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Leia can’t remember the exact moment she decided to help Rey, but then the girl is standing before her, wild hair, clear, fierce eyes and the Force in her, glowing like a torch.
It’s early evening on Takodana. During the day, the planet is fit for a postcard, but come sunset, and it is transformed. Great swaths of gold, red and purple transfigure the sky and cascade on to the earth. Even the Resistance’s grounded, pale ship gains a shimmering, magical quality. From the distance, the clamor of dishes and laughter from Maz’s cafe carry even to where Leia now stands.
Leia remembers the last time she was on Takodana, more than fifteen years ago. She, Han, Ben, and Chewy had been flying in the Falcon to pick up things for Ben that Luke said that he needed for training. They wouldn’t have made it into a family trip, but it was rare that Ben was on vacation from training and things had been slow at work. She had thought it would be nice to take a day off and spend some time together as a family. On the way, Ben and Han had gotten into a huge argument, Han furious and Ben near tears, with Leia and Chewy attempting to mediate between them. After a few tense and sometimes explosive hours in hyperspace, Leia had announced that they were landing at the nearest planet.
Even when she had been a teeanger herself, Leia had never spent much time around teenage boys. She had spent her own adolescence in the footsteps of her parents in the Senate. By the time she had met her brother, they had already been nineteen. As for Han, his parents had died when he had been young, and he’d largely raised his teenage self by himself. Han had been fine with Ben when their son had been little, but now Ben was taller than his father, and angry, all the time. They clashed over everything. School, work, food, cleaning, money, not to mention politics, they invented opportunities to jump at each other’s throats. One wayward glance could erupt into a matter of urgency and personal honor.
Luke had already confided in Leia that he was worried about Ben’s temper, and in particular Ben’s relationship with Han as a trigger for his outbursts. But how could she keep her husband away from their son when she suspected that for all they fought, it was they that needed each other the most? The constant arguing grated on her and hurt her more deeply than she would ever say. At the same time, others told her that it was normal for fathers and sons to fight, that it was something they needed to do. So with ringing ears, she found herself gritting her teeth and tolerating it.
This time, however, she had put her foot down. Han took a long enough break from the flying insults to steer the Falcon down into what had happened to be Takodana. Leia had been on Takodana before, but it was the first time for Ben. Without thinking about it, Leia had taken her son’s hand and pointed out to him the glittering lake, the expanse of the forest. Ben had tugged his hand out of hers and sulked off to Maz’s, his back to his mother.
Inside, Maz had taken one long look at the four of them - Chewy despondent, Leia exhausted, Han furious, Ben looking as though he’d rather be anywhere else - and had served them immediately, all the food at once, forgoing courses. They had eaten mostly in silence. The bill had been brow-raisingly high, but Leia had paid without comment, and then they headed back.
Back on the Falcon, after a few tense hours, Ben had approached her. His expression was suddenly sweet and earnest, and she was suddenly faced with the thoughtful, kind boy that was her son, who was very different than the angry adolescent that was currently occupying his body. Amid all the fighting, they had never managed to actually buy the supplies Ben needed. He had asked if they were going to get them another time.
Leia had looked up at her son who had spent the day trying to hurt his father in every way he knew how. His curly dark hair was growing too long, she suddenly realized. He needed a haircut, she thought to herself, and some new clothes too, he was growing so fast. Yes, she had said, another time.
Now, it’s on Takodana, and with Maz Kanata to boot, that her husband has returned (she tries not wonder to herself how brief this visit will be) - and with him, the map they think leads to her brother, Luke. Han had already warned her that the map was incomplete, but it’s with grim disappointment that she sees the projection for herself. She allows herself a moment of frustration. If her brother didn’t want to be found, why had she fooled herself that it would have been so easy to find him?
It’s Maz Kanata who breaks her out of her reverie. “Leia,” she says. “I have something to give you.” And then, from out of her robes emerges her brother’s - her father’s - old lightsaber. Leia takes the proffered lightsaber, turning it over in her trembling hands. She can feel the Force buzzing through it, captured energy waiting to be released. She might be untrained, but she’s surprised that she didn’t notice its presence before.
