Work Text:
Somehow, I’ve Always Known
Twelve-year-old Leia Organa ducked beneath an elbow, squeezed between two startled shoppers, and darted through the crowded market square.
Complaints followed in her wake.
She ignored them.
The weekend faire had swallowed nearly every open space in the district. Booths and tables crowded the whitewashed streets, merchants shouted over one another, and half of Aldera seemed determined to stand precisely where Leia needed to run.
She stopped.
“Come on, Ori. Where are you?”
The noise behind her changed.
Leia looked back.
Two domed helmets moved steadily through the crowd.
Alderaanian Security.
People who had stubbornly refused to make way for Leia were suddenly finding cooperation remarkably easy.
Leia swore.
A jewelry stall stood nearby, its table covered in bright damask that hung almost to the pavement.
Good enough.
She dropped, rolled beneath it, and tucked herself into the shadows.
The table rocked.
Jewelry rattled overhead.
“What the devil?”
A hand yanked up the cloth.
An elderly merchant peered down at her.
“You there. Out.”
Leia pressed a finger to her lips. “Quiet.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed.
Leia reconsidered. “Please.”
“Shush me, will you?”
The merchant straightened and looked toward the street.
“Over here! Is this what you’re looking for?”
Leia closed her eyes. “Devil take me.”
The opposite side of the cloth lifted.
“Aha.”
A uniformed man grinned down at her.
“There you are.”
Strong hands caught her by the arm and dragged her out.
The jewelry rattled again.
“So much for no damage,” the merchant complained.
The older of the two officers ignored her and crouched in front of Leia.
“A downright pain in the arse, this one.”
Leia lowered her head.
The second guard tightened his grip on her arm.
“Like making us chase you all over town, do you?”
She said nothing.
At least Ori had escaped.
That was something.
Her companion had never possessed Leia’s talent for defiance under questioning. If they caught him, the entire operation would collapse in minutes.
The guards steered her away from the market.
“What’s your name?” one demanded.
Leia answered immediately. “Bella Nadia Rouse.”
The captain stared at her.
Leia maintained a perfectly innocent expression.
Bella Nadia Rouse was a particularly famous entertainer in the lower districts, whose advertisements Leia had seen and whose name occasionally produced muffled laughter at her parents’ parties.
“Oh, we’ve caught a comedian.”
His hand tightened again.
Leia winced. “Ow.”
“Then stop squirming.”
He pulled out his communicator.
“Now tell us who you are before I call for transport.”
Leia pressed her lips together.
Absolutely not.
She would go to prison first.
She pictured herself beneath the city jail, surviving on gruel shoved through a slot in an iron door, marking the years on the wall with her fingernails.
Still preferable to having these men call her parents.
Then she saw Ori.
Leia’s heart sank.
He hovered near the edge of the crowd, staring at her with enormous worried eyes.
She shook her head.
Go.
Ori took a hesitant step closer.
Leia glared.
Go.
One of the guards followed her gaze.
“You there!”
Ori froze.
“Come here.”
Leia shut her eyes. “Ori.”
“Y-yes, sir?”
The captain gestured toward her.
“You know this girl?”
“No,” Leia said immediately. “He doesn’t.”
The guard frowned.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“Leia,” Ori whispered.
Her eyes flew open.
The captain looked between them.
Leia stared at Ori with every threat she could communicate without words.
“Who is she?” the captain asked.
Ori swallowed.
“The... the Prin—”
“No!” Leia began struggling. “Ori, don’t you dare!”
“The Princess,” he blurted. “Heir to the throne. Daughter of Prince Consort Bail Organa and Queen Breha Organa.”
Leia’s jaw dropped.
He might as well have supplied her date of birth, blood type, and complete genealogical record.
Ori flushed crimson and stared at the pavement.
“Bollocks,” the guard holding her muttered.
The captain, however, had gone very still.
“Wait.”
He reached forward and pulled the beret from Leia’s head.
Her long braid dropped down her back.
Leia knew defeat when she saw it.
She straightened.
Shoulders back.
Chin raised.
The officer holding her arm released it as though he had discovered it was on fire.
“Your Highness.”
Leia regarded them coolly.
“What exactly are you doing running around Aldera without an escort?”
“I suggest,” Leia replied, in a tone that would have made her father proud, “that you save your questions for the Queen.”
Leia tested the bathwater with one toe before climbing in.
Her mother sat beside the large tub.
“Use the brush beneath your nails.”
“I will.”
Leia scrubbed vigorously at one arm.
The reunion between the guards and her parents had gone approximately as expected.
She had so far avoided being alone with her father.
Ori’s fate remained unknown.
Breha reached toward her.
Leia looked up.
Her mother’s fingers hovered over the angry red marks around Leia’s upper arm where the guard had held her.
Leia quickly submerged it beneath the bubbles.
“I’m sorry.”
Breha sighed.
That was worse than yelling.
Leia could withstand Bail’s lectures. Her father looked her directly in the eye, spoke to her as though she were already an adult, and expected her to defend herself accordingly.
Breha was different.
Her disappointment came softly.
Leia had never developed any defense against it.
“When you were given to me,” Breha said, “you were so small.”
Leia looked at her.
Her mother’s hair was down, caught only loosely at the back of her neck. She wore one of the simple gowns reserved for the family apartments.
No crown.
No court.
Just Mother.
“Your skin was perfect,” Breha continued. “Not a mark anywhere.”
Leia stared at the washcloth in her hands.
“I promised nothing would happen to you.”
“Nothing did.”
Breha looked at her.
“I’m fine.”
“That isn’t the point.”
