Leia Organa had never told the truth. There had never been anyone she could trust to hear it,. Never anyone who wanted it from her. She understood lies were preferred almost before she could talk, when she watched the bejeweled courtiers in the great hall, the Senators and priests and executives in the palace, the water-gardens, the shining Temple at Belleau-a-Lir. Her parents praised her for what she said and how she said it; when she faltered, Breha had shaken her head so slightly, her coronet had not trembled on her braided hair.
Han had said he wanted her to be honest. He'd said it before they married and after, when they were alone in their bed, the hangings drawn, when she drank from the cup of wine he handed her, before he kissed her and after. He said it, but he didn't mean it. She knew not to tell him what Vader had done to her or just when she had realized Luke was not a stranger. She understood he could not bear her fears about Ben, whose twin sister she had lost too early, a child unbalanced since before he drew breath. She did not ask for more children, whose spirits might have consoled her son, daughters who might have lived and looked at her with her own thoughtful gaze. She did not tell Han that his leaving would not destroy her but that she wished it would, that she might go out like a blown candle. When she wept, he did not see her tears.
Luke at least had never asked her not to lie. It hadn't occurred to him that she could. That she did. That she disliked Ben Kenobi, that she did not remember their mother any more than he did. That Luke's need to redeem Vader was an injury so grave it had never healed. She didn't let him know what she was capable of, flight and deep-trance and singing incantations that were ancient when the Jedi had been new, that knit the world with the Force and that which was not-Force. That there were masters who were not Jedi, that she'd read of and recognized, that Maz Kanata knew, who were called witches and priestess and domina and were something else besides. Nameless, formless, infinite. She didn't tell him when she picked up his light-saber, the power fled the device and lit her arms, herself the gleaming blue scythe.
When she told him she knew her son had died, Luke believed her. Han would have tilted his head and then accepted it, because it suited him to. Or perhaps not, not at the end, because he'd looked into Ben's eyes and seen hers too. Luke believed her and it was easy to say the words he thought were hard, when she knew it was a lie. She had carried her babies beneath her heart and they had never left, Ben and his sisters she hadn't been able to bear; they could not be parted from her.
Rey would understand. Leia knew this because the young woman spoke so little. And because she was a scavenger, the one who pursued, who would not be pursued. Later, we'll talk Leia had said and Rey had shaken her head at the lie. Shaken her head and smiled. Her eyes were dark and didn't shimmer as the whole world did, with all its dead, that Luke only saw briefly—who never left Leia's sight. Who crowded the universe, brilliant ghosts everywhere, anywhere. Rey's eyes were dark, a respite, and their darkness was all that could hold the truth.