Chapter Text
Part I
If it weren’t for the light pounding at her temple, Leia would have thought that she was dreaming. She could still hear the rush of water nearby—the one she’d been compelled to follow through a hologram-like portal on what had looked like a simulated dimension.
But she was standing on a large cave now, solid, natural rock under her feet. Not in the ruins of the ancient Jedi temple she’d been exploring with Luke and Han; there was no sight of the mural that had so powerfully drawn Luke’s attention, the one that had suddenly glowed and moved like a projection after her twin brother had done… something to it. She was not sure what, exactly. All she knew was that a series of luminous scratch-like marks had appeared along the wall, and Luke had followed them through a dark archway that, at first glance, had appeared to be a dead end into another wall—Leia could have sworn she’d looked that way before.
Yet Luke had disappeared into the darkness, and when she and Han had rushed after him, they’d found themselves not in another dilapidated hall, but in a different place altogether. It’d felt like outer space, dark and limitless and dotted with distant lights, except crisscrossed with walkaways that seemed made of glass. There had been archways there, too, and—voices. Some she’d never heard before; others that seemed familiar enough, yet she couldn’t pin down. She’d stepped back, reeling, and bumped against Han’s chest. His hands had immediately come up to her shoulders—whether for her comfort or his own, she couldn’t tell. It’d been enough to anchor her and jolt her out of her paralysis.
‘Uh, where the fuck are we?’ Han had muttered.
Leia didn’t have an answer for Han, but since they were there, wherever the fuck there was, they’d moved forward with cautious determination, looking around. She hadn’t gotten a bad feeling from the place, not exactly. Nor was it a good feeling. It had just been… strangely alluring. And then she’d heard the call of the water, and known, somehow, it was for her. Both Han and Luke had yelled for her to wait, but it was too late. The portal had swallowed them as they rushed after Leia, and spat them all out like an unsavory meal.
‘Okay, where the fuck are we now?’ Han exclaimed behind her now. He strode to the front of the group and held both hands up to stall them. ‘New rule: from now on, nobody’s runnin’ into any mysterious doors without a group vote, got it?’
‘Sorry,’ she said, placing a placating hand on her husband’s arm. ‘I just—I felt like I had to. I think it’s safe.’
‘I feel a sense of safety here, too. Although,’ Luke added, touching the rock towards the back of the cave, where they seemed to have come through, ‘I’m not sure how we’re getting back.’
‘Great!’ Han chirped sarcastically. ‘I feel super safe too in this freaky cave from the dimension of crazy!’
Ignoring him, Leia went back to where Luke was still inspecting the wall. There had to be another portal to let them go back. Unless… there wasn’t.
‘Wait—that can’t be possible. Can it?’ Leia said aloud.
‘I’m not sure what can or can’t be possible,’ Luke muttered. ‘I don’t know what that place was or how it worked.’
‘You went through a wall. There was nothin’ there until you did somethin’ to that mural, and then that door was there. So maybe we need to look for another cave painting,’ Han reasoned.
They split up with the promise that nobody would actually do anything until they all agreed to it, but there wasn’t much to explore. The cave was small and with few bends; even when they walked to the furthest corner from each other, Leia could still see Han and Luke clearly in the soft light that filtered through the wide entrance, or hear their steps close by if they rounded a corner—or the thud of flesh against rock, as if looking for a hidden key.
Soon enough, it became obvious to Leia that, unless they set about turning over every pebble in the cave, staying there was pointless, and potentially dangerous. What they needed to do was go outside, figure out how far away from the temple they’d come, and see if they could get back to the Falcon in a couple of hours. They might need to find a place to stay overnight, otherwise, or rent a vehicle, even.
Head buzzing with these thoughts, Leia stepped outside the threshold, squinting in the sunlight. The cave sat in a rock-strewn recession, dry brambles and vines framing the entrance and the path leading out to it. At her right, a gentle stream of water descended from somewhere above the cave and jumped down a glossy ledge. Its soft gurgling was almost drowned by the sound of rushing water further away—the sound that had had such a pull on Leia.
They were clearly on the side of a mountain, which meant they had to be a long way from the temple. But how?
Carefully, Leia picked her way off the dirt path, bordering the little watercourse so she could peer down below.
The sight that greeted her felt like a physical blow, sudden, unexpected, violent. She felt hot and then cold and then nauseous, paralyzed and shaky, hyperventilating through the sharp pain in the middle of her chest.
Dimly, Leia realized she was crying out.
They weren’t on Lothal anymore. They were on Alderaan.
Her home planet, the one whose destruction she bore witness to sixteen long years ago. Somehow, impossibly, here, now. Her brain protested against it—there was no logic to it; she had to be confused. But even as she forced herself to contemplate that possibility, she knew with absolute certainty that there was no confusion. Those powerful waterfalls, those mountains that should have been space dust… It would have been impossible for Leia to forget them in her lifetime.
