"Come on, Princess, didn't anybody tell you we won the war?"
Kes Dameron was a good man. Leia knew this and it was the only reason she was trying to keep her face set in friendly lines as he cajoled her. That and his toddler son he had slung over his hip who was apparently shy enough to hide against his father's shoulder but fascinated enough by her hair to keep glancing at it with wide eyes.
"The Recon report will be complete by the end of the week, but we've had reports of holdover cells in the quadrant. Don't risk it."
Her eyes darted to his son, Poe, and Kes sighed, the smile still not completely gone.
"You're right, of course. But hey, you want to be the one to go tell the wife? I think she's gonna start chewing the walls if we don't get off-planet soon."
Leia, like everyone else on what used to be the Rebel base, had witnessed the slow fraying of Shara Bey's temper since the return from Endor. She had been only too happy to sign off on two weeks leave for the lot of them, at least before the rumours had started up. Shara's anger, at least, was something she could relate too.
"Come see me at the end of the week, Commander. I hope I have better news."
Kes was already distracted by his son who had decided to try for an escape attempt. "I'll hold you to it, Princess."
She had already turned away so he wouldn't see her grit her teeth as she left. She'd dropped hints at first and then outright started correcting people when they used her former title but even now, a year and a half since the end of the Empire people still insisted on using it. Princess of the flotsam, of the ever expanding wreckage, perhaps. Fastened in place while everything else drifts further and further away. She took a breath and tried to release it slowly. Simply a long morning, she told herself.
She tried to focus on her path as she walked down one of the many winding halls of the ziggurat. People tended to move out of her way when she walked through the deceptively convoluted passages and today was no exception. Snippets of conversations flashed past her as she made her way to the control room.
"-down in the commissary! I saw them-"
"Hey, so a Hutt, a droid and the emperor walk into a cantina-"
"Master Skywalker! He only just arrived!"
Leia ducked into a side passage before they could see her coming. Luke wasn't meant to arrive until tomorrow. Had something- no. She would have felt it if he was injured, she would know.
She slipped into a side room before anyone could wonder why she was pressing herself into the wall like Vader himself was on the way.
Ah, a supply closet. An excellent place to have a emotional breakdown.
No, she told herself. Focus. You are not going to have an emotional breakdown. In with calm, out with anger. In with calm, out with anger. The last time she had seen her brother was two weeks ago when he had left to investigate the claims of an prophetic warrior priest who lived in seclusion less than a parsec away. Even with the distance between them she had felt the echo of his disappointment when the stories hadn't lived up to his desperate desires.
She clenched her hands into fists and then slowly relaxed them. Clench, release. Clench, release.
She knew these reports did him more harm than good but nothing could stop him from checking each one of them. Even Han was beginning to look uncomfortable whenever Luke would leave, determined hope making him impervious to any amount of reason or logic. What hurt more was the sight of that same hope shattered when he came back. Every time he would look at her in that crestfallen way and she would weaken in her resolve. Maybe it would help this time, maybe this time neither of them would get hurt when she gave up again in anger, barely restraining herself from screaming when he told her again to release her anger into the Force.
Luke was a gifted Jedi but as a student Leia had many faults. She couldn't blame him, she knew the desire to not be the last one deep in her chest, but every time he convinced her to try just one more time she wanted to break something just a little bit more. Some parts came easily, she could swing a lightsaber just as easily as he and for every hit she had taken she had delivered two in kind. The reaching awareness hadn't felt like a skill at all. Even as a child on Alderaan she had an awareness of who was around her, what they felt like for a lack of a better word. Not until her father had an old friend of his come by, a Togruta woman who called herself Fulcrum, had she been taught to control it. Luke had been surprised when she told him that, it was perhaps the one area of dealing with the Force that she had more training than him. He had in turn taught her how to move objects with nothing but her mind. Han had walked in on them passing a mug of caf through the air between them, and promptly turned on his heel and left again.
