Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars of any of its characters. That'd be awesome, but no.
Mourning
One of the earliest lessons she learned was that there was never time to mourn.
It was when she was three that she first lost someone. He had visited her parents often, their hushed words hurried and worried. But he had always ruffled her hair and given her a big smile and assurances before he hurried on his way.
He was captured by the Empire and tortured to death.
She hadn't quite understood at first what had happened, so she didn't cry at all. Later, she realized it meant he wasn't coming back.
"He's part of the Force now." Her parents told her.
That didn't mean anything to her. She felt a twinge at his loss and pondered it for a while, but she still moved on.
She grew up to the whispers of rebellion and tales of atrocities the rulers of the galaxy hid from public. By the time she was five, she knew the value of secrets and how to keep her mouth shut about such things.
After all, whether you talked or not, the Empire would kill you. However, that was no reason to doom everyone else.
As she got older and more involved in the fight, she felt that twinge as they lost people over and over again.
"They're one with the Force now." She told herself, repeating her parents' words. No matter how much it hurt, she picked herself on and moved on.
There was no time to mourn when the galaxy was at stake.
And then the chance finally arrived. A way to unite the Rebel Alliance and gain a shot at the Empire. Her father sent her to gain the assistant of the last known Jedi, but they hadn't been able to ignore the greater call. Upon hearing of the battle taking place, her ship had diverted to assist them.
The fighters below were trapped. As she gazed down at Scarif, she felt phantom pains and screams echoing in her head.
It was almost like she could feel them dying down there.
She brushed it off. It had to be her imagination. There was no way that she could possible feel what others felt.
Still, it was painful to pull away from the planet, knowing that those people were going to die, were dying at that moment.
As she held the new hope for the Rebel Alliance in her hands though, it soothed some of the ache in her soul.
She couldn't mourn for them now. She had to make their sacrifice count.
Of course, things went from bad to worse. Her ship was captured by Darth Vader of all people, her men were slaughtered, and her two faithful droids carried the new hope of the alliance.
And then she was on the receiving end of the Empire's torture. But she remembered the first person who disappeared from her life after her birth mother's death.
She held her tongue and glared at Vader.
She would not let this break her.
Of course, Grand Moff Tarkin was wilier than Vader. He tried an entirely different brand of torture. Her gamble didn't pay off, and he still destroyed her home planet before her eyes.
It was like she heard everyone there scream before their voices were abruptly, and permanently, cut off.
It was harder than ever before. Do not mourn. Do not give in. She chided herself even as she awaited her own execution.
It seemed fit. She had lost everything, but hopefully the Rebellion would continue.
But it wasn't the end. Three rescuers with the hope of the Rebellion appeared before her eyes. From that point on it was a rush as they escaped the Death Star, losing the Jedi she had been sent to find. Before she could properly comfort Luke, who'd obviously been close to him, they were evading TIE fighters. Then it was the hurried attempt to destroy the Death Star, and the thrill of victory when they succeeded.
By the time, she had a moment to herself, it felt like it was long past the time to mourn.
She moved on once more, and time passed.
There were more losses over and over as they fled from the Empire, but it was easy to brush them aside.
Or at least it was easy until they were in Cloud City and she watched Han being lowered into the device that would seal him in carbonite.
In those few moments between him being frozen and Lando's assurance that he was still alive. Leia felt like her heart stopped. A distant sense told her even before Lando's words that he was fine, but most of her had been unable to accept anything but what her eyes showed her.
Luke arriving and immediately putting himself into danger did not help matters, but after going after Han and the bounty hunter and having both slip through their fingers, the feelings almost caught up to her. As the Millennium Falcon flew away, she felt a sense of melancholy.
At least until she felt someone calling her.
"Luke…" She looked in the direction of the voice, half wondering how she could hear his voice though he was nowhere near.
But the sense she had turned out to be true. They found Luke hanging from the bottom of the city, and she pushed the feelings from before aside to take care of her friend. It felt good that she could save someone at least.
