The small bulge of her father's holocube, the one she'd found in his belongings on Yavin, nudged Leia's wrist reassuringly from where it was nestled inside the thigh pocket of her pants. It had become part of her uniform.
She wasn't sentimental; it wasn't a token. It was a... systems check. Touching it made her pause. The cube's contents- pictures of the Queen and little Leia- were cause and effect, and she always listened when it made itself known on her person. She stopped to reflect on what she said, how she acted. It was important, now more than ever, to do this right. To weigh all the possible outcomes.
When she changed out of her Death Star gown and slid it into her pocket... it told her to sit. To take a moment. She only set her rear on the edge of the chair at her desk, apprehensive and wondering, what now? Her posture was hunched, drawn inward. She paid little attention to the sound of the wind coming through the window over low tide, or the persistent, rhythmic flash of a miniature green light from the comm on her desk. She was deep in thought, knuckles at her chin.
She was back- not on the Death Star but to it, as a topic. It was... the reason.
Was that overly dramatic, Leia wondered? Perhaps. A turning point, then. Dr. Renzatl had a phrase for it: formative moment. Something like that.
She never saw it from space, the way the occupants of the Millennium Falcon had when the tractor beam drew them in. Never looked behind when they left; not really. She was in the cockpit for a while with Chewie while they battled Tie fighters, and of course it was out there, nearby, but she was fighting to keep her stomach- the Wookiee rolled the ship repeatedly- and she was watching the indicator lights. When Han came in to set the nav'puter, she didn't dare look out the viewport. She figured she'd see it again, when she had him set the coords and they arrived at Yavin.
That, and he was so full of himself she momentarily forgot it.
"We thought it was a moon," Luke had told her while they traveled to Yavin through hyperspace. Our disappearing act, that's what Han had called entry into hyper, even though she kept telling him the Death Star was tracking them. It was then she had learned who Luke really was, when hyper was so maddeningly calm she paced the ship like a caged animal.
I don't want to disappear, bring us all to Yavin!
That captain and his medscan. The farm boy and his chatter.
"It was as big as a moon anyway. And-" Luke twisted his lips, considering. "So...round. Perfectly round. It had features, you know like a lifeless moon might? Valleys and craters. Only they were Wookiee-made trenches and exhaust ports."
Wookiee-made. The Intergalactic Lexicon of Basic gave the term entry into the language about fifteen years ago, a few years after the Empire stopped turning a blind eye to slavery and actually gave its approval. It was offensive to Leia, even more so now she knew a Wookiee.
An object, usually of substantial size and created by hand in the manner of a forced labor, typically comprised of but not limited to Wookiees.
Bail Organa hated the Empire for the mass execution of the Force-sensitive, even the young; he hated it for the corruption and the violence that marred and tainted the last years of the Old Republic, an institution he loved and respected. Leia, a generation later, hated the Empire for words like Wookiee-made.
Words like that, out of the mouth of a farm boy from Tatooine who really meant nothing by it, told her how difficult the fight against the Empire really was. Attitudes and social prejudices would be left behind long after the Imperials were tried for war crimes. If she managed to take down the Empire, they would need another generation to truly erase it. Just as it was Bail's generation to start the fight, he needed Leia's to finish it, and hers would need help to-
It flashed into her head, a bad joke: I'll need to have a baby. Or adopt one.
It wasn't funny, and it hurt, because Leia was adopted. All those conversations. We chose you, we always wanted a little girl...oh, if he were here now, she would demand to know. Chose me, so there would be a Queen? Wanted me, to carry on your fight?
It took away from her grief, and made her a little angry, to think that Bail Organa started a family because he hated Sheev Palpatine.
He loved you, someone whispered, her mother or the ghost of a maiden. You know he did.
Bail had told her he learned of the death in childbirth of a dear friend, but if he took Leia in because of Palpatine's actions- his friend must have died during the transition, Leia thought; maybe even because of the transition; the timing was right- Bail had come to love Leia. Loved being a father. She knew that. Felt it, even now.
Leia drew her elbows in to her abdomen. She was not going to be angry with her father because of his feelings about the Emperor. She was not going to allow the Empire to take one more thing from her. Anger served the Empire, didn't it?