No, what failed her every time was when her brother would sit down and ask her to join him in mediation. She knew there was more to being a Jedi than swinging a lightsaber and making cryptic comments to appear wiser than she was. She knew that, she did. But every time Luke tried to explain "releasing her emotions into the Force" she wanted to throttle him. She didn't even want to be a Jedi, she stopped herself from shouting at him, she was doing this so he'd stop looking at her with that hangdog expression. Why should she give up anything at all to this Force she could not see, let alone one of the very few things she had left to remember almost her entire life by?
Everyone she'd known almost her entire life, gone. Her mother, father, cousins, friends, people she liked, people she didn't. The cook who always used to give an extra sweet after dinner and the old man who used to shout at her and her sisters when they were children, playing too close to his fields. Everyone she'd ever known and their place in her life had been reduced to the anger she carried for them. Luke didn't understand. Only the people from Alderaan, her people, understood and they were the only ones she could stomach to hear her old title from. She had wondered, upon occasion, how many people remembered her planet. Was it so soon just a footnote in the history books that were only just being written?
Every time she failed Luke would try to reason with her. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. She could almost hear the little green frog he had described to her saying it to her brother, too kind and good to take it as anything other than fact. Yes, she had once been afraid and yes, she was angry. But it was her anger. They couldn't have it. Some days it was the only thing keeping her upright.
This wasn't working. She was hiding to calm down, not to relive all of the irritations of weeks past. She took her breaths and relaxed her fists. She would go to the briefing and then she would see her brother. She could do this.
She opened the door and strode out of it, not acknowledging the greetings of those she passed in the halls beyond a taciturn nod.
By the time she reached the briefing they were ready to begin. She sat attentively as they outlined the movements of what was left by the empire and the cells of hold out troopers and Imperial officials they were still finding all these months on. She nodded, questioned and agreed in all of the relevant places and was proud by the end of it that not a single one of them had noticed she hadn't once paid more than her minimum attention.
Even with her mind wandering however, she knew her tasks were piling up. With new allies to assuage, communiques to reply to, a brother to track down and the general putting out of fires which made up an alarming percentage of her day, even her evenings were dedicated to the now-legal rebellion. Which is why it as completely inexplicable as to how she ended up in the hanger bay.
"Lost, your worship?"
Maybe not completely inexplicable then.
Han's face popped over the edge of the ship, welding goggle round his neck and torch in hand. He had that face on again, the one that looked like he was happy to see her though he wasn't actually smiling.
"Come on up."
She thought about excusing herself, she wouldn't be lying about the amount of work she had to do, but there was something about seeing him standing atop his ship with his hand extended down over the ladder that felt like the invitation was half a challenge. She'd shave her own head before she backed down from one of Han's challenges. The ladder she climbed to reach the wing was rickety, almost as bad as the support struts of the Falcon itself, but as soon as she was in grabbing distance she took Han's hand and he hauled her up the rest of the way. She didn't let go immediately.
"It's beautiful." She breathed as she looked out.
"She's not bad, the sub-light thrusters are still performing under capacity but I've swapped out the old transistors- hey! Oh."
His hand stayed on his ribs from where she'd jabbed him with her elbow but he looked out the hanger bay and stayed silent while she drank it in. It was easy to forget where she was when she spent all day in meetings, holo-calls and briefing rooms. Coming out to the hanger with the bay wide open was a nice reminder that the world outside still turned even though she didn't see it from one day to the next. The sun was only just beginning its decent, light flooding the hangers and making the old X-wings look sharp, giving even the worn shielding of the Falcon a kind of sleekness that was reserved exclusively for immobility. Leia took a deep breath and for the first time all day it came easily. Whether from the sun, the jungle beyond or Han's hand that was still in hers there was peace to be found here.
She sat down, feet swinging off the edge and Hand joined her, leaning back on his hands. She looked at him out of the corner off her eye but sat close anyway. After a moment of silence he passed her his canteen and she took a sip, not even disappointed that brackish water was all he had to offer. She didn't feel adrift at times like these with Han. The galaxy and its problems were still there, still at the back of her mind, but it felt very distant as she passed the canteen back to him, her fingers brushing his. He drank from the same place her lips had touched and she closed her eyes, just enjoying the short moment of contentment the day had decided to offer her.