She heard the scraping of hurried footsteps behind her just as she realized that she was on the ground, still looking over the edge.
‘Leia!’ Han yelled before he reached her. ‘I’m here, sweetheart, what is it?’
He touched her shoulder urgently, and she finally turned to look at him. Her eyes, which had remained dry somehow, filled with tears, and a sob rattled her whole body as she curled into herself.
Han enveloped her into his arms, simultaneously trying to comfort her and find her source of pain. She knew that he’d go crazy with worry unless she talked to him, but she couldn’t find her voice, so she clung to him desperately and let her tears wash over the mountains of her youth. The rational voice inside her still refused to believe it, offering alternate explanations. She was dreaming; she actually fell through the portal and hit her head on her way out; she was in a simulation. There were no simulations such as that, though; none that could capture the exact smells and sounds that were imprinted in her memory, or make the grit under her nails feel that real. Not even her most realistic dreams were as vivid. And if it was a simulation, then they were in danger indeed—nobody but a sadistic mind could have designed a torture like that for her.
But the alternative that it could all be real… That seemed crazier still.
She dried her cheeks with her sleeves as she looked up at Han, and he cradled her face with his hands.
‘I’m not hurt,’ she managed to say hoarsely at last. ‘It’s just—this is—We’re at the Istabith Falls. On Alderaan.’
Her voice broke at the last word and she crumpled into Han’s embrace again, her chest and throat hurting with the effort.
It had been hard to cry over Alderaan. For several years after it had happened, she’d refused to let more than a few contained tears fall, afraid that, if she truly let herself grieve, she could never stop. The ache had been there, an absence lurking behind her every thought, threatening to drown her when she let her guard down. Her single-minded focus on the rebellion had kept her afloat—but the allure of letting go and sink beneath was never far. It had been love and friendship that had pulled her up and, in that safety, she’d finally been able to reckon with her losses.
She’d finally allowed herself to cry, to feel the pain so fully, she’d thought it’d never stop. But, eventually, it’d scabbed over and became a scar that only hurt sometimes. Right now, Leia felt as if someone had ripped the wound open, and a seemingly unending well of sadness was spilling over.
Han pushed a handkerchief into her hands, and Leia blew her nose as her sobbing subsided. She took deep breaths, trying to center herself and focus so she could get her emotional response under control. They needed to figure out what was going on.
‘Leia,’ Han said quietly, pressing a kiss into her hair as he stroked her back soothingly. ‘What d’ya mean, we’re on Alderaan?’
‘I know how it sounds.’ Leia looked at him with clear eyes, her voice steady and serious. ‘I know it’s unbelievable—it shouldn’t be possible. But I know this place; I used to come here every year. Unless this is a very lucid dream, this is real.’
‘If it’s a dream, then I’m havin’ it, too,’ Han muttered. ‘Could be that portal gave us a group hallucination?’
‘Hey,’ Luke said, coming over. He crouched next to Leia and touched her shoulder. ‘I didn’t want to intrude, but I heard you. What if… we went back in time, somehow?’
‘What?’ Leia asked, her voice wobbling.
‘You know how we can still see the light of Alderaan from some spots around the galaxy?’ he began, measuring his words. ‘So, at some point in time, Alderaan still exists.’
‘That’s not really how it works, kid,’ Han said, narrowing his eyes. Leia could see the warning he was trying to beam into Luke as clearly as if he had a screen of scrolling text on his forehead—don’t give her false hope.
‘Well, not by common rules. That Alderaan would be unreachable by any means we know of… but we don’t know anything about the place that portal took us to.’
Luke shrugged.
‘I know it sounds insane, but it’s all I can think of.’
Han said something in response, but Leia couldn’t hear it above the ringing suddenly filling her ears. Alderaan, as it was in the past. Could it be true?
After all these years, she still looked for the light of Alderaan wherever she was, and her heart broke in equal measure when she couldn’t find it as when she could—undecided of whether it hurt more to accept all over again that her planet was gone, or that it existed somewhere without her.
Even within those habitual musings, she’d never really thought that her planet could still exist in any material sense, in any way that mattered. If Luke’s theory was true, then it couldn’t be a coincidence that the portal brought her there. It couldn’t be for nothing. And that meant—it had to mean—that she’d been given a second chance.
‘If there’s no portal in the cave,’ she began slowly, staring at her fist as it curled almost possessively into the ground, ‘maybe we’re supposed to find a different way back to our time.’
‘Our time?’ Han asked. ‘Leia, you don’t believe—’
‘Do you have any better ideas?’ she snapped.
Han raked his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture she knew well.
‘I don’t know, I—’
‘Please get back to me when you do, then,’ Leia told him sharply, and almost immediately regretted it. She closed her eyes and breathed out before looking up at him. ‘I’m sorry. But Han… I’m not crazy, and I’m not confused. These are the Istabith Falls, on the Istabith mountain range that separates the Kathou and the Juranno regions of Eastern Alderaan. I’m sure there are many similar waterfalls across the galaxy, but I’ve literally stood here before, on this same spot.’
