Memory was here.
Leia sat on the crowded public transport speeder, her body swaying back and forth a little. She was watching the city pass as she rode. She was one on a long line of humans on a bench. No one spoke and it was warm, and Leia listened to Memory.
The city was so old that one didn't see the Empire like this, out a window. Only ingenuity, imagination, and life.
Though she had no pretense of her importance, she did feel her words spoken on the old Senate steps were now part of the city, drifting in the air. Maybe they would settle like a fine dust. Or be noticed for a moment, like a sunset.
Leia wondered if this was the last time she'd set foot in Imperial City.
Maybe it was.
She hadn't known when would be the last time she'd see her father or her home, and there hadn't been any special ceremony to their parting. The Death Star had overshadowed it.
She couldn't bring herself to make this a significant farewell either, for she kept telling herself, maybe this is the last time Imperial City sees me.
The ruin of the Jedi temple followed Leia's journey through the city like a moon that didn't set. It must give Emperor Palpatine distinct pleasure to view it, she thought; a reminder of his triumph. Otherwise he'd be quick to tear it down, like the A-D district.
And the sporty open-air speeder her father so enjoyed could be flying with the others outside if she didn't know any better. His hair blown back, the weight and preoccupation of his secret treachery flowing behind him like a scarf.
There was a time, not very long ago, when she couldn't believe he was dead. When she stood in the aisle of a general store and wasn't ready to grieve yet. She was- scared.
She remembered it, that desperate, misguided hope.
Her eyes left the window a moment, for she learned something just now and wanted to take it in: fear and hope weren't really opposites.
I fear my father is dead. I hope my father is alive.
Both meant the same thing, really. Both were tragic, in their own way. But fear and hope couldn't shine a light on truth. There was nothing to be gained by either. The truth was, Bail Organa was dead. And once one understood the truth, or learned it, or knew it, that was it. No more fear, no more hope.
Her brow tightened a bit. There was sadness in that, too.
Death caused two griefs, Leia realized. One was for the loss and the other for the self. Oh, she breathed to herself.
She could see herself, as she'd been. Flitting around Yavin, pacing the circle of the Falcon, walking the shoal of Buteral: she couldn't stop moving.
She had her father's holocube, the things he loved, and that was sad, too. She rolled the six sides around between her fingers again, reciting what the holos meant. I loved your mother, I love you, I loved watching you grow; I believe in the Queen, what I fight for, and I believe in democracy.
I'm still here, Pati, she thought.
She looked over at Han. The public transport was crowded and they didn't get a seat together. He had an aisle seat facing the rear of the transport car and Leia was on the long bench parallel to the windows. She had his profile, and the chance to really study it: the well-defined jaw, the swell of his bottom lip, dark lashes over restless eyes.
She had thought her father a handsome man, but he was her father and that's what people told her. But she liked looking at Han, even though he wasn't conventionally handsome as her father was. Han's eyes weren't quite the same size, his nose curved toward a cheek, there was that scar across his chin. He must have felt her eyes on him, for he swiveled his head in her direction. There was something appealing about the expression he wore, shrewd and naive at the same time.
His eyes moved to the passengers on either side of her, probably making sure they weren't the Emperor in disguise, which irritated Leia; or seeking if a seat had opened up next to her, which was weirdly flattering and that was irritating too, only at herself, and she lifted her eyes and went back to the window.
Lennist, who wasn't yet something her father loved but maybe he would come to be, as he expected Leia to, was... Leia shrugged inwardly. Not ugly. Nothing that turned her off, but not... her shoulders actually lifted this time and the man sitting next to her gave her a look.
They were friends as children. Were they? They played together, but children just did that. The play stopped as they aged.
How would Lennist be? Would he reside in the Organa apartment here? Would he put his hand on her arm to get her to stand still, and then go find candles for her?
Lennist was dead, she told herself. Truth.
Could she even assemble a holocube of her own? Show the things she loved when there was no proof they had existed?