It took some willpower, but she forced her thoughts away from her father, or anyway back to the thing that killed him. Yes. Be angry at the Death Star.
It had brought her to a very dark place. Leia contemplated this a moment. Dark places were real. They had viewports that showed planets blowing up and cells so tiny you couldn't move. But, wasn't it true she wasn't there anymore?
She looked around where she sat. Buteral was a different kind of darkness, and not even that anymore since the Alliance had completed the lighting system. Her office was small but there was enough room to pace back and forth, and now the hole in the wall, the window, showed her the seabed under the bright lights. A month ago it was hard to say she had escaped. Not from the dark place; only from the Death Star. She could see herself, how small she looked, how lost. Yes, she'd left, but in pieces. No- that indicated having fallen apart. More like... chunks of her were missing. Family, and soil. Like a meteor, pockmarked and scarred from all the hits it took, looking for a gravity well so it wouldn't burn up in atmo.
Affection formed a slight smile. It sounded better when a Wookiee told it.
Allowing the Death Star to track them to Yavin was a gamble but Leia won. She brought the plans, proving the Death Star was vulnerable and sending cracks through the veneer of the Emperor's shiny gray Empire. And she brought two men and a Wookiee.
Oh, she thought, dropping the knee from her leg. I did get something from the Death Star. Besides hate and loss.
She had not forgotten them, only not taken into consideration their part. Luke, Han and Chewie were on the Death Star. They came on the Millennium Falcon. And they all left together. Therefore, Luke, Han and Chewie were important.
Leia nodded to herself. That was sound reasoning. It was fine, then, that she sat at her desk, waiting. It was refreshing to see that sitting at her desk this time was not avoidance. She wasn't writing names, just to pass the time until darkness, when she could leave. She was sitting, waiting, for... continuance.
She was waiting for the Millennium Falcon.
If Mon could throw a working dinner party then surely Leia was entitled-
Leia took a controlling breath, and resumed her reasoning. Grand Moff Tarkin was dead. So was General Kenobi. Luke, Han and Chewie were not. She had spent a lot of energy on Tarkin. She felt a little foolish for it now; it felt like time wasted.
Dr. Renzatl would discourage that kind of thinking. You spent time on yourself. Tarkin took a chunk of you. You're learning to replace it.
She could hear Han, whose own scar masked something. Need some putty?
She had won, gods damn it, and her fists clenched, and she said it again, more calmly. I won.
Balance. She needed balance.
But then a frown crossed her face. Something Luke had pointed out. There was one other who wasn't dead. "Darth Vader," Luke had named, "if we're going to look at both sides."
If Luke, Han and Chewie were important...
Leia tried to fight the logic, but she had started it, and it seemed like an equation. The weight of the scales was tilted.
...then Darth Vader was, too.
Both sides.
Was this more complicated?
Of course it was: they were at war! It wasn't just Leia; it was right and wrong, good and bad. It was love and hate.
Which meant...
Leia didn't feel like doing this now. She was tired. She slumped her back on the chair, her rear still on the edge. She'd already done so much, been through so much. All she wanted was-
She lowered her chin and gazed sadly at her fingers. Stupid god of irony and truth. Was this all she was going to get? A measly amount of time spent with the three beings who let her be herself?
Because of the war. She was swallowed by the war.
Resenting the war didn't seem productive. Especially when Leia- the part of her that was whole, the memory of her- believed in it.
The Death Star, she reminded herself. Luke, Han and Chewie.
The opposite of friends was enemies. Well, her hands rolled gently in her lap as she continued to ruminate her equation, at least they outnumbered the other side.
She frowned anew. That tilted the scales again. Too many friends against one enemy. Was that... unfair?
Maybe it meant Vader was all their enemy. Luke's, certainly. Maybe he was very powerful, and four against one evened the odds. Or, maybe Vader- he wouldn't have a friend on his side, and Leia pitied him for a microsecond- perhaps Vader had an aid. The Emperor? The whole Empire? The Force?
It was back to Luke. Vader was his formative moment, wasn't he.
