Father! father! where are you going?

O do not walk so fast.

Speak, father, speak to your little boy,

Or else I shall be lost.

The night was dark, no father was there;

The child was wet with dew;

The mire was deep, & the child did weep,

And away the vapour flew.

— The Little Boy Lost, William Blake

The little boy lost in the lonely fen,

Led by the wand'ring light,

Began to cry, but God ever nigh,

Appeared like his father in white.

He kissed the child & by the hand led

And to his mother brought,

Who in sorrow pale, thro' the lonely dale

Her little boy weeping sought.

— The Little Boy Found, William Blake

The Day The Tears Began

It started as a knot in my stomach, a feeling of something cold and heavy sitting inside me. Natural, I thought. This untenable feeling of unease was something I had learnt to live with. You learn to live with a lot of things, when you're the wife of a pilot, adventurer, smuggler and all-around thrill-seeking rogue. Every time he takes one of Admiral Statura's damned prototypes out on a test flight, I feel the knot, always accompanied by a little voice inside my head that tells me this will be the time when something goes horribly wrong. This will be the time that some valve malfunctions, or the coolant clogs the engine. This will be the flight that he fails to come home from, and I have to order the fleet out to search for whatever is left. The knot shows me, time and time again, the twisted husk of metal, ruined cockpit of the ship, my husband's body cold and broken within its shattered embrace. Only one thing is greater than the fear of that cold, heavy knot in my stomach; the fear that one day, it might not be there.

You learn to live with a lot.

It had been a quiet day, despite that knot. War turns ordinary men into heroes. Peace turns heroes into ordinary men. In the years since the fall of the Empire, the heroes of the Rebellion have returned to their old lives, or forged new ones for themselves. The soldiers, spies and pilots have become farmers, artists and craftsmen, their weapons slung high on the walls of their homes as lasting mementos to harsher times. And me? I would be lying if I said I didn't feel like one of those weapons, from time to time. But not everybody has put aside their blasters in favour of tills and hoes. There's still a small fleet to be commanded, still a few groups of sleeper agents out there ready to act should they see signs of the Empire surfacing for air. My advice is always sought, even when it isn't always needed. The benefit of being Leia Organa Solo.

After the meeting had adjourned, I set off back to the house which had long since become a home in every sense of the word. The knot went with me, and the closer I got to the grounds of my home, the colder and harder the knot became. Outside the garden I stopped to place a steadying hand on the wall, taking a deep breath as I fought against a rising sense of unease. Get ahold of yourself, woman! What would your husband say, if he saw you like this?

"Chin up, Princess. I'll be home before you even realise I've been gone."

Han had a way with words. It wasn't a particularly eloquent way, but it was his. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips as his voice whispered his promise into my ear. Yes. He'll be home soon. He wouldn't miss dinner. Not tonight. Not with Ben due to leave again tomorrow. Not when it might be months before he sees his son again.

The thought gave me strength enough to pass through the garden, into the welcoming entrance hall of my home. Silence greeted me, but that wasn't unusual when Han was out. Silence, however, was the last thing I wanted at that moment. In less than a day, Ben would be heading off with Luke, back to the Academy. Back to his training. Silence would, soon enough, become ubiquitous. My feet carried me through the house on a path I could have walked in my sleep. Outside a bedroom door I stopped and rapped my fingers against the hard surface.

"Ben? Are you home?"

I knocked again, just for good measure, then slid the handle open. I'd learnt long ago that teenage boys were fiercely protective of their privacy. Ever since he was eleven or twelve, Ben had hated it when I'd intruded unannounced into his bedroom. The sight of that room met me, and the smile that had teased at my lips at the thought of my husband now spread widely as I stepped into Ben's fortress of solitude. My son was a strange, but infinitely amazing, young creature. His room was clean and orderly enough to impress even the most scrupulous of Rebellion generals. Where Han left his belongings strewn about with little care for their storage, our son had gone the other way; everything had its place, and was always in its place. Even now, after a two week break from the rigours of training at Luke's Academy, the only things out of place were those which he was taking back with him, several items of clothing and small trinkets piled neatly on his bed beside his travelling bag.

