Hunted.
That's the word she was looking for, and she found it above the smuggler's hideout, looking out at it from the navigator's seat. The moon's terrain from space looked flat and green. Huge, blue lakes were like polka dots on its surface, the after effects of ancient meteor strikes. The Falcon drifted in a peaceful orbit, the corpses Han jettisoned forgotten.
Before, Leia continued with her thoughts, it wasn't her they were after. It was the plans, and she happened to have them.
There was a difference, too, in the word enemy. When Leia served as courier for the Rebellion, the Empire as enemy was more a concept; large and vague and wrong.
No wonder her father worried for her.
Now she worried for herself. That was a difference, too. She had a true enemy. Before, an evil government sought self-preservation. Now its leader honed his sights on her. It wasn't self-preservation he was interested in; he wanted to murder her.
Leia drew a big breath and held it for a moment, thinking. That was fine, she told her worry. She had earned his wrath, and if she were honest, she didn't want just the Empire brought down, she would also like to see her enemy dead.
And there was a very great difference, Leia saw, between who she was then and who she was now. Princess Leia, as her musings on the past had brought her, was a concept.
She removed the stylus from above her ear and opened her datapad.
A crown, she wrote in a column. A planet. False peace. Maidens. A contracted betrothal. Love. Intelligence. Life.
She stared at the words. Surely, there was more. Nineteen years of life and memory.
A tree. A hedge. Travel. My mother dying.
Leia blinked. Was this coping? She could see her personal room, her home, the gardens. Schoolmasters, flying over the contours of Alderaan as her family returned from a voyage, balls and plays.
She started a second column. The stylus hesitated. Did she still have a crown? She didn't think so. Nor, of course, a planet. She went down her list, drawing a line through words, thinking no, no, not any more. Instead of a crown she had four outfits. A thought bowl.
Love. She had that. Just because her parents were no longer alive to love, didn't invalidate what they had given previously. Intelligence, yes. Life-
It depended on how one defined it. She was alive. That was life. There was no society to which she could be a member, unless she counted all the broken Alderaani survivors. There was no home where she lived.
Pain, she wrote. She held the datapad aloft, like critiquing a work of art. It wasn't a bad thing, she decided. It looked bad, but it was part of life and love. Even if Palpatine managed to kill her, she thought, she would die proud of her pain and the efforts it brought her.
Pain had its opposite. Luke, she listed as she had previously, and Han and Chewie. She stared at the words, feeling her face soften. Oh, and C-3PO. The droid belonged in both columns. Luke's uncle had purchased him, so he belonged to Luke technically, but he still answered to Leia. She smiled a little and didn't know why. He was useful but his personality was dreadful. Yet he was still in her life.
Irony, Leia wrote, acknowledging a higher power. And the Death Star. That belonged in the other column too, how could she forget?
Her list was fine, she decided. What would Emperor Palpatine's be? Hate, war, a fragile Empire, loyalty, power. She realized his before and after was the same, except the Death Star would be on his before. Treason would be on his after, signifying all the planets that left his Empire following the destruction of Alderaan.
Of course, this was from her perspective. Doubtless rather skewed.
Han entered, full of business and preoccupation- and life, Leia saw. He and Chewie were arranging it so Leia could hail Buteral without the Empire catching wind of the communication.
"Finished puttin' out a false feed. Sensors are jammed, too. You should be able to raise Rieekan on your comm when he gets your signal." He nodded at her datapad. "Writin' another speech?"
"No," Leia said. "Keeping my head clear." She handed him the datapad and watched him read it. "I can't go back to Buteral." She hadn't realized she knew that until she said it.
His face scowled comically and she knew he was at C-3PO's entry. But he looked up at her and answered her speech.
"I can get through that. It's not even a blockade."
She nodded. "I know you can. Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
"Hmm," he growled. "You commenting on my life? Got a list for me?"
He still held her datapad but she took up the challenge. "I don't know a before."
"Just me," he said, tapping his chest.
"And after, there's Chewie, your ship. A debt," she remembered. "The Death Star. Which puts me and Luke on your list."
"Since I'm on yours, I guess that's fair."
Leia was regarding him. "It can't be just you on the before. Because that's my after. For a moment it was me and my dress, but look what I have now. Things build quickly, whether you want them to or not."
"You listed pain." Han's eyes were murky, his expression troubled.
"Yes. Don't you think I should have pain?"
He was uncomfortable. "I guess."