She should get a holocube, Leia determined, for she needed a history she could view, like her father and the things he loved.
It would include the whole of Alderaan, because it was gone and she would have been queen, her list of names, her parents...
Was this love or grief?
Luke, she decided. Something living. And Han, and Chewie, and maybe even the Falcon, if she needed to fill up the cube.
Did she love? Anymore? Was she that changed? Or were these symbols of her history, chapters of her journey.
Her eyes went back to Han. He sat back against the seat, one heel firmly on the floor, the other foot planted on her backpack, knees grazing the seat in front of him. His posture was casual, Leia noted, but at times the jiggle of a foot, the rubbing of a palm over his thigh gave away an impatience. She smiled slightly. To anyone else, he might look relaxed; to her he was a man who surrendered to being a passenger rather than the pilot.
Would her father like Han? Would he see how different everything was now?
She would tell her father, "I hope Han stays."
Stop, she told herself. If she wanted the truth, it was there. She wasn't going to get it from her father.
Why was she thinking about this? She should be concentrating on the Emperor, and the next phase of this battle she had invited, if there was to be one.
Leia took a deep breath, and sought the ruin of the Jedi Temple again out the window.
The Falcon was closed up tight. Leia had never seen the ship like that. The ramp was usually open, like a welcome.
It reminded her of something; something she half-saw in her mind, but it wasn't clear, like it had no language.
"Is Chewie not on board?" she frowned at the seal where the ramp should come down.
"He's there," Han said, and fished in his vest pocket for his comm. "A lot of ports I don't mind him leaving if he wants to go for a drink. But not here."
"Can't you open it from out here?"
"Override's on." A growl came from the comm unit, and Han answered, "Knock, knock." He stashed the comm back in his pocket.
"Clever code," Leia said sarcastically.
It must not have been code, for he smiled a little.
Something clunked; not a very healthy sound, but the seal broke and the mouth of the ramp began to yawn open.
"It sounds broken," Leia began to say, but Han was already moving forward before it was completely open, sliding the strap of her backpack off his shoulder as if to shed it, and making a small leap to get back on board as quickly as possible.
Leia followed as soon as she knew it was safe to do so.
Chewie was warbling something towards the rear of the ship; it sounded like a complaint, but he turned his head and nodded at Leia.
Han's voice was distant. "Yeah. We did some sightseeing."
He reappeared in the corridor without her backpack and saw Leia standing behind Chewie. "Oh, that reminds me," and he whirled around. "Bought you a baningka."
Ooh, Chewie said.
Leia distinctly heard it, and his tongue slurped over his upper lip. She laughed and patted his furry arm. She did love Chewie, she thought. He was easy to love. Kind and not just strong but supportive, too.
Han and Chewie got busy readying the ship for departure. "The PA Master come to take the declaration?" Han asked Chewie.
The Wookiee offered a long explanation. The short answer, as Leia understood from Han's scowl, was no.
"Why doesn't anyone do their job?" Han complained. "Keep the ramp up; I'll do it and put in for clearance. How much you wanna bet he keeps us around all day?"
Chewie looked at Leia. He named a quantity she understood, one hundred, but not the thing. Han didn't bother answering.
"Credits?" she asked.
Chewie put the baningka in the warmer and removed a canister from a cabinet. He said the word again, showing her the contents.
"Tea bags," Leia interpreted with smile.
She went to her cabin to change her clothes. Han had deposited her backpack in here. She unpacked the items in the lockers so they didn't tumble around during flight. First the thought bowl and its tokens. She tossed the Alliance uniform on the cot; she'd change again when they got closer to Buteral, and decided to wear the leggings and long tunic top, as well as Han's red socks, for the trip.
Funny how such a simple thing felt like an major decision.
She folded the red outfit and its shimmer silk vest carefully over the thought bowl. It had been designed for her. It was priceless now, wasn't it?