My eyes fell on one of those trinkets, and I moved forward without thinking, my hand reaching out for it. As my fingers touched the surface, it sprang into life. My own face looked back at me. A face made miniature, the rendering taken when I had been younger. Then the holoimage flickered, and another face. I smiled at the face of my husband, as he had been before the birth of our son.

Flicker.

The three of us, this time; Han and I standing together as one year old Ben wriggled in my arms. For a moment, I felt a warmth in my heart that spread out and suffused my whole being, banishing the cold, hard knot. I closed my eyes, the holoimage burnt across my lids, and a memory came unbidden.

"Push! C'mon girl, you need to push!"

I glared with unfeigned hatred at the man who was holding my hand. The man who had done this to me. 'Push'?! What the hell did he think I had been doing for the past twelve hours, whilst he was stranded in high-altitude orbit because of some stupid technical problem with his stupid ship's stupid entry thrusters?!

"Ow, ow, ow, Leia, that hurts!" he complained, attempting to pry his hand out of my vice-grip. A futile attempt. I had him, now, and if he thought he was going anywhere he was sorely mistaken.

"Do you know what else hurts?" I hissed through my teeth as my latest, and most agonising, contraction subsided. "Trying to push something the size of a—"

He held up his free hand to stall my onslaught. "I get it. And I'm sorry. I'll tell you what; you get through this, and I'll carry and birth the next one."

In spite of my pain, I laughed. My wonderful, mad, crazy bastard of a husband probably would try to carry and birth a child, had it been physically possible. My laugh quickly turned into another scream as the next contraction came without warning. It hurt, oh god it hurt so much! Surely no child was worth this agony! I burned from head to toe, my back felt like it would snap at any moment, and everything around my swollen stomach felt both aflame and numb.

"The head is crowning," said the midwife.

My husband's head swivelled from me to her in the space of a heartbeat."What does that mean?"

I couldn't see the midwife's mouth beneath the sterile mask, but her eyes told me she was smiling. "It means, Mr Solo, that you're about to become a father."

"Can I see?"

The nurse moved over, made way for him, and I reluctantly let go of his hand. As soon as he reached the bottom of the bed, a smile spread across his face. "It's the head, Leia! I can see the head!"

"You need to push now, your Highness," the nurse encouraged. "Just a couple more big pushes, and this will all be over."

So I bore down and I pushed. Pain. Burning. Agony. I'd felt torture before, but nothing like this. You better be worth it! I thought to my child.

"Push, Leia!" Han encouraged. "Push! Use the—"

"Han Solo," I gasped, striking out with my hand but catching only his sleeve, "if you tell me to use the goddamn Force to push this goddamn child out of my goddamn body, I will ask Luke to shove the goddamn Force so far down your goddamn throat that you won't be able to swallow for a goddamn week!"

"She doesn't usually swear this much," Han said apologetically to the midwife. But her focus was now entirely on the tiny entity emerging into the world.

"One last push, your Highness," she said, her voice a soothing balm.

Sure. One last push. I think I can manage that. I closed my eyes and tried to perform one of the meditation techniques Luke has taught me. I failed terribly, but what my mind could not accomplish, my body knows to do by instinct borne of a thousand generations of mothers. I gave one last push and a final agonal cry escaped my lips, a crescendo of pain that ended with the feeling of warmth and wetness. For several long seconds the silence gripped my heart with its icy fingers, but then a tiny cry shattered the air, and my heart beat again.

"Awww," said Han, as the midwife, now unseen to me, cut the cord. "Listen to that! He has his mother's lungs."

I tried to sit up, but my exhausted body failed me. There weren't many times that I envied my brother his ability with the Force, but that was one of them. Then, my husband's words filtered in to my tired mind. "He…?"