‘I don’t think you’re crazy,’ Han told her, looking at Luke in turn. ‘It’s just… time-travelling?’
‘Until we find an alternative explanation, we might as well work under this assumption,’ Luke interjected pragmatically.
‘Okay.’ Leia took a deep breath, bracing herself to share her thoughts. ‘Let’s assume we’re on Alderaan, back when it still existed. What if there’s a reason we were brought here? I mean… what if there’s something we’re supposed to do here before we’re allowed to go back?’
‘Leia…’ Luke shifted, sitting fully on the ground and touching her elbow as he looked her in the eyes. ‘You know you can’t change what happened.’
Her jaw tightened as something hot and spiky stirred in her chest. Leia felt the urge to turn away from her brother and her husband and just go. They didn’t know how far in time they’d gone back to. Who knew how much time they had? It could be years or it could be days, hours before—
She couldn’t waste it trying to convince them, not with her planet at stake. Why couldn’t they see it?
‘I don’t know that, actually, and neither do you,’ she said tightly, pulling her arm away. ‘What if it were you? What if you had a chance to save your aunt and uncle, wouldn’t you take it?’
Luke sighed. ‘I would probably feel as you do now. And I know it hurts; I really do. But… there’s no second chance. What happened is in the past, not in the future—even here. Try as you might, you can’t change the past. At most, you might be able to influence certain things to happen in the way they… already happened.’
‘I’m gettin’ a headache,’ Han muttered.
The remark brought Leia down from the brink of anger, and she found herself staring back not at people who were against her and whom she needed to get away from, but at her family surrounding her, supporting her. That didn’t take the sting of Luke’s words, though. If she couldn’t change anything, then what was the point? Once again, the idea that this could be some sort of torture designed specifically for her flitted through Leia’s mind.
‘Alright,’ she said, her shoulders slumping. ‘I get it. But we still need to find our way back, and it’s not in that cave. And whether we need to do something for the portal to open, or find it somewhere else, we can’t stay here until we figure it out.’
Her throat closed up painfully at the thought, but she forced the words out.
‘I think we should still go to the palace and find my parents.’
Both Han and Luke opened their mouths to protest, but she cut them off.
‘Listen! My father can get us in touch with Obi-Wan—or with Ahsoka. She was Fulcrum, remember? Depending on how far we’ve gone back, either one of them could help us.’
‘I don’t know, Leia,’ Luke said. ‘It’s too unpredictable. What if they think it’s a trick to get to you in this timeline and deliver you to the Emperor? Or if we haven’t been born, how would we convince them to help us? And—and you…’
‘What about me?’ she asked sharply, but it was Han who answered.
‘It’s gonna wreck you, sweetheart. Let’s say we find your folks. How’re we gonna explain why this woman that looks like their daughter is bawling her eyes out?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she hurried to say, although she very much doubted that. Just the idea that she might see her parents again, hear them one more time, give them one last hug—it was enough to almost make her cry again. But Han was right: her reaction would be a dead giveaway of their future. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. All that crying had left her with a piercing headache. Her next words were heavy with exhaustion. ‘I know it’ll be hard, but I don’t see what else we can do, do you? It’s our best bet.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes, each of them going over their options in the privacy of their minds as the waterfalls roared on around them.
‘What if Han and I went?’ Luke ventured at last. ‘You could stay—’
‘No,’ she said categorically. ‘I’m not staying behind.’
‘Then let us go first,’ Han suggested, grabbing her hand. ‘We’ll ease your parents into the story before you see them.’
He paused, concern etched on his face as he looked at her.
‘It’d give you some time to prepare, too. I dunno what I’d do if I suddenly ran into my Ma. But it’s your call, Leia. If you say you’ll be okay, I’ll believe you.’
Leia squeezed his hand gratefully. In truth, she didn’t know how she was going to react. When she saw Alderaan’s annihilation, she’d simply frozen, and once she was broken out of her cell, the pain had locked itself up in a box that allowed her to do what she needed to do. But part of it had to do with the unexpectedness of it, a loss too immense and too sudden to process. Now, the more time she spent sitting there thinking about seeing her parents again, the less she thought she’d be able to keep her emotions at bay.
Pushing herself to her feet, she dusted off her hands and clothes. Whatever they did, they had to start somewhere, and there was no point in wasting any more time. Following her lead, Han and Luke stood up too, waiting for her.
‘Let’s make a plan. This is a tourist area; we need to find a place to stay and figure out what year it is. Maybe my parents aren’t even born yet,’ she said, although, in her heart, she didn’t believe it. ‘If they are, we need to figure out a way to get close to them—and it’s not going to be easy.’
But she was Leia Organa, damn it, and easy was not part of her vocabulary, anyway.