THERE ARE SPOILERS. THERE ARE LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS. I SAW THE MOVIE LAST NIGHT, IT KICKED ME REALLY HARD IN THE FANGIRL FEELINGS AND I COULDN'T GET THIS VIGNETTE OUT OF MY HEAD ALL DAY. I DO NOT WANT YOU SPOILED IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE. PLEASE ONLY READ THIS IF YOU'VE SEEN THE MOVIE.
Author's note: Yes, I'm a bit quick off the mark where Episode VII is concerned, but I had a theory to this effect and so many things about the movie point to this. Yes, her use of the Force, her Skywalker-centric clairvoyance, Leia's interactions with her… But the thing that pinned it for me was the use of "Across the Stars" in a scene where she talks about her family. And then, backing up a bit, she has an X-wing pilot doll. This is the story of that doll. All characters belong to George/Disney and this is my wild theory based on me having a lot of feelings after seeing the movie. Enjoy!
tfa
Luke had expected tears. Stars knew she deserved his grief. He had not needed to tell their daughter that Mama was dead because the moment it had happened, an instinctive scream had welled up in her like a krayt dragon's cry and burst forth to demand that the universe acknowledge her loss. Leia had wept for the sister she'd lost and the son who carried the blame. Han had broken a lot of things, but Luke suspected that the worst of his grief was something that he couldn't put into words. Luke had lost his wife, but the entire clan had lost their orientation in the cruel galaxy.
He remembered a throat-searing terror from his younger years. About six months before Hoth, he'd run into an ion cannon blast a few heartbeats before debris had spiraled into his path. Knocked off course by an impact that his systems should have compensated for, he had found himself out of control, powerless and in a tailspin. If he had been in atmosphere, he would have seen the broad side of a mountain before oblivion took him.
He did not feel the same way until the days after his wife's death. There were Jedi to protect and strategies to devise. There was a republic to save and a daughter to comfort, but he felt as if nothing he could do could change the death spiral.
After that first terrible night, their daughter did not scream. He did, however, come to her at the first whimper and let her curl against him while she sobbed inconsolably for her mother. His only comfort was in realizing that she was too young to understand why she should hate him as much as Ben did.
If he took it all in, he would crash and burn and be of no use to anyone. Not the Jedi, not his sister, not his daughter. Like that day so many years ago, he had to rely on a vacuum for his own survival, so his little one did not see his tears. It was quite possibly the closest he'd ever come to resembling Leia.
The Force, in its cruel mercy, gave him a few days in the eye of the storm. His wife was not the only Jedi to be honored and not the only friend to be mourned. He hated himself for making his daughter witness the funeral pyre that was her mother's right, but he hated more that she had learned to be stolid, silent and strong at the age of five. He hated to think that she was taking her cues from him.
Han and Leia came and he knew without having to reach into the Force that they blamed themselves unjustly for the occasion. Han seethed silently, arms wrapped tightly around his wife's trembling shoulders, but once the remembrance feast was laid out, he did all of them a favor and turned his attentions to looking after his niece.
It was then that brother and sister finally sequestered themselves. They held onto each other as if they had just reunited over Bespin, when both of them had lost more than they could explain or confess. Leia demanded no explanation of him, but he could not hold the truth back.
"She can't stay here," he said.
Leia's hand was light on his shoulder, but constant. "She is welcome to stay with us as long as you need," she murmured. "THe both of you are."
Luke shook his head violently at the thought of exposing any of them to the man he'd become. "It's not the place for me."
"Your place is with those who love you," Leia responded. "Han and I will always fit into that category and you know your daughter will as well."
"Even when I'm the reason my wife…"
"Your name is not Ben Solo." Her voice cracked on the brittle surface of her son's name, but the time for her tears was not now. She was doing damage control for her family and graciously including an undeserving Luke in that description. "Only he is responsible for his actions and only he can be held accountable for what happened."
He had the feeling that she was not as confident in the message as she seemed, but she had thirty years of experience in her own strength.
"I wonder if anyone told Obi-Wan that," he said..
An echo of a thought in Han's voice nudged his mind. "There's too much Vader in him."
It went without saying that everyone who would have seen clearly enough to exonerate Obi-Wan would have perished at the hands of Darth Vader.
"If you doubt me," Leia offered, "I have Jedi, pilots and most of the Resistance who would bear witness."
"I wish I could believe you," Luke confessed, "but I wasn't strong enough to stop him."
"I understand."
Rather than wall him off, Leia opened her mind to him and her claim of understanding resonated in the voice of a girl who had not been strong enough to stop Tarkin from destroying her planet. She did not understand how he was to blame, but she comprehended his reasons for claiming responsibility. He only wished that she were right to have faith in him.
