In his voice, Leia understood Rieekan, and by extent everyone on Buteral, was safe. This loosened a tightness around her shoulders.

She had thought the tightness was due to Chewie's rough handling of her when he tossed her in the smuggling hold, but it was the precise moment of Rieekan's Your Highness, his worried tone for her, not anyone else, that the invisible, very taut line snapped.

Her body knew before her mind, then.

Rieekan also sounded relieved, like his shoulders dropped in a freedom supplied by her own voice, and in her mind's eye that giant wave hammered the shoal; trying, again and again, to break it.

She hadn't gotten rid of the headache. What is it now, body.

She rolled her neck and thought of her mother, whose failing body must have demanded attention more than her mind. As a girl, her mother had been sickly, but Leia hadn't ever viewed her as sick. It hadn't defined Leia's perception of her mother. Sadly, she saw now her mother was more than sickly. She was dying.

Leia had watched Han at the nav'puter. She was feeling things, and this time her body was confused; she stood stock still.

Her mother had a place. Alderaan. She had left it when she died, but Alderaan kept her memory alive. Perhaps for Leia.

It was probably a step backward, but Leia wouldn't ask. Details didn't matter right now. Not names or descriptions. She would just go, and live through this time, until there was another time.

The less she knew, the better, anyway.

Curse Han. She expected someone like Dr. Renzatl to say it; not him.

"The better for what?"

Mon Mothma thought it a positive development. Emperor Palpatine, distracted and angry. An enemy in that state, she had General Rieekan convey to Leia, was wild.

"You're not even the least bit curious?"

Mon Mothma was grim, and careful, but shrewd enough to spin it to be gleeful, in practiced senatorial calm. She hadn't approved of Leia's actions, but of course she wouldn't have, not having been consulted.

"She says there's nothing to be done now," Rieekan had explained to Leia, "but use it."

"Well, of course," Leia snapped, angry at having to go underground.

Use it. Yes, and there was more to use, only Mon Mothma didn't see it as Leia did; they weren't coming at this from the same perspective. They used to, but not now. What Mon didn't see was the Emperor's fury wasn't at Leia alone, but that he had failed to completely erase all vestiges of Alderaan. There was no longer any soil, but there were people, and they had a Princess, and memory and a history; a testimony that threatened him.

For that reason, and perhaps if there had been further discussion with Dr. Renzatl as to Leia's... not reasoning but feelings, she had sent-

Major Klander wouldn't know it as such. Mon would. It looked like a note now, a simple memo; she wouldn't be there to initiate discussion. But it was from a Princess, and it was a policy shift and a demand.

Major Klander: I understand it is your years of training and experience with human nature as to expectations of behavior-

She'd read it over twice, showed it to Han, who probably thought it wordy; he had frowned and she swore his eyes actually glazed with boredom until he reached the part-

"Ah," he had said. "Finally. Was wonderin' what you were gettin' at."

Possession of certain items which are thought to be outlets and temptations for expression of emotions deemed temporary and processional, and which thereby become permanent as a result of use, specifically in manner of self-harm...

It was Han that gave her the impetus. She had always felt so, but had bowed to Major Klander, because she was one of them, one that was treated, and if she considered the dead or the living, the dead's moment of anguish, pain, and fear was once, while the living's was forever...

Buteral was vulnerable, she had told Han. They couldn't defend themselves if they wanted to.

"Why not?"

"Because TRAD is there, and trauma. I'm not sure how they measure it, whether by time or individual evaluation," Leia frowned as she spoke. Her memory of the conversation was vague, and she saw herself in it as too passive, "but they weren't to enlist yet. Because they would be issued a blaster, and possession of something like that made acting on thoughts of... of suicide-"

Han had scoffed, "If someone really wanted to do themself in-"

"-easier."

"- they'd find a way. Anyone throw themself into the sea?"

...it is hereby my request that TRAD's policy be revisited, and that Alderaani of age should be granted the same qualifications of enlistment as any other citizen of the New Republic-

"Hell, yeah," Han stated, handing the datapad back to her and returning his concentration to his latest project, merely a bunch of wires and a switch. "You write like a Senator. You shoot like a soldier though, so there's that."

There's what, she wanted to ask, but he was busy, and the galley was offline until he re-installed the lighting activators, and Chewie wanted some tea.

I do shoot, she affirmed to herself. And she felt a little better. And conflictingly egotistical.

She understood the reasoning behind going into hiding. It kept others safe, like the entirety of Buteral. But if the Emperor had targeted her- that seemed the truth; otherwise Mon wouldn't send her away- he would now be looking everywhere.

She didn't want him looking everywhere. Just at her.

Because... she could handle it. Better than- the Alliance navy was small, but still much more than a Princess, and yet it seemed much better if they weren't involved.

Because... she wanted it?

"You can't protect a base by not knowing its name, you know."

Anymore than she hadn't been able to protect Alderaan. She'd made Buteral vulnerable. Named Dantooine.

It wasn't ego, a need to fight the war all by herself, because she'd already both won it and lost it on her own. It was pressure, wasn't it, starting from the moment Darth Vader curled his fingers around her shoulders.

What did it feel like, Mother. Did it feel like Father's?

Her mother had died before the Graveyard was created. And to Leia, much as she hated it, much as she saw her angry, distraught twelve year old self on the swing by the big tree, it was a saving grace to her now.

Hyperspace was teasing. She hurtled toward something, but it didn't feel like it. Leia was alone, would be again, the goddesses Time and Memory with her only if she brought them into existence. The viewport showed only a blackness, deep and complete. When she landed, wherever that would be, there would be-

Not the Emperor, for as long as they could hold them off. Not Han, who'd become a curious sounding board. Sometimes her words bounced off, like a rain guard, but sometimes they penetrated. There would be the love of her mother, whom Death overcame but who still loved so fiercely.

And finally, it was in Han's silence, the beautiful focus of a task he'd taken out of his control, wires resisting his sure fingers, finally tamed.

It wasn't Buteral she didn't want to leave; it was the Falcon.