, feeling part of her heart shatter, mourning the loss of someone she’d never met. “No!” She grabs the comm used for connecting to Operatives, though Azure has never spoken to anyone directly before. “Operative Azure,” she says, “Come in. Operative Azure, report.”
There’s no reply. Leia’s finger spins her wedding ring, faster and faster.
A moment later, she receives a text-based signal, crafted in the usual Resistance code. Operative Azure has always been so quick to learn codes, quicker still to volunteer for risky missions. She translates it quickly. “Lost comm signal. Lost map signal. I need guidance.”
The dot blinks to life once more on the map. Leia lets out a deep breath, her fingers uncurling from their clenched fists. She cannot worry about Cassian, not right now. Maybe lightning hit the cottage's comm attenna, or maybe a wild animal wrecked havoc on his electronics. Whatever it is, it is a much smaller danger than whatever Operative Azure faces now.
She needs to get the Operative those maps.
Leia sends them what they need, providing, sentence by sentence, the route. It takes her a bit of time, and multiple overlays, to craft a plan for them. She has rough data on what the ship should look like, other spies’ reports on the patterns of troops onboard. Leia links all of those parts into one steady path forward for the Operative, keeping her mind clear of everything but this mission.
And now, all she can do is wait, and watch. She watches the small pulsing dot move. Watches… watches.
She’s always watching in war. Always leaning over a command table. Always waiting.
She wishes she could do something, anything.
All she has is the glowing screen below her and the Force all around her. Leia tries to tap into that, tries to remember the breathing exercises Luke taught her.
She tries to imagine the Force wrapping around the Operative, keeping them safe, only her mind keeps drifting back to Yavin IV, back to her little cottage.
Back to Cassian.
Her eyes open suddenly.
The screen flickers.
“NO!” Leia yells. Again. Again. But the dot’s gone. The whole map fades from view moments later. Seconds pass. A screen beeps, alerting her that the First Order ship has been destroyed, but the plans have been received.
The Operative finished their task, but did they get out in time?
She buzzes the Operative on her comm. Her own, personal comm. Dares to break procedures, once more. She should know better than to contact a spy when they are undercover. She should know better than to care so much. But she does care, and so, she asks, “Operative, Operative Azure, what's your status?”
“Still in love with the most brilliant woman in the galaxy.”
It’s Cassian’s voice.
He’s alive.
He’s her spy. Her Operative, her most relied upon asset, her best hope.
Of course he is. He had been her best spy long before he had become her best friend.
A smile appears on Leia’s face and the tension melts from her body. She nearly falls to the ground in relief. She’s warm now, warm enough she doesn’t need the protective embrace of the heavy cloak. It slides from her shoulders as Cassian speaks once more. “I’m sorry for the voice message. Only, I thought, I might not…”
That he might not make it out in time.
Because he was her Operative, and the one she had sent on the most dangerous of the missions. The same missions she would have never deployed her husband on, even if he had been the best spy for the job.
He had known that, as he knew all of her heart.
“I’m glad you did,” Leia manages to say. “I was worried you were just getting bored stuck at home.”
“Never a boring day in our lives, is there?”
There’s a soft chuckle that echoes from the comm and fills her heart. Leia’s smile softens. “But you’re safe now?”
“I am. I’ll be home soon.”
“You’re headed to Yavin IV?”
“No,” his laughter is a little louder.
She means to say something, when there’s a loud beep, somewhere beyond her table. A voice from the cockpit of the ship echoes on speakers in the room. “Commander Organa! Operative Azure is hailing the ship, asking for permission to land.”
Leia shakes her head, ruefully. “Permission granted.”
He’s impossible, her spy, her husband, her love. Impossible, wonderful, talented, and so much more. “Thank you,” she whispers into the comm. “For all that you have done.”
“I know you were trying to keep me safe,” he replies. “And I was trying to do the same for you.”
“We’re a matched pair,” she replies. Both of them committed to the fight for a better tomorrow, as committed as they each were to protecting the other. Leia had tried to protect Cassian physically, by keeping the war from him, and he had tried to protect her emotions, knowing she wouldn’t be able to bear the weight of sending her beloved into danger.
Leia turns off all of her glowing screens and picks up her discarded cloak. The blue light of all her data screens fades, as she finally abandons her sentinel's post. The Operative, her Operative, is safe now. A second later, familiar soft bootsteps echo in the hall of the ship. The door hisses open.
Cassian stands there, dressed in a spy’s disguise, but with the most wonderful, honest, smile on his face. She understands now, why his holo-comm was from what she’d thought was bed, why he’d looked so tired.
She understands so much and loves him all the more.
She rushes forward, colliding with him as if she is a young woman again. And he, just as overcome, spins her around, holding her tightly. He kisses her forehead, his beard a familiar scratchy brush against her skin. “My home,” he whispers, “is where you are.”
Gently, his right hand reaches for her left, so his thumb can trace over her wedding band. It’s blue. Blue like the sky above their cottage. Blue like her lightsaber. And blue, like the Operative’s name.
“Then,” Leia replies, new, happier, tears in her eyes, “I’m going to have to order you to stay at home, Operative. At least for a little while.”
He laughs and kisses her, as deep as the sea and as wild as snow flurries. When Leia closes her eyes, she imagines the Force around them once more, its light blinking strong and steady, keeping her favorite spy, her Cassian, safe forever.
Their love, their future, would always be worth fighting for.