Leia lay for a time, awake and alone on a bunk in the crew quarters. The Falcon was quiet, her hull still linked with Home. Inner systems were running; she felt the air circulator, sensed a dim light out in the corridor, but the powerful hum of the engines was absent.

She thought of Darth Vader, and the constant hiss of his respirator, and wondered if he ever got tired of hearing it, or if it was the one thing that assured him he was still alive.

And she pictured General Kenobi, who was so quiet at the moment of his death. That little smile for Luke as Vader struck him down. He was ushering Luke on his way, wasn't he. He seemed to think Luke would be all right, left alone with a Princess and a smuggler.

Poor Luke.

The mystery returned, as it often did in the early hours. She knew she might never learn the truth, but it didn't stop her from puzzling over it.

Her father had given her Kenobi's name a few years ago. He is a Jedi Knight. That didn't mean much to Leia, but it did to her father; the Jedi featured prominently in stories he told of the Old Republic. So she had sent the holomessage to Kenobi, and he came to her aid. Watching it with Luke- had he sensed the contrast between Luke's youthful vigor and his own age? Did he know?

She didn't understand. Either of them, her father or Kenobi. How they came together, the babies they had in common. Luke's father was a Jedi- that raised more questions than it answered. Why didn't Luke know anything of his mother? Was the infant at the Jedi Temple?- Leia wasn't about to delve into that mystery.

She didn't know much about her own origins, she realized now. She had asked- little, innocent questions. But she was very young, and she had love and security, and her father's sad gravitas had stopped her from pursuing more. While he was alive she hadn't needed it, but now she saw just how many holes there were in the story. His dying friend had no mate, no other family, at all?

And she wondered suddenly, disturbed: was she... stolen? Leia had always assumed her birth mother was Alderaani. The bunk on the Falcon provided distance, a rational, unbiased viewpoint and Leia saw her assumption was ethnocentric. Was it even an official adoption, a legal one? Per the House of Organa it was; Alderaan recognized the little baby as a Princess. Had Bail Organa deceived the planet?

She dismissed the thought as soon as it formed. He wouldn't steal a baby. Her parents were childless many years before Leia was added to their family. If they'd wanted a child so badly they could have made it happen many times over.

She was an emergency, then.

And that fit; her father talked often of the end of the Republic and the Jedi purge. He'd been greatly affected by the events, and he told her how, for just a few days, everything dissolved into chaos.

Her father had gone to the Temple after the purge, to see if he could help. Had he met Kenobi there?

They also had in common... whatever it was called, like her Alderaan.

Her nerves tingled with an impatience, and she couldn't be still anymore. She got out of bed and tiptoed to the galley to start some kaf. It was dark in there.

"Lights," she whispered, but nothing happened. "Lights," she said again but in a low, real voice that used sound waves. The room remained dark. She groped around, but couldn't locate a switch, so she worked by the light of her comm. At least it was ready; Han had cleaned it from use the night before. Water trickled into the machine, and Leia waited, her thoughts returning to her father and General Kenobi.

Two ideological men, one who lost the Jedi Temple and the other who lost the Republic. Not physical worlds, but worlds nonetheless.

Were they subdued, in shock, or were they able to see a future in the babies?

Leia grew frustrated. Then why wait nineteen years? And surely Kenobi meant to wait longer, because Luke had no clue, but it was Leia who spurred events along.

Kenobi knew about Luke. Knew who his father was, felt the power of the Force in the baby. Tatooine was a hiding place.

Let us make a back-up plan, Kenobi would pose to her father. Should anything happen to me before the boy completes his training...

If indeed there ever was a plan, they couldn't enact it. Leia was arrested, her father doomed on Alderaan. So Kenobi took Luke to a cantina. He wasn't just looking for a fast ship. He was looking for someone who could take Luke in.

Leia smiled at the thought. Han was the most paternal of all the patrons?

No. Of course he wasn't.

Chewie was.

Leia filled a dispo cup and inhaled the rich smell of kaf, grateful for Chewie. It wouldn't surprise her if General Kenobi had told the towering Wookiee the whole story.

Well, it was a good choice. A Wookiee held a discretion and wisdom the short lifespan of a human couldn't possibly provide. All I need you to do is watch over him, Kenobi could have said.

Leia didn't factor into Kenobi's intentions. They weren't going to rescue her originally, Leia remembered. Kenobi was doing as she bade, bringing the plans to Alderaan. And neither was Han an essential part, other than the fact that it was his ship. She was certain that if Chewie knew something, Han didn't. Kenobi assigned Luke immediate value; Han and Leia were left to discover their own worth.

Is that why they were drawn to each other?

And Leia flushed. She hadn't meant to think that.

She sipped more kaf, and the thought came back.

Luke on one side of the garbage masher, she and Han on the other. Luke cheered into his comm, and she put her arms around Han's neck, the only part of him not covered in armor.

Poor Luke?

Leia was a little bit ashamed. Yes, the Luke of nineteen year old secrets and inaction was something to pity. Even he knew it. But the Luke whose neck was not embraced by a Princess? Who was she to think that?

How easy it was to do, though. It gave her pause. What if- Did he think poor Leia? Did Han? Her cheeks burned. If either one said something like that to her, if she knew they even thought it...

You both needed rescuing, don't forget!

Maybe it was just her. Pity was something a princess mustered easily. Her life was so vastly different from most. Several residences, twelve maidens. Her father collected expensive speeder models because he liked to look at them. She could provide food to the hungry, but she didn't know what it felt like to be hungry.

She didn't pity all of Luke, though, she defended herself. In fact, some of the opposite, where she was even a little jealous of him. He had a destiny. And that didn't stop her from genuinely liking Luke.

She made her way through the dark galley into the lounge. The indicator lights from the tech station provided the only light, not enough. She dropped clumsily into the seat, forgetting the width of the curve of the bench, and her kaf sloshed inside the cup. The liquid's movement reminded her of Buteral's sea.

Pity didn't hold people together. Royalty didn't provide evenings like she had enjoyed with Luke, Han and Chewie the night before. Time and togetherness was the luxury, not the quality or number of something.

Links in a chain, she had thought last night after Luke left. Was his in the center, labeled Destiny? Not necessarily; not if the links were equal in strength. A chain was useless if it was easily broken.

It seemed the strength of her own link lay in her past. All she had accomplished, up to the moment she arrived at Yavin. She couldn't see how anything else would top that. The same for Han. Already traveled the galaxy, freed a Wookie from slavery. He'd done a lot. This was different than Leia's accomplishments; it was... she didn't know. Dashing? But life had caught up with him too, and he was in debt, on the run.

Leia sighed. She was probably wrong in thinking this was something she needed to solve, to know, but that's how she operated. All she knew was Luke made her feel... she shook her head at herself, unsure. Like watching from above, with affection and love... not a goddess. A satellite. Like a moon. Something grand and epic; part of the story, but also not really.

It was the opposite with Han. He was organic; gritty and universal. It made her think of the snails.

Clouds or clarity: were they all here because fate deemed it, or because it was a random series of events?

Alderaan, Leia's mind whispered. Her thoughts always led her there, always finished there. Whatever the answer, it was sickening.

Leia closed her eyes. It was so disconcerting to understand a past was lost and a future would be found, but to not know one's place in the present. She was on the Falcon, she told herself, and maybe that's all there was for now.

And Leia had an urge to view Han sleeping, as if that would show her the real Han, not the one who ricocheted off stimuli, the sum of instinct and reaction.