As Orbit moves into its final chapters, I decided it'd be nice to have another long multichap up and running. It's a plot-heavy AU so updates will be shorter but more timely. Also, not Ben in this universe yay!
1
"I know you're here to say so let me just make it clear now: I'm going."
As if for emphasis, she put a steadying hand on her abdomen before lifting her blaster, closing one eye, and then aiming and firing, sending the center up into a spectacle of smoke.
"Nice shot," Luke said appreciatively, preparing himself for the long argument ahead.
"Thank you. Despite what you might think, the houseguest has only reoriented my center of balance, not destroyed it." She shot again at the next target – the whole wide shooting range empty, troops now gearing up for deployment – and again hit the center with ease, but she only frowned in response.
He smiled faintly. "And how is the houseguest today?"
"Late on rent. And you're trying to distract me, and I won't be distracted. I'm going."
"What makes you think that's what I'm here for? I can't come find you to say hello?"
"You're still employed. You still have responsibilities. No time for something as frivolous as hellos."
"You're not a – what's the word? Frivolity."
"Exactly. I'm an asset. And I'm going."
"Leia, you know that's––"
"I don't even know why I'm asking your permission – you must know I outrank you. Outranked you, then."
"I think as a Princess you still outrank me if even you're discharged."
"Princess of an ash heap, how compelling. A capitalist political economy has no use for a princess without resources to dispense to allies, I'm worthless, I don't even have a virginity anymore – and anyway, if this mission is still under wraps, rank is irrelevant, and I don't need your permission."
"Chewie won't even let you up that ramp."
"Chewie won't dare to push me aside. I'm very delicate, you know."
"Which is why you're not coming."
"Obviously I was being facetious."
He rolled his eyes. "Obviously."
"Luke. I have to go. I have to."
He took a deep breath. "I know this is – more important to you than I can imagine, but you have to understand why it's not realistic for you to––"
"Do you think my life is more valuable than yours?"
He looked at her, lost for words.
"Well? You're going."
"Um. I'm not." He gestured to her stomach. "So... "
"His life is more valuable than yours, then – even though her fingers are webbed, and he's a hideous conversationalist, and honestly a real mooch at this point––" (That habit of hers, then, still disorienting, of vacillating genders so as to not become, in her words, especially attached.)
"Leia…"
"Whereas for all we know, you're the only member of the next generation of Jedi. Which sort of implies that perhaps you should be staying home, instead. For safety's sake, since the stakes are so high."
"Leia!"
"I am an asset. I'm clever enough to have sorted out half the plan with Lando, I'm an excellent shot, I can still run fairly decently, I'm still fit and I'm still trim with all things considered, I – I can't believe I'm explaining to you why I'm worth bringing, I can't believe I'm asking – begging for permission, I––..." She looked genuinely pained by the change in dynamic, carefully lowering herself onto a nearby bench and biting her lip, suddenly absorbed into her own thoughts. "I have to come. I have to..."
He sat down beside her and rested his hand cautiously on her back. "Leia… I can't imagine, these past few days? What you've been through? For so many months it's been where, and to suddenly know..."
"Yes, well, I live in my own head, you know. I keep my own tabs on what goes on there." But her voice was more tired than nasty, and she leaned against him.
"And what you must be thinking about?" I mean… if things don't go according to plan…"
She stiffened. "Don't be ridiculous, of course they'll go according to plan. How could you say something like that?"
He took a deep breath and tried to restart. "If things do go according to plan, then…"
"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there," she dismissed just as crisply.
"... do you not see the contradiction there?"
"Sometimes you need to hold two contradicting thoughts in your head at once because otherwise you have nothing to hold onto."
"I just – I know you must be… you overthink, you know you overthink, and with this – I mean, do you know what you'd say, or…"
"Are you asking me because you want to know if I've thought about it, or because you want to know what I've thought about it? Because I can assure you I've thought about it. How could I not, I suppose."
"Right, yeah. Duh."
