The first sacrifice- and the most enduring one- that Leia Organa made to fight Snoke and the First Order was her son, Ben.
He was six years old.
Mama!
The scream came to her through the Force itself- a shriek of such terror that Leia was out of her bed and in Ben's room without consciously being aware of having made a move. Her son reached his hands out to her desperately and clung to her. "The bad man! The bad man!" he wailed over and over.
"Ben..." Leia laid her hand on her son's forehead to comfort him...
And she felt it.
Him.
Snoke.
Black venom, a shadow noose, that had somehow managed to snare her son's soul. She could feel Snoke in the back of Ben's mind, whispering, urging him to do evil things … whispering hatred of his family into the boy's mind until it threatened to shatter into a thousand pieces.
No!
Leia's first instinct was to strike- to rip the dark thing that was poisoning her son out of him and burn down the Galaxy until she was sure that her son was safe from Snoke.
Her second … her second was to find a way to use it to stop Snoke.
She could read his intentions, the malice in his mind … the thoughts that he had of conquest and cruelty. The New Republic thought the First Order was nothing … but within the echoes of the Force Leia could see that it was destined to rise to threaten everything she had fought and sacrificed so much to build. She could feel the whisper of war in her ear …
Snoke could not sense her presence … she could tell that. Her bond with Ben gave her cover. She could trace the foul link that Snoke had spun between her son and himself back to the source … she could read his filthy mind without his ever knowing it. How many lives could she save by using what she could learn here?
The Galaxy itself might be at stake.
Leia frowned as she kissed her son's forehead. He was already falling asleep in her arms, his nightmares of the "Bad Man" fading away.
Han would never understand the larger picture. If she told him that Snoke had a foothold in Ben's mind he would move heaven and earth to save his son. He wouldn't care about the future or what the Force was telling her; he would simply go to save his son, because that's what a father does.
No. She couldn't tell Han.
And it went without saying that she couldn't let Luke know either. Her brother had already told her that Ben had the potential to be every bit as powerful as Anakin in his prime. He wouldn't want to risk that future … he wouldn't trust Leia's vision.
But Leia knew.
The First Order would grow in power until it threatened the entire Galaxy. To stop it, Leia would need any advantage, any tool, that presented itself.
Even Ben.
Billions of lives. The future. Surely those things were worth a few nightmares to a child?
When Leia had what she needed, she would tell Luke about Snoke's hold on her son. Luke would free Ben. He had freed Darth Vader who had chosen evil. Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to save Ben … especially if Leia was there to remind her son of his duty.
"We can do it, Ben," she whispered to her sleeping child. "We can save everyone. I promise you that you'll be fine. No matter what happens, you'll always be my son and I'll make sure that nothing ever happens. Nothing.
"I just need you to listen to the bad man a little longer ..."
Author's Note: So... this idea has been running around in my head for a while now.