"You have a son, your Highness. Congratulations," said the midwife.

"Let me see him," I said, holding out arms which shook with exhaustion. "I want to see my son."

Han appeared, a tiny bundle wrapped in swaddling clasped in his arms. I craned my neck and ignored the way my body protested at movement. His face! I could see his face, all squished and wrinkled. And a shock of thick hair, black and damp. Han appeared not to notice my outstretched arms; the look on his face as he stared at our son was of awed rapture, and I longed to share it.

"Han," I admonished, as gently as I could for fear of ruining the moment. He looked up, and finally realised I was asking for my son. He placed the child in my arms, and as I looked into that tiny wrinkled face and the huge brown eyes staring up at me, I fell in love.

"Now we just need to think of a name for the little guy."

"We're calling him Ben," I said immediately. I looked up, expecting my husband to pull his face, or come out with some mocking quip. But he merely smiled, and leant forward to plant a kiss on my forehead.

"That's a fitting name," he agreed.

'Ben,' I thought to my beautiful baby boy. 'You are worth the pain. You will always be worth the pain.'

The memory faded, and I opened my eyes. The holoprojector still showed the image of a happy young family. I switched it off and put it back on Ben's bed, in exactly the same place he'd left it. If he saw it had been moved, he'd know I'd been in here, and I'd never hear the end of it. Resigned to an afternoon of solitude, I left for the kitchen.

In my youth, and at the height of my 'adventures' during the war, the thought of carrying out domestic tasks would have bored, and perhaps even offended, me. On Alderaan, the world's finest chefs prepared the royal meals, which were dished out by a dozen servants. We ate at our leisure, dishes so sumptuous that they were renowned throughout the galaxy, whilst talented musicians played quiet songs befitting the regal setting of the royal palace. Now, I wouldn't give up making dinner for my husband and son for all the Alderaani cooks in the galaxy. Not for all the servants nor the musicians. Not even for the extravagant bottles of Alderaani wine now so rarely found.

Halfway through my dinner preparations, and just as I'd stuck a bottle of decent quality wine into the cooling unit, I heard the front door swing closed. Heavy footsteps told me my husband had made it home; Ben, like his uncle, walked in silence. In more ways than one.

"What's for dinner?" Han asked without preamble as he stepped into the kitchen. His dark grey flight-suite was singed on the sleeve, which made my heart momentarily stutter, but otherwise he looked unscathed. He flashed me what he probably thought was a winning smile. Back in the day, it would have had me swooning. But that was before he agreed to take on the role as test pilot for Admiral Statura. These days, he had a tougher battle on his hands, if he wanted to see me swoon.

"And good day to you too," I sniffed.

He had the grace to look guilty as he held up his sleeve. "This was just a minor thing. Tiny little fire. Completely Chewie's fault. I've told him he's paying to have my sleeve replaced."

I said nothing, merely focused on the knife and the sweet potato I was cutting. Chop chop chop.

"I bet you didn't even realise I was gone," he quipped, with a grin ready. Then his tone changed to one more wheedling as he stepped behind me and slid his arms around my waist, oblivious to the fact that he nearly skewered his hand on my knife. "I missed you," he whispered, nuzzling my neck. That's when I was hit by the whiff of sweat and oil.

I turned, the knife flashing in my hands as it came up to the level of his chest. "Han Solo, if you're going to grope me, at least have the decency to shower and to change into something less dirty than your three year old flight-suite before doing so. I doubt you've washed that thing once, since you got it."

"Y'know," he drawled, "was a time when me in a three year old unwashed flight-suite would have been a good day. And I recall you weren't too particular about the way I smelled, back then."

"The Rebellion was not famed for its sanitation facilities," I countered, as a smile tugged at one corner of my lips. "But even we had better facilities than most smugglers. Sometimes I think the only reason you offered your services was to get a free shower and a hot meal."