“Where did you find this?” Leia wonders aloud. She has almost forgotten all the crew who surround her. She clicks it, and the blue blade shoots out from the hilt, swooshing and crackling with electricity. It’s heady and powerful, and dangerous. She waves it once in the air. Leia hasn’t held a lightsaber since Ben was a child. She's surprised by how natural it feels in grasp.
“That’s what I asked,” Han grumbles. Leia thinks about shooting him a smile, but doesn’t: there is too much rawness there.
Through her spectacles, Maz gazes up at her with wide eyes that look more lined than Leia remembers. “It’s a long story. But there is a shorter one that I can tell you.”
Leia quirks a brow. “Oh?” She retracts the lightsaber.
Maz tells her about the girl that Han found. She’s the one who found BB-8, and at Maz’s, that lightsaber had called to her. Before all that, the girl was waiting for her family on Jakku. And now she’s hiding somewhere in the forest.
Han adds: She spoke Shryiiwook and droid, and probably other languages, too. She had piloted the Falcon on her own, and she was an experienced mechanic who could think outside of the box. I liked her, he says, and then he pauses - I liked her a lot. He had offered her a job on the ship, but she had turned him down in favor of returning to Jakku, to continue waiting for her family. Han had given her a blaster.
The boy who came with Han chimes in, too. His name is Finn. Before he defected from the First Order, he saved her best pilot, Poe Dameron. By the returning the droid, he’s ultimately responsible for finishing Dameron’s mission, and delivering the map to the Resistance. Then he starts to get annoying. “General Organa? My friend, Rey, is somewhere in the forest. We have to look for her.” Leia knows that the boy is a hero, but this is ridiculous.
“Finn.” Leia clips sharply. He’s far taller than she is but when she addresses him, he trembles. Good. “I am General of the Resistance. I have been for a long time, and I was a rebel leader for longer than that. I know what I’m doing. I want your friend back too, but first you must trust me.” Leia says it more honestly than perhaps the boy realizes. When this girl from Jakku had touched the lightsaber, she’d seen visions. Leia has now had that same saber tucked in her belt for hours, and she hasn’t seen anything. She’s never even heard of Force sensitive people seeing visions from objects. Leia doesn’t tell Finn, but she is very glad that the girl in the forest has a blaster.
The Resistance does talk sending a search party out for the girl. At the end of the day though, Leia’s forces are spread out thin, all over the galaxy, and she can’t afford to send out more now. She decides it would be best if the girl returns on her own. If she’s not back by nightfall, she’ll reconsider.
So it’s early evening that Leia steps out from the landed ship that contains her Resistance to take a breather, or so she tells her staff. Instinctively, she closes her eyes and scans the forest. It’s been a while since she surrendered herself to the Force like this. Yet the Force welcomes her anyway. It envelopes her like a blanket, greets her like a daughter, as easy as slipping into a pool of water.
This is below her rank, she knows. Searching for wayward adolescent scavengers is not a job for her. And yet… With a jolt, Leia registers the girl in the Force. If Force signatures were like flames, hers is a blaze.
When Leia opens her eyes, the girl is standing before her.
Leia needs to ask Maz if all sunsets are so beautiful on Takodana. The girl in the clearing is bathed in light. It lends her a glowing, magical quality, and makes her brown hair look golden. The girl is young, younger than most of her pilots, but still older than Ben the last time she saw him. Her clothes are unmistakably designed for the desert, but now they’re littered with brown dirt and leaves. There is a determination in her gaze that Leia recognizes because it’s one that she’s seen in herself. The girl is carrying a huge staff in one hand and Han’s blaster in the other. She looks like she knows how to use them.
The girl is staring at Leia from where the clearing in the forest begins, her mouth slightly open. Her grip on her weapons doesn’t slacken. Leia doesn’t say anything. She stares at the girl in return. It’s been so long since she met another person who was strong in the Force, let alone someone who was untrained like her. For the first time in a long time, she wonders what her own Force signature must look like to someone like Luke. Skittishly, like an animal, the girl begins to approach. Leia maintains eye contact but doesn’t move: she doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of that staff.