Which is exactly when a small electrical fire exploded into being behind them.
Han yelped and scrambled over to beat at it ineffectually until he managed to smother it.
"Did you forget to-"
"Yep, laugh it up sweetheart."
She had been trying to suppress a smile but she stopped trying when he looked up.
"Maybe I shouldn't distract you next time you're halfway through repairs." He grumbled but didn't say anything as he inspected the damage.
"What about it, your worship, you got anywhere you need to be?" He asked suddenly.
Leia deliberately didn't think about the endless list of tasks and people waiting for her. She thought about the sun and how long it had been since she last saw it.
"I might be able to spare a few minutes."
"Good. Here, hold this back."
He arranged her hands for her, something which she didn't even have the energy to summon irritation at, removed another plate of the exterior and leaned down to get a better look at the guts of the ship. Her job, she knew, was largely ornamental. She might be able to hold her own in an engine room, but it was a useless task competing with Han over knowledge of the Falcon. She was content to hold back the circuitry for the sensor array if it meant it was easier for him to finish with replacing the old transistors. Besides, she thought as he leaned further down, almost his entire torso in the ship with his legs splayed out behind him, there were some perks to the position.
As if he'd felt her eyes tracing him he shot her a look. "See something you like?"
"I'll let you know if I do." She said sweetly and he grinned as he turned back.
She sat and she watched in contentment as he worked. Times like now it didn't seem to matter so much that she was stuck in place while everyone else moved on, got jobs, had babies and forgot. Han, for all his extensive and multiple annoying quirks, was with her, even if he was currently cursing a blue streak under his breath. If she could choose to freeze a moment, this one would be a strong contender.
Eventually, with the sun far lower and the horizon beginning to darken he brandished the now defunct piece of metal in her face as though expecting her to be impressed. She was. However, there was still the status quo to maintain and she raised an eyebrow as though she had expected nothing less.
"For your troubles." He said with a wink, slipping it into her pocket. She rolled her eyes but didn't give it back.
"Done?" She asked, taking back her hands when he nodded. They were filthy with oil and she regretting wiping one across her face immediately. They certainly weren't the hands of a princess. She wondered briefly what her old tutors would say if they could see her now.
She wondered what a lot of people on Alderaan would say if they could see her now.
No time for that. Not now, not with Han her being the only one who wasn't moving on without her. Later. There would be time later.
Han descended first, down the unsteady ladder which he held still for her while she found her footing.
"Jump." He said when she got half way down. She shot him an exasperated look but- oh, what was the harm, there was no one else to see. She jumped the last few rungs and landed with his hands on her waist. She was laughing before she realised both her feet were on the floor. She could feel the breeze rolling in from the door that would have to be shut soon, still warm with the last of the dying light. It tugged gently at her hair, wisps of which she knew had escaped. She must be a mess, she thought. Hair askew, oil on her hands and no doubt streaked across her face, and sweaty from sitting in the sun. She probably looked a fright but she didn't feel it when Han looked down at her fondly. With no thought at all she bounced up on her toes and kissed him as the sun went down behind them. She hummed in contentment as she broke away, ready to turn and find the commissary and have dinner with him, perhaps try to steal his bread roll when he wasn't looking.
"Marry me." He blurted out.
Leia froze. Suddenly the evening was not so warm, her easy contentment only skin deep.
"What?" She asked blankly. He didn't seem to hear as he fumbled for something in his jacket. His hand closed around it and he abruptly dropped to one knee, in true Corellian tradition.
"I'm messing it all up. I had a plan." He was saying, though Leia could barely hear him over the blood in her ears. Han was meant to understand, he was meant to understand she was no good for it.
"Han," Her voice was a whisper, she could barely get it past her throat, "Han, what are you doing?"
He looked up at her and in that look there was everything she had ever hoped a man would look at her with. His hands were shaking. "Leia, I love you. You are without a doubt the most annoying, most infuriating, most irritating woman I have ever met and I want to spend the rest of my life arguing with you."
She was stricken. At first there was nothing and then, deep in her chest, ugly and shameful, a singular emotion bubbled.