The sharpness in her voice surprised Leia.
Breha took a breath.
“The world outside these walls is dangerous.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Leia looked up.
Her mother’s expression had changed.
“You don’t.”
There it was again.
That strange thing her parents did.
A warning that seemed to contain another warning beneath it.
“You must stay with your governess. You must stay with your sentinels.”
“Mother—”
“This,” Breha said, reaching for Leia’s arm again, “is nothing.”
She touched the bruises.
“Nothing compared to—”
Her voice broke.
She stopped.
Leia stared at her.
“Mother?”
Breha pressed her fingers briefly against her lips.
Leia had seen that look before.
Sometimes she thought her parents were preparing her for something they refused to name.
She knew she had been adopted.
She knew very little about the woman who had given birth to her beyond a handful of carefully chosen facts and an image Leia had seen when she was younger.
Beautiful.
Sad eyes.
Sometimes Leia wondered whether whatever had happened to that woman was waiting for her too.
The thought frightened her.
It also fascinated her.
Some terrible, mysterious future seemed to hover just beyond everything her parents taught her.
And Leia, impatient with childhood, sometimes wanted it to arrive simply so she could finally understand.
Breha caught her hand.
“You must trust me.”
Leia did.
Completely.
She simply did not trust her parents to tell her everything.
“I promise.”
Breha searched her face.
“I truly promise.”
“All right.”
Her mother bent and kissed the top of her head.
“That’s good, my sweet.”
Leia returned to scrubbing dirt from beneath her fingernails.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then, casually:
“What’s going to happen to Ori?”
Breha gave her a look.
Leia concentrated very hard on the brush.
“His mother is speaking with him.”
Leia exhaled.
“And,” Breha added, “we have discussed sending him to the Academy.”
Leia’s head snapped up.
“No.”
Tears came immediately.
Real ones.
“Mother, please. You can’t. It was my idea. Ori only came because I made him.”
Breha took Leia’s chin and lifted her face.
“I can see the defiance in your eyes.”
Leia looked away.
“No. Look at me.”
She obeyed.
“I want you to remember this feeling.”
Leia sniffed.
“What feeling?”
“The fear you feel for your friend because something you chose may hurt him.”
Leia stared at her.
“Remember it.”
Breha’s voice remained gentle.
“There will always be consequences to the choices we make. Sometimes we bear them ourselves.”
Her thumb brushed the tears from Leia’s cheek.
“Sometimes other people do.”
Leia’s throat tightened.
“It was my fault.”
“Yes.”
Leia had expected comfort.
The simple answer stung.
Breha continued.
“That doesn’t make you wicked. It means you have a responsibility to understand what your choices can cost someone else.”
Leia nodded uncertainly.
“This will matter more as you grow older.”
There it was again.
Advice too large for the crime.
Leia had snuck away from her escort to eat pastries and buy cheap jewelry.
Yet Bail and Breha always seemed to speak to her as if someday the fate of worlds might depend upon whether she had learned her lesson.
It was exhausting.
And confusing.
One day, she decided, she would understand.
She would be grown, and whatever mysterious future her parents were forever preparing her for would have arrived and proved far less terrible than they feared.
Then she would sit with them like adults did.
Perhaps here.
Perhaps Mother would wear her hair down exactly as she did tonight.
They would laugh about all the things Bail and Breha had worried over.
Leia would tease them for being overly protective.
Breha would admit that perhaps, just perhaps, they had occasionally exaggerated.
Because that was how these things worked.
Parents worried.
Children grew up.
And eventually everyone discovered that nothing was ever quite as terrible as they had imagined.
Breha stroked her cheek.
“Do you understand?”
Leia smiled weakly.
“Yes, Mother.”
She didn’t.
But someday she would.
Endor, approximately ten years later...
Leia woke suddenly.
For several seconds she did not know where she was.
Then the small bunk came into focus.
The Falcon.
Han’s cabin.
Endor.
She had fallen asleep after the celebration, exhaustion finally overpowering adrenaline.
Leia sat up.
Her arm throbbed where the blaster bolt had caught her.
She dressed and went looking for Han.
He was outside beneath the trees, staring up at the empty space where the Falcon’s sensor dish had once been.
His face changed when he saw her.
“Hey.”
Leia crossed the distance between them.
Han opened his arms and she stepped into them without hesitation.
“How’d you sleep?”
Leia closed her eyes.
The dream remained astonishingly clear.
The bath.
Her mother beside her.
The marks on her arm.
Ori.
There will always be consequences.
She swallowed.
She would never sit with Bail and Breha and laugh about that day.
She would never tell them they had been right.
Not overly cautious.
Not irrational.
Right.
Their fears had been worse than anything twelve-year-old Leia could have imagined.
The Empire.
Vader.
Alderaan.
And now...
The Force is strong in my family.
Han pulled back slightly.
“Hey.”
Leia looked up.
His brow furrowed.
“You okay?”
She heard her mother’s voice.
You’re special.
Leia shivered.
Han’s hands tightened gently around her arms.
“Leia?”
“There’s something...”
She stopped.
How could she possibly explain it?
Darth Vader.
Luke.
Her father.
Her brother.
The Force.
Things her parents had known.
Things they had spent her entire childhood preparing her to survive without ever being able to tell her why.
Han waited.
Leia drew a breath.
And suddenly another thought surfaced, older than the dream.
Not a memory exactly.
A feeling.
A certainty she had carried for as long as she could remember.
That there was something about her.
Something waiting.
Something everyone else seemed to know except her.
Somehow, I’ve always known.
Leia looked at Han.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”