What if...Leia's brow creased. If she was sitting here looking at her hands considering all angles then she had to plug Han and Chewie inside her equation. Or just Han, for she had the feeling Chewie wouldn't break from Han. Not because he followed orders blindly, and she remembered the pair's argument about the rocks in the Graveyard, but because...he kept him safe?
Copilot, partner, and... bodyguard? Han needed a bodyguard? That didn't fit, somehow. On the Death Star, when Han chased the stormtroopers and he hollered at the others, "Get back to the ship!", he included Chewie, didn't he? It would make sense, because Chewie knew how to fly the Falcon. Han hadn't ordered Chewie to help give chase.
Chewie! Get ahead of me and kill those bastards! Or Chewie! Follow me and make sure I don't get killed!
Leia smiled and sat straight again, the other knee over the opposite leg. It was amusing, to imagine those words instead of Han's attack bellow. She indulged a moment, remembered the athletic twist of his torso, blaster pointed one way, eyes the other. His eyes were at Luke and Leia. Something about him, and her shoulders lifted in an involuntary shiver, was appealing. She didn't know what it was. He was fun to think about.
But there better be more to him than money! she repeated to herself what she had told him after the Battle was won. What if, instead of four against one, Leia- and Luke, too- were wrong, and Han would go over to Vader's side...
No. Leia shook her head, rejecting the thought completely. He'd made it clear he didn't want any part of the Rebellion, but he wasn't an Imperial sympathizer, either. He was trying to stay clear of both sides. And failing, Leia thought smugly. Taking pay from the Alliance wasn't exactly impersonal. It was an excuse.
Luke thought their experiences on the Death Star had stayed with Han enough to keep him around the Alliance, buzzing on the fringes.
Look here, god of irony and truth, Han would shake his finger sternly at the divine being, you leave me out of this, you hear?
Too late, Han Solo. Leia smiled again, and noticed the flashing green light on her comm. She pulled it to her, and activated the message. It looked to be a long one.
"Hi, Leia. It's me."
Though he didn't give his name, of course it was Luke. For one, few had her comm; for another, few used just her name. And he didn't follow standard operations of communication the Alliance laid out. Luke, Leia would guess, had probably not even read the manual. The comm was not for personal use.
Luke's soft voice continued. "I wanted to see how you are. I know it's probably been, well, a tough day but I hope a good day too? Anyway, we're still flying patrol, especially since the Minister is dirtside. And she's staying overnight, I hear. But we're not allowed longer than six hours in the cockpit, so I'll get a break.
"I won't manage it when the Falcon lands but I was thinking maybe Han can bring you up? I'll probably leave the system when the Minister does, and I want one more chance to see you.
"Han says you probably won't be able to; he says you'll be being a Princess top to bottom. I'm not sure what he meant, but my guess is between Minister Mothma and your people? Anyway, if it doesn't work out just wanted to say bye then, and I'm thinking of you. Luke out."
Luke out. Leia smiled fondly. Funny, how procedural behavior rolled off Luke like oil on water. Red Five, Rogue Leader, hero of Yavin, future of the Jedi. The Alliance estimated they were getting quite a lot from Luke Skywalker.
It's me. Luke was humble, caring, and earnest. Those were qualities of a hero, Leia thought. He'd shown them, as well as his inexperience, on the Death Star. Whereas Han- I amaze myself- was definitely not humble; better her than me- and no, not very caring, evidently; in fact, Leia recalled all their interactions on the Death Star and things Luke had told her from before, his whole language was... not defiant. It was resistant.
Suddenly, Leia grasped it. It was Chewie. The Wookiee didn't keep Han safe; he kept his heart. The Falcon landed at Yavin next to Luke's X-Wing because of Chewie. And, it gave what might be for Chewie a rare sighting: Han Solo truly happy.
Didn't want you to get all the reward, Han had mumbled sheepishly, ruffling Luke's hair and grinning like a monkey-lizard.
A reward, Leia lifted her head and notified what lay out the window, feeling like a wise queen, was often more than money.
Balance. Luke, Han and Chewie on the Death Star was equal to Luke, Han and Chewie off the Death Star.