As he recovered, they launched into plans to rescue Han and continue the fight against the Empire. There was no need to think of what had passed when there were so many things that had to be looked towards.
The final battle came and went, and against all odds, they won. They still had their losses, but it wasn't in vain, and she had been able to feel, through the Force she now knew, that those she cared about had survived. It was a time of celebration and those who had passed in the rebellion were finally honored as they should.
Life moved on, and there was no need to mourn as things took a turn for the better. She and Han were together, she had found her brother Luke, and peace came.
Until it was ripped away.
She stood in the ruins of Luke's temple, the destruction caused by her own son. Bodies littered the floor and she wondered if this was how Obi-wan felt all those years upon entering the Jedi temple after Vader's rampage. She had felt their deaths and had come, worried for her son's safety.
The truth was a bitter pill to swallow.
Her son was gone and her brother had disappeared.
The First Order was rising though, and Han and her went their separate ways in the wake of their son's disappearance. She threw herself into the ways and life she had lived almost as long as she could remember.
She told herself it was better this way, and besides, there was no way she was going to stand to the side and see all that they had tried to build fall apart while she was alive.
Then there was a chance to find Luke, and so she sent her best and most trusted pilot to retrieve it. Upon hearing of his capture, she prepared for the worst and braced herself to lose someone else she cared for.
It was a pleasant surprise when Poe returned to them alive and, later, news came to them that BB-8 was on his way in the hands of Han.
It had been awhile since she had had some hope.
But she still let them leave. She had had a bad feeling about Han and the others leaving to infiltrate Starkiller Base and retrieve Finn's friend, and she let them go. She had asked Han to bring home their son, sensing his struggle.
At the feeling of her heart being ripped from her chest that was so intense she had to sit down for a moment, she knew it had gone wrong and she knew exactly who was gone.
"Han…" She whispered, and it took all she had to get up. There was still a battle to be won.
Part of her wondered if Luke had felt that wherever he was.
With the others, she anxiously awaited as the fighters returned victorious. To her surprise, when the Millennium Falcon arrived, Chewie hurried past her to help attend to Finn's wounds. Though maybe it wasn't as much a surprise as she thought, she couldn't help but note as she approached the girl, Rey, who'd been left in the lurch. After all, none of them wanted to lose anyone else.
So for now, she gave comfort to Rey, who'd obviously grown close to Han in such a short time. He had certainly seemed fond of her when he had mentioned her.
Besides she could admit that she needed a hug, too.
Chewie came to her after everything had settled down.
"Hey, Chewie." She gave the Wookie a weak smile.
He didn't buy it. He gave a soft moan, and she caught his meaning.
"I'm always fine; don't worry about me. How are you?" She tried to change the focus to him.
He gave a chirruping growl and walked forward to pull her into a hug.
Her arms came up to return it and she felt the tears beginning to build. She got what Chewbacca was saying, but she still…
"He's really gone, isn't he?" Her voice cracked, and before she even realized it, tears were flowing down her face.
Chewie comfortingly purred and with that the dam broke.
Decades worth of pain and heartache poured out in a torrent of tears and sobbed. Han's death was the final straw for her after all that she had lost in her life. Chewie held her, and she could feel his tears drip onto the top of her head as well.
For the first time, she was the one being comforted. For the first time, there was time to adjust. For the first time, there was someone to share the pain.
And so, also for the first time, Leia let herself mourn.
AN: So this idea was first born when my family was rewatching the original movies after seeing Rogue One and then Carrie Fisher's death. I came to the realization that the only two occasions where we see Leia close to tears in the originals are when Han gets frozen and she learns the truth about her family, and the latter incident is the only time someone really comforts her. Especially since it's the only time she actually asks for it. So, it got me thinking that for her death and stuff had to be normal since her family was always part of the Rebellion, and she probably learned to stuff that sort of stuff away before she ever hit double digits. This ended up being more of a reflective, introspective piece, I guess.
Also, I was still kind of salty that Chewie didn't get a hug after Han died before I noticed that he went off to help with Finn so Leia was kind of left behind, but these two still deserve to hug it out and mourn Han together.