Chapter One: Remember Two Things

"If the world is crumbling down; I don't want to be alone; No, locked up in this place..."

O.A.R., "Heard the World"

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"Remember two things," Bail Organa smiled, placing a hand on his daughter's cheek as they stood together outside of the Tantive IV. "You are a strong woman, Leia, so never let anyone make you feel otherwise."

Leia offered her father a smile in return. "Was that one or two, Father?"

"One," he replied. "The other, my little girl, is to remember that I will always be with you."

They would be the last words that Leia would ever hear from her father. As if by some force, some premonition, Bail had chosen his advice to his daughter wisely, perhaps to offer her comfort if anything were to happen while she was away on her "diplomatic" mission to retrieve the plans to the Empire's newest battle station.

But of course, something did happen. And as the last fragments of Alderaan and her family floated off into the abyss of space she did not think about her father's last words. She refused to allow Bail's face to enter her mind because doing so would only be the crack she needed in her armor and she would not let herself cry while surrounded by Imperial presence. So instead she returned to her holding cell and stretched out on the cold slab and closed her eyes and only willed the hour of her execution to come quickly.

It was not until later, much later, that she began to rue the interruption of her scheduled death by a blue-eyed farm boy, a not-so-heartless mercenary, and a walking carpet. It was after the Battle of Yavin, after the awards ceremony, when she was finally given a moment alone in her quarters on the remote moon that her father's words found their way into her thoughts. The words entered her mind and wrapped themselves around her memories and suddenly she found herself doubled over in the 'fresher, vomiting violently, as if her body was trying to rid itself of the overwhelming guilt and despair that now consumed her.

She thought maybe her eyes had gone dry, that she would forever be unable to shed a tear for any reason. But she was wrong. As she leaned her head back against the cool wall of the 'fresher, she noticed that she had been fortunate enough not to get sick on her ceremonial gown. And then she realized that the gown was one of her few remaining possessions from her home planet.

And then she felt one hot, stinging tear fall from her eye and down her cheek, dropping finally to the floor beneath her.

Quickly, Leia brought a hand to her face and wiped the track of the tear away. She felt that she did not deserve to mourn yet, that she would ever deserve to mourn. She had failed them all.

"You are a strong woman, Leia, so never let anyone make you feel otherwise."

What had she done? She had already failed her father as Tarkin gave the order to fire, but she was failing him all over again by sitting there on the 'fresher floor and allowing the guilt to plague her.

For a moment, she wished that Luke had never opened the door to her cell.

As she sat there, eyes shut tightly in a losing battle against her emotions, Leia was vaguely aware of voices floating from the commlink in her bedroom. She caught snippets, but mostly she tried to block out those sounds as well. She hoped that maybe, if she stayed there long enough, the Alliance would forget about her and she could just fade away into the jungle of the moon.

The Rebels, of course, would never forget about her, and she was finally startled from her cocoon by an insistent banging at the door of her chamber. Before she could think to move towards the offending noise, she heard the door slide open and hurried footsteps making their way towards her.

"Princess?" A voice called, and she felt her eyes widen in surprise. She knew that voice, but had only just learned it. It was a voice that for some reason, against her best judgement and depths of emotional pain, caused the tiniest of flutters in her stomach that had nothing to do with grief or anger. She couldn't explain it, but somehow that voice filled her with hope.

The owner of the voice found her shortly, right where she had been on the 'fresher floor. The space pirate. The heartless mercenary. The gruff and scruffy smuggler. Han Solo. She had seen so many expressions cross his handsome face in the mere hours that they had been acquainted, but the one on his face now was new. Concern. Worry. Care. The emotion that she found in his eyes surprised her a little, even scared her. He had proven to her quickly that he was not the hot-headed nerfherder she had originally judged him to be in the din of blaster fire. He crouched down low next to her and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, Your Worship, are you all right?"