"And to get to know a certain uppity princess a little better." He winked and stepped forward, ignoring the knife to plant a kiss on my lips. For a moment, that kiss took me back, to a time when there had been no house to come home to. Then I tasted oil.

"Shower, now!" I commanded, pointing the knife in the direction of the bathroom. He gave me a low bow, flourished an imaginary cloak, and sauntered off to wash up.

I shook my head and smiled as I turned back to the vegetables. Han hadn't changed in nearly twenty years, and I doubted he ever would. You could take the man out of the life of a rogue, but you couldn't take the rogue out of the man. Chop chop chop. Would the wine be cool enough by now? Chop chop chop. What should I make for dessert? Chop chop chop. How long would it be until Admiral Statura offered my husband another prototype test flight? Chop chop chop.

I froze.

Something was wrong.

I put down the knife. Took a deep breath. Tried to figure out why this day, which had been repeated countless times since Han had accepted a job as a test pilot three years ago, should be any different to the others. It took only five seconds to realise. Only five seconds, but they were the hardest and most terrifying five seconds of my life.

My husband had come home, but the knot in my stomach had not gone away.

"Han?!" I hurried into the bathroom, barged in the through the door. "Han?"

He stood there wrapped in a towel, his hair wet and slicked back from his shower. Offering me a lazy smile, he held out his hand. "Come to join me?"

I stepped forward, brushed his hand away. "Have you seen Ben?"

"Not since this morning. Why?"

I caught my lower lip between my teeth, felt my brow lower into a frown. Han had seen the Force at work, seen it more times than he would probably admit to. But he was still skeptical about many aspects of it. As a physical man, he was uneasy about anything he couldn't fix with a coil spanner. The intangible forces at work in the universe were as strange to him as fixing engines was to me. But I had felt the Force before, however ephemerally, and I knew that now, I was feeling it again.

"I haven't seen him all day," I admitted. "I just want to know if he's okay."

"Of course he's okay; he's our son!" Han's smile faded when his quip failed to elicit a smile from me. "When I saw him earlier, he said he wanted to talk to us over dinner. You know what boys are like. He'll be down at the hangar, watching the engineers work on the new prototypes. You know he likes doing that. Chip off the old block. He'll be along for dinner; that boy could smell your home-cooking a mile away."

"Would you go back to the hangar and see if he's there?"

Han's eyebrows jumped up towards his hairline. "What, now?"

"Dinner's not ready yet," I said, fighting down my impatience. Trying to push the fear away. Luke had lectured me about fear often enough, but I couldn't help it. Not now. My son was not home, and THERE WAS A KNOT IN MY STOMACH! "Please, Han, just find him and bring him home." Never in a thousand years would I plead before an enemy, not even to spare my own life. But for my son? I would plead until my voice ran hoarse. Until the last breath of air left my lungs.

"Alright, alright," he acquiesced at last. "Can I at least get dressed first?"

I left him to it and went back to the kitchen, back to the chopping board. But I wasn't making dinner anymore. I was keeping my hands busy. I chopped every vegetable in the house, and when I'd finished, I started wiping down the surfaces. The cleaning droid did a magnificent job of keeping the house tidy, but right then, I saw dust. I saw it everywhere. And when I didn't see it, I imagined it. No matter how many times I wiped one particular kitchen top, I just couldn't get it dust-free. By the eighth time it shone so brightly I could see my own reflection in it, but I'd stopped caring about cleaning by then.

When I realised my hands were shaking, I went to the cooling unit and took out the bottle of wine. Pulled out the cork. Poured a glass. Brought the glass to my lips. Stopped. My mind tormented me with an accusation.

My son is missing, and I am drinking wine.

