Work Text:
Only He Would Know
“We’re dead. We’re dead. By the goddess, we’re dead. They’ll find us. They’re going to—”
“Shh.”
Leia caught the woman by the shoulders.
“Nici. Look at me.”
“They killed him.”
“I know.”
“Eryan. He’s...”
Her voice collapsed into a sob.
Leia pulled her close.
Across the room, Han disappeared through a narrow doorway, checking the rest of the house.
Empty.
For now.
Leia could hear distant blaster fire beyond the shuttered windows.
Sharp voices.
Boots on stone.
The village was being searched house by house.
Han came back into the room and shook his head once.
Nothing useful.
His jaw was tight.
He hated this plan.
More precisely, he hated any plan that required trusting someone else to do what they were supposed to do.
Usually Leia found that infuriating.
At the moment, she almost envied it.
“Eryan was brave,” Leia said quietly. “He died for what he believed in.”
Nici jerked away.
“No.”
Her face was wet with tears.
“No. I can’t help you. They’ll kill me.”
Leia looked toward Han.
He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Not at Nici.
At the situation.
At the fact that Leia had insisted they come back here after watching their contact executed in an alley.
Han had wanted to run.
Leia had insisted they stick to the extraction plan.
Now Imperial patrols were closing in.
“Nici.”
The young woman shook her head.
“They’ll kill me.”
Leia’s voice hardened.
“They’ll kill us too.”
Nici stared at her.
“Is that what you want? Should Han and I walk outside and surrender?”
“Leia,” Han warned softly.
She ignored him.
“Should Eryan have died for nothing?”
Nici’s mouth snapped shut.
Leia hated herself for the question.
She used it anyway.
Blaster fire cracked somewhere nearby.
Nici flinched.
“They’re coming.”
Leia took her face gently between her hands.
“Listen to me.”
Nici’s eyes found hers.
“They are searching every house. There is no way around that.”
“They’ll kill us.”
Leia glanced toward Han.
This time he gave her what she needed.
One small nod.
Steady.
Certain.
Leia looked back at Nici.
“Yes,” she said. “They might.”
The honesty seemed to quiet her.
Leia took both of Nici’s hands.
“Because that’s what they do.”
Nici swallowed.
“That’s what Eryan was fighting.”
Leia felt the datacard in her pocket.
The reason Eryan was dead.
“What we’re fighting.”
Nici’s breathing slowly steadied.
“We need to get out of here,” Leia continued. “And we need to get this information back.”
She paused.
“You didn’t agree to any of this. Eryan did.”
Nici’s face crumpled. “I know.”
“You don’t owe us anything.”
Han looked at her sharply.
Leia ignored that too.
“But we are here. And I’m asking.”
Nici looked toward the door.
Then back at Leia.
“What can I do?”
Millennium Falcon, four hours later...
Leia sat alone in the lounge with a blanket around her shoulders.
The Falcon had entered hyperspace several minutes ago.
She had felt the transition through the deck.
She had also known Han would come looking for her as soon as the ship was secure.
Sure enough, footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Han appeared in the doorway.
He stopped when he saw her.
Then he crossed the lounge and crouched in front of her.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
His hand settled on her knee.
“You all right?”
Leia nodded.
A mistake.
The question opened something she had spent the last several hours keeping firmly closed.
Her fingers tightened around the datacard in her hand.
The mission had succeeded.
That was what mattered.
The intelligence was safe.
They were alive.
That was what she would put in the report.
Leia felt her mouth begin to tremble.
“Leia.”
She shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
Han said nothing.
“I’m fine, really.”
His thumb moved once against her knee.
“There was nothing we could’ve done.”
Leia’s head snapped up.
“No?”
Han waited.
“This isn’t the part where you tell me you were right?”
Her breath hitched.
“That we never should’ve gone back?”
“No.”
Leia looked at him.
Han’s expression didn’t change.
“You were right.”
She almost laughed.
It came out broken.
“If we’d run, they would’ve caught us in the streets. Going back was the only chance we had.”
Leia closed her eyes.
Nici was there immediately.
Her frightened face.
Her trembling hands.
What can I do?
Then later.
A doorway.
Blaster fire.
Nici falling.
A dark burn high on her forehead.
Leia sucked in a breath.
A sob caught somewhere behind it.
Han moved before she did.
His arms closed around her.
Leia folded into him.
For several seconds she still fought it.
Then she stopped.
The tears came hard.
Han said nothing.
That was another thing he understood.
There would be a report when they returned.
Leia would sit beneath bright lights and explain the operation.
She would detail Eryan’s execution.
The compromised extraction.
Nici’s assistance.
Nici’s death.
She would state the tactical justification for every decision.
Her voice would be even.
Her facts exact.
No one in the room would see her hands shake beneath the table.
No one would know that she could still hear Nici asking what she could do.
Han would.
His hand moved slowly across her back.
Leia gripped the front of his shirt.
He knew she could order someone into danger and grieve when they died.
He knew she could make the right decision and still hate what it cost.
He knew that none of this made her weak.
So Leia let herself cry against him.
She let herself be exhausted.
She let herself mourn the woman whose name would become one line in a mission report.
Because tomorrow she would be Operative Organa again.
Tonight, for a little while, she could simply be Leia.
Only he would know.