Leia swallowed hard and nodded in reply, her eyes offering unconvincing corroboration.

"Well, look," Han began, obviously not buying her act, "Command's been trying to comm you for the last hour. They've tracked Star Destroyers entering the system and we have to evacuate real quick-like. Luke and the Squadrons have already left, and so have most of the transports. They're holding one for you, but only for about two more minutes."

"And why are you here?" She asked, sounding a little more cold than she intended. If he was hurt by her question, however, he didn't show it.

"Well, since you left the celebration early, I wanted to see if you wanted to share a bottle of Whyren's Reserve with me," he said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice.

Leia tried to come up with a retort, but found her mind too exhausted to form any coherent thought. So instead she shook her head and cast her gaze back to the white of the 'fresher floor.

"Ah, come on, you don't think I'm gonna let you stay here now do you?" His voice was a little softer, now.

"It's not your concern, Captain Solo."

That remark, however, seemed to hit a nerve. Any softness the captain had displayed melted immediately. She felt his grip on her shoulder tighten slightly and was sure she saw a signature finger wagging from the corner of her eye.

"Now look here, Princess, I just risked a hell of a lot for your little Alliance and I'll be damned if I saved you from the Death Star only to let you commit suicide by staying here. I'm getting you out of here whether you like it or not."

She could not say a word. Mostly, she was stunned at how easily the Captain had read her reluctance to move as a death wish. But she had no time to ponder that thought because Han was swiftly and suddenly scooping her off the floor and throwing her over his shoulder. He was sprinting out of her quarters before she realized that he had hoisted her like some sort of dead animal and she was hanging upside-down, rather ungracefully, and being forced off the base. Finally, thoughts returned to her mind and she managed to wiggle in his firm grip.

"Han!" Leia screamed, punching his back, "Put me down right now!"

"No," came his equally firm reply. "This way, I know where you are all the time."

They were rounding the corner to the hangar bay and she felt Han's pace quicken at the sound of a roaring engine. Leia stopped squirming, realizing that the sound she heard was the last transport off base.

"Shav!" Han shouted as they reached the hangar in time to see the Mon Calamari cruiser take off. Only then did he dare set the Princess on her feet. She was wide-eyed, almost horrified at the fact that her colleagues had stranded her on the base.

"But-but-" she sputtered, incredulously, but again Han was acting quickly. He grabbed her hand and began to sprint again to the Millennium Falcon in the far corner of the bay, her engines already started. She followed him blindly up the ramp of the ship, not noticing that he refused to let go of her arm until the door was securely shut. Still, she followed him, numbly, taking a seat behind him in the cockpit where Chewie was waiting impatiently.

"Come on, Chewie, let's get the hell outta here!" Han bellowed as he slid into the pilot's seat.

Leia wondered for a short moment if the bucket of bolts would work well enough to get them off the moon, but her thoughts were answered as she watched the jungle of Yavin IV speed past them and the ship was quickly enveloped in a blanket of stars. She heard Chewbacca growl sharply and point at a blinking light on the control panel.

"Yeah, I see 'em," Han replied as he continued to press buttons so quickly that Leia mused that he might just be showing off. "But they're not going to get close to us." And with that, he pushed the lever and the light of the stars began to streak across the sky and suddenly they were safe from any approaching Star Destroyer as they entered lightspeed. Leia exhaled a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, and Han turned around to greet her, smugly. The expression on his face changed instantly, however, when he got a good look at the princess sitting in front of him.

"You're bleeding!"

She took this news as a surprise and looked down to see that she was, in fact, bleeding at her abdomen. Immediately, she remembered the hells she had endured a few short hours ago on the now-extinct Death Star. Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers had sent hot knives into her body every time she refused to tell him the location of the Rebel base. This had only come after the needles and the mind probe, and had been particularly humiliating because they had stripped her down to do it. The Sith lord had been somewhat considerate enough to toss a few bacta patches her way after he'd decided that this torture would again get him nothing but a dead princess. The patches had helped, but when Leia removed them later as she was getting ready for the medal ceremony, she found that the five wounds on her side were still bleeding.