"In all life there's pain." Leia was philosophical. "I also listed my mother's death in my before, and that was a terrible time. But I wouldn't-" she paused, wondering if what she had stopped herself from saying was true. "Luke told me if he had a choice, he wouldn't seek an alternative. He'd still let his aunt and uncle die, as awful as that sounds, but he's not heartless."
"No."
"It's so he could be where he is now. I think that's how I feel about my mother. Plus," Leia went on, "it was her life, right? I should have no say when or how it ends."
"I hope Junior doesn't learn that when he gets going in the Force."
"Ending pain? Changing the outcome of something to our preference?" Leia sniffed the merest smile. "I don't think it's possible. The Force... what did Luke say? It binds living beings together. So one being's pain-"
"-is another's pleasure," Han finished for her.
"Your pain is in your before," Leia stated. "This 'just me' stuff," she jabbed her finger on her chest in imitation of him, "you're proud. So you had something, and you're glad to be away."
He was shaking his head. "Nah, sweetheart. Don't think too hard. You'll get wrinkles."
"Bring them on," Leia declared. "Or you're not proud, the pain is in your after, and you're lonely."
But she recognized he was at the point it was better to lash out than reveal himself, and she didn't blame him. She decided to drop it. She liked when they got along. "Luke said he thinks I would choose Alderaan, if I could."
"Would you?"
"I don't know." He was with her, step for step again, and she'd made the right decision.
"It's a whole planet."
"Yes." Leia appreciated that Han understood and she met his eyes briefly before returning them to gaze at the moon. "There are so, so many human lives lost, but when you think of the planet- the zoology, the geology-"
"Yeah."
"It'd be a move befitting a Princess, wouldn't it."
"You mean not being selfish? Thinking of all the families who wouldn't have-" he lifted the datapad- "this pain-"
"-this nothing." Leia looked up into Han's attentive face. "The choice Tarkin wanted me to make on the Death Star was difficult. Not impossible. I chose Alderaan but he was only asking to play his game." Her voice was bitter. "If I were back on that bridge, and some god could snap his fingers and bring it back," she brought her fingertips lightly to her hairline, "I don't know."
Han took a seat in the captain's chair and set the datapad back on her lap. "You think it was supposed to happen? Along some line of fate? Or destiny?"
Leia inhaled deeply. "All these millions of years. The evolutions, the advancements. The losses. And we're just a speck in time, you know?" She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the seat. She felt terribly weary all of a sudden. "Anyway, look at what I did for Palpatine," and she swiped at the screen.
"You made him a list?" Han sounded amused.
"My new parlor trick," Leia's eyes were still closed and her lips curved wearily.
She heard Han chuckle, "He's kind of shallow. Doesn't change much."
Her smile finished. "I don't know much about him. I should. I served in his Senate but he never attended. I think he's an art collector."
"Well, he's ugly. You could add that. Before and after."
He was adding it to her list; she could hear the stylus tap.
"And he's a speck in time," Han added. "You said as much at the press conference."
"I did. What do you think about me going back to Buteral?"
Han pursed his lips. "I see why you think you can't."
"I'd be endangering everyone there."
"I know. But the Alliance has got to have more intel on it than you and me hiding in a moon's orbit. Hear what Rieekan's got to say first."
"Listen to you, siding on the edge of caution," Leia teased him and he made a face. Then she thought of her list of names in her office. "I wonder what will become of my work. I wonder what I'll do if I don't go back."
"I"m sure the Alliance will recommend something," Han's tone of voice indicated he didn't want to talk about it. "I'll stay for another parlor trick," Han said. "Do Luke."
Leia rolled her head towards Han's seat. "A list for Luke? Alright." Eyes closed still, she gave it some thought. "His doesn't change much either, like Palpatine, only his is more meaningful."
Her left hand became the before. "Home." Leia's right was the after. "Home."
"Mm," she heard Han agree.
She lifted left hand, then right. "Desire, ambition. Family, family." She opened her eyes.
"Yeah." Han was looking at her and when he saw her eyes he smiled. "You're pretty good." He alternated lifting his own hands. "Death Star, Death Star. You forgot that. It's on all your other lists. Even mine."
"It belongs there, Captain Solo."
"It does," he stood and tried to keep his voice light. "Won't argue that. Maybe you can do Vader's before Rieekan signals."
"Ha," Leia spoke a dry laugh. "His beginning is everything. He's as empty as I am in the after."
"Hey now," Han turned from the threshold where he was trying to make his exit, "you've got how many outfits listed? Four? He's got one."