No. Ben was not missing. He just wasn't here. Like Han said, he was down at the hangar, watching the engineers. Looking at the ships. Ben liked ships, or he had, before he decided he was 'too old' for the models of X-Wings and old cruisers which had, very neatly, adorned the walls of his room. The ships had come down between training sessions, but nothing had replaced them. I'd kept waiting for something. Anything. Old blaster pistols. Autographed pilot helmets. Ancient droid casings. Holoimages of girls. But my son had remained in limbo; too old for the toys of his youth, too young for the interests of adults. And I'd kept him there. I hadn't wanted to hold him back, but neither had I wanted to push him forward. All I'd wanted was for him to be my little boy, my Ben, for as long as possible.

I left the glass of wine in the kitchen and took a seat in the sitting room, staring into the low dancing flames of the fire. The knot in my stomach grew in intensity, and a second memory jumped into my mind as the flames flickered before my eyes.

A scream of pain, of unspoken agony and despair. The most horrifying sound a mother can ever hear.

Riala and I ran for the sitting room, where our sons were at play. I saw the panic on her face. The fear. The sheer dread. And I knew that I was looking into a mirror image of my own.

We burst into the room, and my eyes went immediately to my son. At seven years old, Ben was tall for his age, but in a scrawny way. In the months after birth, his eyes had darkened to a deep brown, but his hair had remained thick and black, and at times it looked like a fuzzy creature trying to take over his head. But he hated having it cut, screamed and threw himself on the ground whenever I suggested it. So I stopped suggesting.

I ran my eyes over my son, looking for any sign of hurt. There was none. He merely watched me, and not for the first time I wondered what was going on inside the mind behind those brown eyes. He looked the picture of calm despite the shrieking five year old being comforted by his mother.

"What happened?" I asked, trying to keep the harsh edge from my voice.

Ben turned his head, glancing towards the flames flickering in the fireplace. "Tormas put his hand in the fire," he said, matter-of-factly.

I brushed past my son and crouched down beside my friend. Riala was shaking as she tried to comfort her screaming child. "Let me see," I said, my voice pitched to soothe. A trick Luke had taught me, though no manipulation of the Force was involved. Riala relinquished her grip on her son, angling the boy towards me. His hand, red and blistered, was curled protectively to his chest. It wasn't the most serious burn I'd ever seen, but it needed immediate attention to avoid damage and scarring. "You need to get Tormas to the hospital right away," I told Riala.

She nodded and sniffed, trying to brush away the tears from her eyes. My heart went out to her; in her place, if it were my son crying and hurt, I would have fallen to pieces too. From my pocket I pulled out a handkerchief, and she accepted it gratefully.

"Don't worry, I'll let myself out," I told her. "You just concentrate on Tormas."

"Thank you, Leia," she said, attempting a brave smile. Without another word she scooped up her screaming son and carried him from the house.

I turned to Ben, crouched down in front of him to meet him on his level. "What really happened?"

He frowned, his brown eyes confused and troubled. "Tormas put his hand in the fire," he reiterated.

I closed my eyes, willed myself to calmness. When I opened them again, my son was watching me with a very un-childlike expression. "Why do you think Tormas did that?" I asked.

Ben answered without hesitation. "He wanted to see what it felt like."

"Come here." I held out my arms and stepped into them, wrapping his short arms around me. Aloof as he was with the other children, wary as he was around adults he didn't know, he never held back from me.

"You don't need to cry, Mother," he whispered. "It will be okay."

Only then did I realise that I was crying, silent tears for my son. But in my mind, my thoughts were whirring into action. Nobody had to know about this. It had been an accident. So what if accidents happened around my boy more than they did around any other child in the city? It was an accident. And tomorrow I would speak to Luke. My brother would know what to do. My brother could make it right. A Jedi Master would be able to make all of these accidents go away.

The door opened, ripping me from the memory, and I was on my feet before it had even been closed. Han had returned, and he was alone. The set of his shoulders told me all I needed to know. I felt the heat leave my body, the blood drain from my face. I sank down, and would have ended up on the floor if Han hadn't caught me and settled me on the chair.

"My son has been taken," I said.

Han shook his head, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it. "I bet he's gone to the spaceport, to watch the ships come in."