Finally, the girl is close enough that Leia can hear her breath and make out her brown eyes. “Rey,” Leia greets her. The girl stops. Her expression is wary, but there’s wonder there, too.
“Who are you?” She finally asks. She has an accent that Leia recognizes from Jakku.
Leia thinks about introducing herself with her full title, but decides against it. “I’m Leia Organa. Thank you for returning the map to my brother.”
For a moment, the girl looks more confused. Then her eyes widen and her mouth splits into a sudden, shocking smile. “Your brother is Luke Skywalker?” It’s been a long time since someone has smiled when talking about Luke.
Leia finds it jarring. “Something like that.”
The Force sensitive girl who ran into the forest after seeing visions from the lightsaber, Rey, has lit up in talking about Luke Skywalker. “Before I met Finn, I thought the Skywalkers were myths," she ventures.
Leia regards her curiously. Luke’s triumph over Darth Vader was recorded and standardized into history in all accredited schools in the galaxy. There are monuments and even museums dedicated to the rise and fall of the Empire. Leia wouldn’t be surprised if there was one on Jakku. Lately, though, the First Order’s growing contingent of supporters had vandalized many of those memorials. There had even been some calls to tear them down, though so far those had been met with public outcry. There was a movement that was gaining traction in the galaxy for people to censor their own history. Why free people choose dictatorships and fascism, Leia would never understand.
“Well, sometimes it does feel like that,” Leia admits. She has never quite adopted the Skywalker mantle for herself, and it doesn't look as though her brother was willingly returning any time soon.
“So it is all true?” the girl wants to know.
Leia smiles diplomatically. “I don’t know what you’ve heard. Some of it might be.” Had this girl even gone to school?
“Luke was a Jedi?”
“Yes.”
“He took down the Empire.”
This time, Leia hesitates. They thought they had, but her son is living evidence that that wasn’t true. Still, Leia says, “Yes.”
“And then he disappeared?”
The girl’s smile, which had been so wide and genuine that it had been blinding, now slips.
Leia takes a deep breath. “Yes.” She doesn’t want pity, especially from a young girl. And then she thinks to herself, this girl knows something about lost family members. As if she’s read her mind, the girl says earnestly, “I know it’s not the same, but my family has been gone, too. I’ve also been waiting for them.”
Leia smiles naturally now, without thinking about it. “I know. Maz and Han told me.”
The girl suddenly takes a step closer, and then she’s sitting there next to Leia. It’s been a while since Leia has had a long conversation with someone of Rey’s age. She’s looks about the same the age Leia was when Alderaan was destroyed, she realizes suddenly. The same age Leia was when she was a young Rebel leader, and met the people who became her family, or, in the case of Luke, who turned out to be her family all along. Leia peers at the girl a little closer. She does seem sort of familiar, even though Leia is sure that she’s never met her before.
“Did Maz tell you about the vision I saw?” the girl asks.
Leia shrugs, carefully, intentionally. “Only that you had one. Maz isn’t Force sensitive. She doesn’t know what you saw.”
The girl gives Leia a surreptitious glance that Leia is quite sure she wasn’t supposed to have noticed. “So I’m Force sensitive, too?”
The girl already knows the answer, but Leia decides to humor her. “You are. I am, too, and so is my brother.” She doesn’t mention any others.
The girl nods deliberately. “I know.” She appears to consider for a moment. “So it’s passed down through families,” she says. After Leia slowly nods, the girl pauses again. “Does that mean that my family is Force sensitive, too?”