What upset her more than pain she suddenly felt, however, was the fact that the blood had seeped through her ceremonial gown. One of her last remaining possessions from Alderaan was ruined.

As Leia sat in what Han perceived to be stunned silence at the fact that she was suddenly wounded, Chewie had left and returned with a medical kit and a canteen of water for the princess, and then left again to let Han tend to her injuries.

"Hey, Princess?" He asked quietly, bringing her back from her daze. She looked up at him, as if surprised to see him still sitting there. "Listen, Leia, Chewie's gone to get you some spare clothes for you to change into, but I need to see what's making you bleed."

"It's nothing," she said, not wanting to admit to him what she had gone through. He put a tentative hand on her shoulder, his eyes searching hers, wondering if it was he that had caused this. "Just a recent cut that reopened," she added, reassuring him.

"Look, Your Worship, I'm no expert, but that looks like a lot of blood for just one cut. Let me take a look." He smiled. "I promise I won't look anywhere but the injury."

Leia raised an eyebrow and Han handed her the canteen of water, motioning for her to take a sip.

"Besides, Princess, I've been in a lot of fights in my day. Chewie and me got some great stuff for bleeding. Better'n bacta. Came from Tatooine."

Reluctantly, she agreed. After taking another drink of water, she set the canteen down and pushed the shoulders of her dress down her arms, slipping the gown down to her waist. Han let out an audible gasp, not because he was excited to see so much of her exposed skin but because of the gruesome sight of the right side of her abdomen. She had five inch-long cuts between her ribcage and her hip bone, raised and inflamed and trickling blood down her body. He saw evidence of bacta treatment, but apparently the patches had dissolved away and allowed the wounds to reopen.

"Gods, what happened to you?" Han sounded scarily angry, as if he wanted to strangle the person that did this to her.

Leia focused intently on the green gel that he was spreading over her cuts, surprised that the concoction instantly numbed the pain she felt, but would not look at him.

"Just another Imperial interrogation technique," she mumbled.

His hand flinched at the thought, but he didn't say anything at first as he took a white bandage from the kit and placed it over the treated cuts. Then he reached for a white shirt, similar to the one he wore, and a pair of gray thermals that Chewie had left in the cockpit and handed them to her.

"If you'll bring me your dress when you get changed, I think we might be able to get the blood out."

She nodded and Han quickly left her alone to don her new clothing. The v-neck of the shirt came low enough to graze the top of her bra, but it had claps that she was able to button and preserve some of her remaining modesty. Both articles were much larger than she, but she was able to roll the waist of the thermals over to make them stay on her hips as she walked. Han and Chewie were in the galley, and Leia could hear him mumbling to his friend about her torture. They quieted when she entered and Chewie immediately took the gown from her and began to clean it. Han motioned for her to sit at the holotable and handed her a glass of blue milk.

"Drink," he said, sitting next to her. "How are you feeling?"

Terrible, she thought. Alone, guilty, so desperately, desperately sad.

"Better now, thanks," she said.

"Was Alderaan another Imperial interrogation technique?" Han asked, finally, quietly. Leia felt the sudden rush of tears to her eyes at the name of her home. It just couldn't be gone.

She managed to say yes, but then shut her eyes tightly, refusing to let this strange man that had already saved her life twice and infuriated her at least three times more than that to see her cry, see her at her most vulnerable. But Han Solo, who just continued to surprise her, did not want her to cry, to feel the sadness that he knew must have swallowed her whole. The princess before him was a paradox personified, so beautiful and yet so marred by pain, so strong yet so incredibly fragile. He took her hand in his, the one that was not clutching the glass of blue milk, and began to stroke her palm with his thumb. He wanted desperately to make her feel better.