"He's not at the spaceport," I said with certainty. I didn't know how I knew; I just did. "His bag hasn't been packed yet for his journey tomorrow. You know he wouldn't leave packing to the last minute. He… he's been taken. Somebody has kidnapped my son."

Just saying it made my heart grow cold. My son. My Ben. Somebody had taken him. They had stolen my child. But there would be a ransom. There was no other reason why anybody would take my son, other than for financial gain. There was nothing remarkable about my son. He was just a boy. In three weeks he'd be sixteen, almost a man. But for now, just a boy. My boy.

"I'll go and have a good look at the spaceport," Han said, releasing my shaking body from the fierce hug. "And I'll bring Luke with me. I'm sure Luke will be able to find him in seconds. I'll send Chewie over to the racetracks as well, in case Ben's gone to watch the time-trials. We'll find him. You'll see. Just have that dinner ready for when he walks through the door."

I nodded, barely even hearing his words, his empty assurances. He'd said them for my benefit, but he didn't believe them any more than I did. In my mind's eye, I saw my son's face over and over again, panicked and frightened as somebody surprised him—and they must have surprised him, for no ordinary thug could take a Force-trained child easily—and carried him away from his home. Had he called out for me? Was he, even now, trying to contact me?

I closed my eyes, tried to open myself to the subtle influences of the Force. Wondered whether having a glass of wine might make me more receptive.

Avoiding temptation, I stood. My eyes saw, but my mind was in a fog. A numb and freezing fog. My feet moved, one step after the other, and where before it felt like I had been gliding to the door of Ben's bedroom, I now felt like I had lead weights attached to my legs. Habit made me knock on the door; a tear spilled down my cheek because I knew I would receive no answer. I stepped inside anyway, and the light came on automatically. My eyes ran over everything, searching. There had to be something here. Some clue that would lead to an answer. Something that would explain who had taken my son, and why.

Evidence of his kidnapping was standing in the corner of the room. On a low cupboard was a glass tank, full of dusty brown earth and stones, and various branches of succulent green leaves. Sunning himself on one of the stones was Gecky, the three-legged lizard Ben had brought home a week after the incident with Tormas and the fire. Gecky, who had lost his fourth leg to an accident or a predator. Ben had carried him back in his hands, his eyes full of tears, and held out the dying lizard to me as if asking me to make everything right. What kind of mother could turn away that sort of request from her son? Between us we'd nursed Gecky back to health. He couldn't walk properly, would probably have been made lunch for a sand-vulture if we'd set him down outside. So Ben kept him. Even took him to the Academy. Ben would never, ever leave without Gecky.

The lizard looked up to me, as if to ask, Where is Ben? I dropped a couple of rock lice into his tank, but he ignored them. The next memory came, scurrying into my mind like the rock lice scurrying for shelter.

I looked up from the kitchen counter as Ben entered the room. His hair was ruffled from sleep, and he let out a wide yawn, stretching his arms into the air above his head. At thirteen years old he'd grown taller, but he hadn't yet grown into his looks. He still looked like a gangly, awkward teenager. Except for his eyes. His eyes were deeper and older than they ought to have been. He slid onto a stool, folded his arms across the table top, and lowered his head to rest on his arms as he watched me prepare breakfast.

"Sleep well?" I smiled at him.

He shrugged, his stringy shoulders rising a couple of inches before falling again. "Well enough."

"And are you feeling settled back in?" I inclined my head towards him, inviting him to smile back.

He merely shrugged again.

"What about Gecky? Is he glad to be back?"

That did draw a smile, and suddenly his eyes seemed a lot younger. "Yes, he ate six rock lice, I think he doesn't like the insects I feed him at the Academy." His expression changed again, faster than a hawk in flight, suddenly guarded. "Do I have to go back?"

I hadn't been prepared for the question. I gave up on breakfast and took the seat opposite my son. For a long moment I looked at him, and he shifted beneath my gaze. "Don't you want to?" I asked at last.