"Duh," she imitated, but her voice was soft, fond. Even moreso, then, asking: "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Anything."
"It's perverse."
"Go ahead, Lei."
"A part of me wishes we'd found him three months from now. Because by then this would be over. And he would never have to know."
"He'd still have to know."
Her force was quavering slightly, unconvinced: "I suppose you're right."
They sat in relative silence for a moment.
"Hey, are your feet bothering you again?" Luke asked softly, his voice so genuine and kind it made her heart twist. Sometimes, he thought about her in her quarters at night, trying to rub her own back, her own feet; calling in droids to help her reach high shelves, cooking for one. Lonely Leia, never able to get the angle right, never able to touch the sore spots that could be made soft again by another person. By the right person, who he knew he wasn't.
She gave him a weak little smile. "No, I'm okay. I was finally able to commandeer a bigger pair of boots, so."
"You're on your feet too much."
"Oh, my valuable houseguest. Everyone so attentive to her needs."
"I care about you, Lei. Caring about this," he gestured vaguely to her stomach, "is sort of incidental."
"Nice to know my personality and worth hasn't been entirely subsumed into my abdomen, then."
"I'll care about it as much or as little as you want me to care," he said seriously. "And so will Han."
She started quivering, then, just a bit, and rubbed her lower back. "I feel as though I've been smited. The recipient of a cosmic curse. Have I told you that?"
"Maybe once or twice."
"Doomed to wear my sexual history under my dress – it used to be that everyone could see my virginity all over me, you know, with the white, and now…" She trailed off, sort of absentmindedly circling the protrusion of her bellybutton, not quite grimacing but somewhere close.
"Whole new meaning to public figure, huh?" he said in a voice he hoped felt empathetic.
Leia smiled faintly. "Please stop being so nice to me. I'm still going to go."
"Leia – listen to me. I know Han, and I know if you go with me to help – to help get him back? First thing he'll do is throttle me and ask how the hell I let you risk your life when you when you were pregnant."
"I like to think first thing he'd do is ask how the hell I came to be in this state to begin with. Or, you know, say hello."
"Obviously, but––"
"Han doesn't coddle me, Luke. He doesn't treat me like I'm made of glass."
"It's not exactly like he's been around you in this particular state––"
She winced at that but powered through: "I don't understand – is it that I'm not useful anymore, is it that I'm too grief-stricken to take seriously the oh-so precious life I'm carrying and you somehow have a better assessment of what it's safe to do during a pregnancy, is it that my life is somehow more precious because there's a not-yet-viable fetus residing inside of me, where is your logic, I don't––"
"You know he'd never let you pull a stunt like this!"
She gave a sharp, shallow, sad laugh. "So you're just doing this to me for him? You're not letting me go – for him. How generous. What if you don't even make it that far, what if – for him – could you be more patronizing, you're trying to avoid his wrath, what about if you aren't even able to get him back because now you're shortstaffed – and then I lose all of you? Could you be more selfish, could you––"
"Leia! It's not up for debate! You can't – you're six months pregnant, you're just not in the condition to go! Same as if you were injured, same as – Leia! Just – try to have some perspective!"
"I have so much perspective. I am full of perspective. Let me show you how much perspective I have." She stood up, then, looming over him, such a strange vision, so tiny and trim and then so swollen only to become compact yet again, like a mismatched thing, like misshapen bits and pieces – girl, woman, mother, lover – somehow all mixed up. "I have risked my life for so much less than him – for the Alliance, for the Death Star plans – all of that, less than him. How could I not do him the same courtesy ad infinitum – how could I not put myself on the line when I have been readily doing so for so much less – I have to see him. I have to know. Okay? I have to see him, I have to know. Forget this," her turn to ambiguously gesture to her stomach, "Forget this, that is nothing – this is about me and Han, this is important, I can feel it. I have to be there. I have to go. I am no longer asking permission, instead I am telling: I will go."
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~will continue if there's interest!~