It must be ship's morn. Leia found she was awake. She had gone from drifting dreamily to and from her mother, through life and beyond, and decided she would tell her mother she could rest now. As a mother; Alderaan, however, still needed her goddess Time.
How long had it been now?
At first Leia counted her father's last minutes. Then she counted the days, and then the weeks, and then she took to counting the dead.
When she first started her list of everyone gone, she imagined it would go on forever. A chain of names until the whole planet was accounted for, everyone leading back to her, occupying her whole life, and then she would finally die, and then it would be over.
How long was it for Han?
He didn't know. He was little, he said. And he said he'd forgotten who, but he hadn't. Not really. Too young, to know names or faces, but the smell of breakfast, his little hand reaching for his game...home.
How different everyone was. She could put it behind her, like Han, and just go on, because that's all there was to do. Or she could carry it with her, like Luke, who took the deaths of those who were supposed to be close to him, his father and General Kenobi, and let it define him.
Han lived, Luke remembered.
Both were fine, she thought. There was no contest of how to be; there was no right or wrong. If it were that simple, there'd be no such thing as a Dr. Renzatl.
Would she answer Leia's letter?
Trying to understand, she had summed up, what it means to be Alderaani.
But that wasn't all. What it meant to understand that she would continue to be alive while so many others died, and manage sadness and guilt and loneliness but also manage to fight, to connect; to help a smuggler fix the lighting and laugh while they did it. How to be alive, in essence.
Should she cry, every day? Light a candle, every day? Braid her hair, or stop? Keep a calendar, cross off the days. Or study, plan. Like Luke. Find a lesson out of this, a goal.
I already am a Princess. The adopted daughter of a queen. It seemed the plan was someone else's.
Was that possible?
And the war wasn't only hers, or only for Alderaan. It had built, slowly, to this. The Wookiees of Kasshyyk were plundered a long time ago, Chandrila had been attacked, Corellia years ago, P'oppero, Duros... the list went on. She wasn't alone in this.
She should accept their help, then. She should do her duty as the Princess of Alderaan but also as a member of the Alliance and the New Republic, and stop resenting Mon Mothma.
A decision.
Leia rolled onto her back, breathing out a small weight. One relatively easy to make, once she shed some of that anger.
She was in this, deep. It wasn't possible for her to have the clarity of the whole of the office of the Ministry of War, not when she was grieving Alderaan. She didn't have the counsel of the goddesses. Nor did she have the intel of the hackers and sleeper cells.
So there was that.
Her mind continued to calculate. It wasn't that long ago; a couple of months. There was... safety, in Alderaan. With the dead. In not having to... Safety in being numb. Not having to feel. She could do this, if she didn't have to cry, or hate.
But she had laughed. And felt good. And wondered if she should.
Could she blame Han? He was so... alive. It was frightening, really. How she noticed him. Not just him, his person, but parts of him. How she wanted to put her hands on his shoulders and see how far apart they were. She had the notion her head should fit under his chin, and wanted to test it, to hear his heart beat in her ear that rested on his chest. They had talked of destiny, and wasn't that it, too? That they... fit together like that; perfectly.
Why didn't she have that on Alderaan? Why did that have to go away in order for her to experience this?
Her eyes blinked in shame, as she recalled in the first few hours Since-
In the garbage masher, it was Luke the dianoga took under the watery grime, and she had stood uncomfortably while Han splashed and groped for Luke, and she remembered thinking, if Luke drowns it will be the two of us.
And then when the walls stopped moving she had hugged Han. Spontaneously, for they were spared. Where was Alderaan? Why wasn't she thinking of Alderaan?
And before their escape, as Luke comm'd the droids she had stared down at the Falcon, and Han was guarding the corridor, but she had reached out to touch his arm and get his attention.
A new destiny. A man. And to achieve that-
Leia shook her head. No, she wouldn't believe that. That her father had to die, everyone, that the stupid god of irony and truth would do all that just so the Princess could feel, could be attracted-
She wasn't going to have that. Han was... similar, and lively, and beautiful, and he had acted but his had happened so long ago.
If anything, she told herself, Han was probably supposed to be like a guide out of grieving. Show her the passage of Time; show her that a resuming of life was possible. And that included laughing and touching-
They somehow wormed their way into my heart, Leia had written to Dr. Renzatl of Luke and Han. She hadn't felt badly about that, how they were hers; brought from the Death Star.
What if he died? What if Luke died? What if this war killed them, what had brought them to her in the first place? And in their time together, as she laughed and lived, and then it was gone again, and she had to start all over again...
Mother, I know you prepared me. But how much do you expect me to take?
Yes, he stirred her; not just physically but else-wise; he could help her if that's what her mother wanted for her, but anything else was going to have to be put away. She wouldn't risk it. Not for him. She was prepared to die; it was only her body; the welcome stilling of her heart and mind.
He wasn't so still. He was loud and brash, and he had shown her that he could survive another's stilling, but he was so loud the sudden silence would resonate and torture her.
It was safe to miss him, wasn't it? Let him go on his way. He shouldn't come back. Not for her, not for Luke. They had their roles within the Alliance; they would be watched over. She could have a memory of him; that would be nice. And if he survived, and she did too, then later, when it was safe again, safe in a different way, she would be happy to have a reunion.
And she would wonder, would the years be kind to him?
So that was that.
You will be a Princess, she told herself. That was good enough for you on Alderaan.