This is very cautious territory. Luke would be better equipped to answer the question, since he’s studied the Force far more extensively than she ever has, but Luke isn’t here. “Maybe,” Leia says eventually. “I don’t really know. In my family, it definitely is. But Luke used to say that when there was a Jedi Council, that there would be Force sensitive children found all over the galaxy. So sometimes it runs in families, and maybe sometimes it’s by chance.” Leia doesn’t know if that’s really accurate. It seems more likely that the Jedi, who were forbidden from attachments, were really just taking advantage of momentary spans of freedom wherever their missions took them. She doesn’t feel like telling that to the girl, though. She might be wild, but she has a certain hopefulness and clarity of purpose that’s rare right now in the galaxy, and Leia doesn’t feel like disrupting it.
The girl’s face falls. “Then who is my family?” She whispers to herself, “I don’t want a power. I just want to go home, I just want my family.”
The sun has almost completely set now. Where the forest had been illuminated from the sunset, it’s now dark, the only light from starlight and the narrow moon.
Leia is flooded with something strong in her. “I didn’t want this power, either, Rey,” she says more passionately than she intended. “That’s why I never became a Jedi.”
The girl gives her a confused look. “But, you have the Force too?” she says, but it turns into a question. “Then what are you?”
Leia says without inflection, “A general.”
The girl’s expression is wonder again. “So what should I call you?”
“Leia.”
The girl sits up straighter when she continues. She begins to tell Leia about the vision she saw, with the massacre and Leia’s brother and watching herself as a child. Her voice is steady and distant until she begins to recall her conversation with Maz. The girl’s voice breaks off with a sharp sucking sound. Leia looks at her; Rey’s face is clenched, cheeks wet. Leia sighs to herself. Maz could be many things, but tactful was not always one of them.
“Listen, Rey,” Leia begins, and then she knows what to say. “I don’t know who your family was or why you were on Jakku for so long. But what I do know about you is that you’re smart, you know how to take care of yourself, you’re a great pilot, a mechanic, you care about the people you love, the Force is strong in you, and my brother’s lightsaber calls to you. And Han likes you. And so do I,” she adds, and suddenly, it’s true. ”And you can stay here. And if your family doesn’t come back, you can stay forever. If you like, you can join the join the Resistance. And you can always go back to Jakku. That will always be an option. But it seems as though you’re more important than just scavenging”
The girl considers thus for a long time. “You think that if I go back, my family will never come back for me?” she says at last, “That’s what Maz Kanata said. She told me that ‘the belonging I seek is not behind but ahead.’ You sound just like her.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Leia says cautiously. Leia finally chuckles and touches the girl’s shoulder. The girl jumps before she slowly smiles in return.
They sit in the shadow of the Resistance base as night falls around them. There are two moons of Takodana and one of them is half-full tonight. Its glow illuminates the trees, which now take on a still, statue-like quality, interrupted only by the breeze. There are almost no clouds. The noise from Maz’s cafe doesn’t let up, carrying through the forest, music and laughter and clattering silverware. The other sounds of the forest join them, creating an effect that is almost eerie. The girl moves beside her. Leia glances at her, and then her eyes narrow. The girl’s clothes are worn, and very thin. They were made for scavenging in the heat of the desert day, not for a cool dewy forest at night. Leia rises, and offers her hand to the girl. The girl looks at Leia’s hand and then at Leia herself, and then she grasps it. Her grip is strong. Leia helps her up, and then she leads her to the base’s entrance. She might just be able to find the girl some clothes.
Immediately, the Resistance leaps on Leia. There’s messages waiting for her, questions to answer, orders to give, and everything is urgent and needs her attention now. At the moment, Leia requests a few minutes. She will receive them in a moment. Leia turns to the wide-eyed girl at her side. Rey. “I want to give you something,” she says. And she unclasps her brother’s lightsaber from her belt, holding it in her hands.
Rey gives her a beseeching look. For a second, Leia thinks that she will refuse it. Then, hands shaking, Rey grasps it. Though it’s cold on the base, Leia feels a breeze of sudden warmth. Then it’s over. From the her expression, Leia is sure that the girl felt it, too. Leia wraps her own hand around Rey’s on the hilt. There is something right about it that she can’t explain. Then she removes her hand to place it on Rey’s shoulder. “This is yours now,” she says.