"She can't stay here," he echoed himself.
He remembered then a woman who had grown a few years since being the last Senator of Alderaan, who had been made to suffer on Bespin for the crime of mattering to Luke Skywalker. He remembered even more vividly that the same dark Jedi had seen another way to exploit her.
"If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps she will."
"She can't stay here," he blurted out, voice rising. "Not within striking distance, not where he could find her…"
He saw Leia's jaw clench and her shoulders squared. "We would not let it come to that," Leia announced.
"You don't understand," he accused. "I don't want anyone to stand bravely in the way. I don't want anyone else to die because an agent of the Dark Side was within striking distance."
For all her heartfelt bravado, Leia went pale at that. "Not even Ben?"
It came to that, then. She hated what her son had done-they all grieved for the choice-but she feared that Master Skywalker would strike hard, fast, and without mercy.
"I want him back," Luke admitted. "I don't want him dead."
Leia's tears in the moments that followed were silent, but were a manifestation of how strongly she shared that sentiment.
"If she can't stay here, what are we to do with her?"
A part of him wanted to ask how far and how fast Han could fly. Another part wanted to design a bunker so secure that it resembled a prison, where no one could breach its walls and no child could cleverly find an escape route. The answer that had been gnawing at his mind for days, however, was the one that made him feel like Ben Kenobi for the second time in one conversation.
"Hide her," he said. "Set her on her own path and let Ben chase me as far in the opposite direction as the universe allows. Then, when we've all grown too old to remember the system's name, I'll turn my attention to bringing Ben back."
"You don't mean that," Leia replied, her hand tightening on his shoulder. "It took less than a year for you to turn our father back."
In those months, he had only had himself to lose. The stakes here were exponentially and indescribably higher.
"You know what I mean," he stated. "The only way to take the risk of redeeming the boy we love is to make her as safe as possible."
Leia finally withdrew then, but it was not a gesture of alienation. It was her devoting her mind to duty so that reason the rest of this conversation.
"I know people who can make it happen," she said. "And if they aren't up to the challenge, Han will know what to do. I know people who helped members of the Alliance disappear so effectively that the Alliance is still trying to reestablish contact."
That sounded exactly like the sort of protection that his daughter needed, even if it was not the life that she deserved.
"Thank you."
She nodded solemnly. "How long do you want her there?"
He wanted her back already and they hadn't even made the arrangements yet. His own voice broke on the word, "Indefinitely."
Her face bloodless, Leia grimaced. "Force help us," she whispered. "Do you think this is how we were separated?"
"With more regret than confidence?" Luke guessed. "With a sense of helplessness?"
"With no options that won't keep us at night?" she admitted. "With desperate hope and overwhelming desperation?"
He had thought that she could not understand, but those words suggested that he had been wrong in judging her.
"I hope it was as difficult for Obi-Wan as it is for us," Luke explained.
Her hand reached across a gulf of grief and clasped his. It was the only thing that gave him enough strength to ask the next difficult question.
"Do you think she'll hate me?"
Leia's eyes drifted closed, but not before another few tears escaped. "I can't imagine that she would," she said. "She would miss her family as I did every day between Alderaan and Endor, but she won't remember enough of this life to hate you for making her leave it behind."
He would hate her absence. He would miss the songs that she had sung to herself while she brushed her teeth or drew pictures. He would find his life too silent without her laughter and too dismal without the sunshine of her smile. He would spend uncounted nights peeking around her door to see if she was sleeping and miss the weight of her arms around his waist. Even if she didn't hate him for abandoning her, he would hate the void that his girls had left in his life and there was a strong chance that death would be welcome. As long as he did not leave this life with an enemy named Ben Solo, he could learn to live with that bereavement. But the thought finally brought him to tears.
"I hope so," Luke said.
tfa
In the end, Leia's friends found a place that was more commune than community. Every person earned their place as an individual and bartered for the necessary tools of survival. A man was charged with the caretaking of a little girl, but the subject was broached as a matter of honor instead of a contract of service. He would see that she did not sicken or starve, but he would not risk linking her back to the family that missed her.
Rey struggled and cried at her disposal. She spent the first night calling for her father. For a few days after that, people would ask her who she belonged to and she would miserably express the conviction that her family would come back for her soon. As days turned into months, the questions fell silent and many wondered if the little girl had lost hope.
She had little to her name, but some kind soul had lovingly left her on Jakku with an x-wing pilot doll. That long-forgotten aunt had understood that every little girl needed a hero.