He shook his head.

"Why not?"

"The other students. They talk about me behind my back."

"And you know that for a fact?"

Nod.

"What do you think they say?"

"I don't know." His guarded expression became one of sullen disappointment. "They don't like me."

I reached out to tilt my son's face up, to meet his eyes. "If they don't like you, then that's their loss," I said. "You are a wonderful, talented person, and you will make plenty of friends. I don't know why the other students might be talking about you behind your back, but sometimes, children do that. They might not even be saying anything negative about you; it may simply be that they don't feel comfortable to talk to you more openly. Give them a chance, and maybe they'll give you a chance."

"I don't want to give them a chance. They make fun of me, I know they do."

My heart went out to my poor, friendless son. He was so sensitive to the moods of others, that even when thoughts or emotions weren't about him, he thought they were. I wished, as any mother would, that I could make friends for him, that I could tell the students that my son was not a bad person, that there was no need to push him away. But, as any mother does, I knew my son. I knew that if there was any pushing going on, it wasn't one-way. My heart grieved for the child who could not reconcile the dichotomy of his own desires, for he both yearned to be loved and accepted, and yet scorned the idea of reliance on others. I could see what his father could not; the conflict within him, tearing him apart, little by little, day by day. Eventually, something would have to give, and I hoped and prayed that the 'something' would be the barriers my son created between himself and the rest of the galaxy.

"I would love nothing more than to have you by my side, always," I told him. "But you have to find your own path through life, and part of finding that path means training with Luke. It means working hard to master the Force… and yourself. I'm proud of you, for how much progress you've made. Luke's told me that you're the strongest, most skilled student in the class."

His eyes lit up at the praise.

"In fact, I bet that's why the other students talk," I told him. "I bet they're jealous of you, but don't know how to ask for your help."

"Maybe," he said uncertainly. I could tell he wanted to believe me, but it wasn't easy to put aside months or years of suspicion.

I hated the galaxy, right then, for the unfairness of it all. The Empire was gone. Peace had been restored. And yet my son was bitterly lonely, and through no real fault of his own. It wasn't fair, that unhappiness still existed.

"What are your plans for today?" I asked, to distract my own thoughts from dwelling on the matter of universal injustice. The question elicited yet another shrug from Ben, and I made a decision. The three meetings I had scheduled for today could be postponed. There was nothing so important that it took precedent over my son. He would only be here for a little over a week, before training resumed once more. The other children would have gone home to spend time with their families, to see their friends again, to enjoy moments of carefree abandon as a reward for their hard work and training. I knew it cut Ben deeply, that he had no friends to come calling for him in the weeks he spent at home.

"Why don't you help me out in the garden, then?" I suggested. "We could get the planting done in time for the spring blossoming, and finally get around to moving that apple tree from under your bedroom window."

"Why do we need to move the tree?" he asked. "I like it there. In the summer, Gecky suns himself on its highest branches."

"Well," I said, looping my arm around his shoulders, "trees are like people. When they're young, they're easily harmed. They need shelter, and protection. But as they grow, they can't stand too much shade. If they don't get enough light, they become stunted and withered. Your father and I planted that apple tree the day after you were born, when it was just a tiny seedling, and we planted it beneath your bedroom window because that was the most sheltered area of the whole garden. But the tree's a lot bigger, now; it doesn't need as much shelter as it did when it was young. If it's to keep growing, to reach its full potential, it needs to be able to stand in the light."

"You sound like Uncle Luke," Ben accused, but there was no anger or hostility in his voice.

"Well, I did give him all of my best sayings." I winked, and he flashed me a grin.

"Mother, would you be terribly disappointed if I didn't become a Jedi?"