Before she can register the movement, the girl has already thrown her arms around Leia. Rey steps back suddenly, the wet tears making her eyes glitter. She’s so young, Leia thinks desperately. Leia doesn’t want to put her through this. She didn’t ask for it: she was born into it. But she won’t be alone, Leia knows.
The girl’s brown eyes are fierce and blazing. “Will you teach me?”
Leia almost laughs, but the girl is serious. Not for the first time, she thinks: if only I had trained more with Luke, maybe I could have saved Ben, maybe I could have prevented the First Order from gaining power. And maybe then she would have the skills to properly train this girl. “I don’t know very much. I did mean what I said earlier, I am not a jedi. We’ll see,” she says.
Rey shakes her head insistently, “I didn't want to be a jedi, either. I didn’t even know that there were really jedi until today. I just want to be with my family. But I do want to be like you, I want to be able to use the Force. Will you teach me?”
In the artificial light of the ship, the girl looks far more ordinary than she did in the sunset outside. Like most people, Leia has to look up to her. Her brown hair is tied into three buns at the back of her head, and she’s still wearing those thin desert clothes. Her expression, though, is beseeching, and Leia can still sense the Force glowing about her, almost like she can sense the lightsaber the girl now holds.
“I’ll teach you,” she finally says. What that will look like, Leia doesn’t know.
Leia sends the girl to the mess hall to eat, but not before assigning her a room to sleep in. Only then does she allow herself to be inundated by her staff. The map has been confirmed as incomplete, but there are a few leads as to where the remainder of the map might be. The King of Kashyyyk has been waiting to hear from her, and someone in Intelligence may have encrypted what may be a message for the First Order. After all that, Leia doesn’t forget to order one of her soldiers to find the girl some suitable clothes that will fit.
When the galaxy appears to be in less of a state of immediate peril, Leia finally heads back to her own quarters. She throws herself on top of the bed without changing her clothes and closes her eyes. There’s a sharp knock at the door. Leia’s eyes fly open. She must have dozed off. She sits up too quickly, her head spinning.
“Yes?” she calls.
“General!” Leia knows that voice.
“Dameron?” How does he even know where her quarters are? Leia straggles to the door and opens it without preamble. “What time is it, Dameron?”
Poe Dameron, her best pilot, is standing in front of her in full uniform. His eyes are bleary and he looks exhausted, and he’s still holding his helmet as though he just disembarked. His mission was called back after BB-8 was recovered with the map, which means that it’s still… “Zero two hundred hours, General.”
“Dameron! What is going on?”
Dameron nods, smiling confidently as ever, but his eyes are tense and worried. “It’s that Finn, General, the very same Finn who broke me out of the First Order, and who returned the map to the Resistance. He's run into the forest. This man has never lived on his own in his life, he’ll die out there. We need to send out a search party. Reports are saying that he's looking for a girl.”
Leia thinks about slapping him, but she's just tired. “Is that girl named Rey?” she manages.
Dameron blinks quickly. “Yes, yes, I think that’s the name.”
Leia growls, “The same Rey who is now asleep in a room down this hallway?” The Force tells her that it’s true.
Dameron can’t help but be suave. At his best, he can’t help but remind her, sometimes painfully, of another young, cocksure pilot she used to know. “General, perhaps she forgot to tell him?” He says somewhat desperately. “This Finn is lost in the forest.”
“So lead the search, then, Dameron. Let me know when you find the boy. But no earlier than zero seven hundred hours.”
"Yes, General.”
She closes the door behind her and makes her way back to her bed, this time stripping off her clothes and shutting the lights. The girl was interesting, she thinks as she closes her eyes. She was loyal to a family she had never met, and she now carried a lightsaber that had claimed her before she had accepted it herself. More than she knew, she was powerfully charismatic, drawing Han, Finn, and now Leia to her. A fleet of Leia's own was now being sent to find the boy that had charged off into the forest looking for her. And now she was Leia's unlikely pupil.
As though to touch her brother through the Force, Leia thinks to herself, childishly, wantingly, Luke, you have to come back.