"Tell me about your family," he said suddenly, surprising her yet again.

"What?"

"Tell me about your family," he repeated, shrugging. "It helps with the losses."

"You've lost your family?" Leia was genuinely concerned over his half-revelation, but even more so she did not want to talk about her family. She felt that she didn't deserve to have the memories.

"Yes, but we're not talking about me. You're the princess of Alderaan, so that makes your father Bail Organa, right?" She nodded. "Tell me about him."

"He was my best friend," Leia said without realizing that she'd done so. Han gave her a crooked grin, urging her to continue. And she did, suddenly comfortable in his presence. "He was so caring. I was adopted, but he and my mother never seemed to think that mattered, that I was their little girl despite how I came to be in their family. He was one of the founders of the Alliance, and he started bringing me with him on missions and meetings after my mother died."

"How old were you?"

"Young, six. She was very sick for as long as I can remember. Father gave me this little stuffed baby nerf doll right after she died and said it was from Mother." Leia smiled sheepishly, but it genuine and made Han's heart leap a little at her small joy. "I slept with it every night, but it was on my ship when we were captured by Vader, so I guess it's gone now."

Another loss. It wasn't even a person, but her little, worn nerf doll named Sellen had been a comfort to her for so long. The loss of the toy saddened her almost as much as the loss of her father.

"Anyway," she continued quietly, "I joined the Alliance because I wanted to be just like him. I ran for Senate when I turned eighteen and was able to use my position to run secret missions for the Rebellion under diplomatic cover. That's what I was doing...well, you know the rest of the story."

"Some of it," Han agreed. "Were you able to see him before you left?"

The last words Bail had said to her flooded her mind once again as she nodded.

"He walked me to the ship. He told me to remember two things."

"What?"

"That I was a strong woman."

Han laughed. "No argument there, Your Worship."

Leia rolled her eyes and continued. "And the other was that he'd always be with me."

They were quiet again, each pondering their on faith in this. Leia seemed to believe it wholeheartedly, even though it appeared to Han that she struggled to find solace in the thought. Han, for his part, had faith in little more than his blaster and had always placed very little stock in religions and thoughts of an afterlife, but he knew that now was not the time to enter a philosophical debate with the princess. Besides, she was still so sad, so worn. She needed to rest.

Finally, Han let go of her hand and pulled a small purple pill from a vial in the medkit still open on the table.

"Take this," he said, offering it to her. "We have another twenty hours or so before we meet the rest of the fleet."

"What is it?"

"Sleeping pill. You need your rest and you don't strike me as the kind of girl that's just gonna relax. Might as well take advantage of a few hours with nothing to do."

Leia hesitated, so he took her hand again and placed the pill into it.

"C'm on. I'll wake you up in enough time to get all pretty for your Command meeting."

Sighing, Leia put the pill to her mouth and swallowed it quickly. Han motioned for her to get up.

"Chewie made sure the extra cabin is habitable. But you better hurry, Princess, because that thing acts quick."

Leia stood up, already feeling her eyelids grow heavy. She smiled to herself as she realized how badly she had misjudged the scruffy captain walking in front of her. She didn't know if he'd stick around with the Alliance once he got her to the rendezvous point, but she recognized that she had made a very fast friend in this handsome man that she thought cared about nothing but money...

Han turned around in enough time to catch the princess before she fell to the floor, fast asleep. He lifted her gently and cradled her as he would a child, carrying her to the extra cabin. Chewie had put sheets on the soft bunk recessed into the wall and added a few extra pillows in case Leia required more creature comforts than either pilot. He placed her on the bed and pulled a thick blanket up to her chin. She moaned quietly and settled in to a more comfortable position, and Han found himself struck by how her tiny movement caused his heart to expand in his chest. He began to hope that the beautiful young princess before him would never have to hurt as she had in the past few days ever again.

"Sweet dreams, Princess," Han whispered, and the door slid shut silently behind him.