I stepped in front of him and took him by the shoulders, forcing him to meet my eyes. "You listen to me, Ben. Nothing you do could ever disappoint me. If there is one thing you can count on, it's that you will always have my love. You don't have to do anything to earn that; you have it because you are my son. Luke is training you because I asked him to. Because I am afraid for you. Not afraid of what you might do, or what you might become, but because of the pain you might experience because of it. All I want—all I have ever wanted—is for you to be happy. And if being a Jedi does not make you happy, then you certainly do not have to be one. That life is not for everyone. It wasn't for me. But I will support you in whatever you do. You don't ever have to be afraid to talk to me about this."

He nodded. "I understand." And I truly believe that he did understand.

"Good. Go and get changed, and we'll make a start on that garden. You don't want to get your good clothes dirty."

By the door, he stopped and turned to look back at me. Then he said something he hadn't told me since before I sent him away with Luke. "I love you too, Mother."

I picked up the training suite from Ben's pile of unpacked clothes and hugged it to my chest, inhaling deeply the scent of his clothes. I was still standing in Ben's room, holding this weak remnant of my son, when the door opened once more and I heard footsteps approach. One pair. But I knew by the silence that accompanied those footsteps, and by the way the air around me seemed to shimmer and swirl as if blown by some unseen breeze, that my brother was with him. I forced my eyes to remain shut. If I couldn't see the world, it couldn't see me. I could stay here, in this limbo, knowing that although my son had been kidnapped, my husband and brother had already come up with a plan to rescue him. It would be a wonderful plan, daring and courageous. It would probably take a few days, but then we'd be a family once more. And I would never, ever send Ben away again. All I needed was for him to come home, one last time.

"Leia?" Han's voice was gentle. Too gentle. He called me 'his old battle-axe'. Said on many an occasion that I was tougher than most men he knew. Never before had he treated me with kid gloves.

"No," I said. My eyes betrayed me by opening of their own accord, searching out my husband's face for the expression that resided there. I had never, ever seen such sorrow and guilt on one face.

"Several people saw Ben at the spaceport," he continued.

I shook my head. "Liars. They're liars. Or mistaken. Ben was kidnapped. His clothes are still in his room. His clothes… the holoprojector… Gecky. Our son would not leave without those things."

"No," Luke agreed, stepping forward with eyes full of grief. "Your son wouldn't."

The knot came out of me, erupting as a sob, choking my throat with emotion as I sank down onto the bed and pulled the clothes tighter to my chest. "He's my boy," I said, or tried to say. There was a shrieking sound, a terrible, mournful wailing like an animal gravely wounded. The sound filled my ears, thrumming through my head, and I mentally lashed out, telling whoever was making that sickening noise to be quiet and let me grieve. Then I realised; that sound was coming from me. I hadn't known that such an animal dwelt within me, waiting for my heart to be broken, for the bars of its cage to be cut.

Words were spoken, but I barely heard.

"…blame myself," said Han. "He wanted to talk, but I told him I didn't have time. If only I'd stopped. If only I'd listened…"

It's not your fault, I wanted to say. You never saw the conflict within him. From the moment he was born, he's lived two lives, and two lives are too much for a child to bear alone. But I couldn't say those words. I couldn't say them because the knot was still choking me, restricting my throat, silencing even the wailing animal within me.

"…can't sense him," Luke spoke up. "Found a way to hide himself from me…"

I closed my eyes and ignored the voices. I did nothing but focus on the scent of the clothes clutched desperately to my chest. The memories came flooding back. Not just one or two of them; all of them. Every memory held within my mind. Every image of my son, every scene, every smile, every tantrum and every tear I had wiped away. And I knew then that Luke was wrong. That my husband was wrong. Ben was not gone. He was still alive, inside me. For as long as I kept the memory of my son alive, there was a chance he would remember who he was and come back. And I would be right here, waiting for him, waiting beside the tall apple tree in the centre of the garden, which now stood in the light and thrived.

Author's Note: I haven't been through the joys of childbirth, but if you have, please give me feedback on what you thought of my description of the event. If you've read the preceding one-shot, you'll notice that I changed the POV for this one. I'd be grateful for thoughts on that, too.