And the fourth outfit she currently owned, she counted. It, the Death Star gown, the Alliance uniform, the leggings and top from her apartment she wore now, plus Han's red socks.
Newsflash, she wanted to send to Palpatine. I'm adding to myself. Little by little.
The ramp remained closed, even when Han disappeared for a moment to the customs office. Leia passed by on her way to the lounge and frowned at it. The corridor was very dark without the light provided by the open ramp.
"You two are very careful here," Leia remarked to Chewie, who was taking advantage of Han's absence to enjoy the baningka. He had fashioned a kind of bib from a work rag to protect the front of his chest from the flakes of sugar.
"Are you worried about bounty hunters?" she asked.
Chewie nodded once but made a circling motion with his arm, indicating the whole ship.
"And the Empire?" she asked.
He nodded but added a grunt, pointing at her.
"Me?"
Chewie waited until he swallowed before nodding again and touched his bib.
"What do you worry about?"
He crossed one wrist over the other and hung his head and shuffled his feet.
He was good at giving cues and her mind jumped to a conclusion. "Slavers?" Leia asked. "Is that it?"
Chewie nodded.
After what she had learned of Han and knew of her own situation, a bounty hunter and the Empire was no surprise. But Leia was once again reminded of how little she knew of slavery.
"Would they do that, Chewie? Just... come aboard, and take you?"
Chewie's head moved side to side. Leia thought his answer was, "It's been known to happen."
"But you wouldn't let it," Leia said. He was so big, so strong and fierce... she couldn't see it.
Chewie gestured at the ramp, meaning they wouldn't even let it go that far.
"And the port authority? They look the other way?"
Chewie mimed the exchange of credits, shrugged his shoulders, and opened his palms.
"Oh," Leia understood. "If they see someone like you, they call it in and collect a fee. Gods," she shook her head, and she remembered what the Falcon resembled tightly closed. A spider or a beetle- it was something she encountered only once so her memory wasn't clear and she was a bit distressed she might never know, since it was on Alderaan and it no longer existed.
The creature carried her eggs, her precious cargo, underneath, on her belly- and when threatened, she would curl her legs under and snap shut.
She was still terribly vulnerable. Leia remembered picking up the small, hard form of the exoskeleton when she was fortunate to catch one walking one day. It- she- was tinier than most berries. The numerous legs folded over the egg sac, providing what protection they could.
"Sometimes I hate this world," Leia said harshly. "The Emperor's world, what he's made of us. He's ruined us!"
Chewie patted her on the head.
"No," she protested, even though she had little idea of how he was comforting her, "Alderaan was once. What happened to you is all the time, the rest of your life."
Chewie whined, and Leia felt badly. "I'm sorry," she told him. "You enjoy the baningka. I shouldn't turn everything into a cause for war."
She went to the cockpit and sat in the navigator's seat, watching out the viewport to see if she could spot Han walking around, and found she no longer minded being tucked tightly inside the ship. She was precious cargo. They all were.
In a few minutes Chewie joined her. He was humming as he began to flip a few switches.
She peered up at him. "Chewie, if I could ask, to which of you is this-" she gestured behind her at the closed ramp- "- more important, you or Han. Who suggested this procedure when you're in unfriendly ports?"
Chewie held up a finger and barked.
"It happened once?" Leia guessed, and he nodded. "And since then-"
Chewie rubbed the back of the captain's seat and uttered a monosyllabic noise.
"Han," Leia understood. She smiled up at him. "You say his name." She repeated it, Wookiee-style, and Chewie chortled happily. "I've heard you say it, just never used alone."
When Han's business was through and he buzzed the ship to be let in, Leia signaled to Chewie she wanted to answer.
"Hi, Han," she pronounced like a Wookiee. She almost couldn't hear his answer over Chewie's guttural chuckles.
"Ach, what next," Han groused through the comm. "My ID numbers?"
Laughter sounded in the cockpit, joined by the squealing thunk of hydraulic joints.