Betrayal.
He wasn't meant to be doing this. Why was he doing this? Why couldn't he see what the rest of the couldn't: she was no good for it. Why did everyone keep asking for things that she didn't have, not anymore.
He was almost smiling when he opened the box and took one of her hands in his. She couldn't bring herself to even look at it.
"What d'you say? Do you think a princess and a guy like me…?"
She tried to focus on her breathing, in with peace, out with anger. In with peace, out with anger. Only it wasn't anger this time. All this time holding herself together, thinking he understood and here he was proposing to a princess of nothing, of nowhere and no one. She knew it wasn't rational but there was no rational part of her left to govern. He was supposed to make it better not try and change everything.
She saw the moment she hesitated too long in his eyes. The dawning horror and the slow realisation. He went to speak and she took a small, involuntary, step back. Her hand fell from his.
"Han, I-"
The wail of the atmosphere defence system rent the air.
For a moment Leia couldn't make sense of it, it was as though the rush of blood through her ears was made sharper, piercing. But Han heard it too. She saw his eyes move to the alarm just as she looked out the hanger doors, still wide open.
In the last rays of the sun she saw them, two TIE fighters and an old T-16. She had no idea where they had come from or how they were here but all she could think of was Kes Dameron's face when she ordered him to stay so he wouldn't endanger poor little Poe with all the Imperials still running about the galaxy.
Han was only halfway to standing when they made their run. She saw the first shell hit, the second and third and distantly she saw the projected line of sight. Of course, she thought, they want to bomb the hanger, of course. To go out like this after everything they had been through, frozen and confused, killed by the dregs of the dying empire.
The fourth shell hit and the door to the bay, the useless blast shields wide open. It seemed an eternity but as her eyes met Han's the concussive force slammed into her, throwing her from her feet and into the ramp of the Falcon. The body of the ship tilted sickeningly above her and Leia felt the rivets in the support strut groan under the stress and give way. It was as though her mind had cracked open right down the middle; she could feel the life of every single person in the base, Luke among them burning brighter, determined. She could feel Han, alive and frantic as he looked for her. She saw him raise himself above the rubble, not thirty feet from her. Finally she felt the stress lines, the fractures, in the structure around them.
It's going to come down on us, she thought. It's going to bury us. Even as she watched she felt the ceiling slip with that new ranging sense in her, connecting her to everyone and everything. Without thinking she raised her hand and looked up.
"Leia, no!" He screamed but it was too later.
Just like the caf, just like the caf, it's no different from the caf, just as Luke taught you, just move the caf-
Impossibly, improbably and completely against the laws of gravity the ceiling split and collapsed, leaving one man unharmed in the middle, protected by an invisible force he could not see as the rock fell gently around him.
Her arm dropped, energy spent.
Nonsensically she thought of the repairs they had just finished. They'd be buried, just like her.
The hanger wall collapsed and the darkness was complete.
Leia didn't think she lost consciousness but she couldn't be sure. She thought she might have drifted as when she came back to herself it was only then she started to take stock. She could feel the ramp at her back and she was still breathing so there was air. Focus on that, she told herself. It was a small space, somewhat protected by the Falcon overhead. She could move her arms, she could feel her legs. Something was trapping her ankle.
Her breath was getting shorter.
In with peace, in with peace. She released a slow breath, trying to calm her hammering heart. Her breathing was the only sound in the darkness and she tried to focus on it, follow the sound of it entering her chest, hold it and then the whisper of it escaping.
She didn't know how long she sat there listening to her own breathing but it was long enough that the chill of the surrounding debris began to seep in. She began to sharpen her mind on what came next. She couldn't dig herself out and while she knew help would come she didn't know how badly the rest of the base had been hit. Was Luke fighting right now? Was Han?
Han was safe, she reminded herself as the beginnings of panic threatened once again. He'd survived the blast and the rocks had missed him, she was sure of it. She'd saved him, he was probably out there right now trying to get her out.
She remembered the look on his face as she stepped away.
No. He was. He wouldn't leave her there because of that. He was trying to find her. She should try and help them find her.
She closed her eyes against the darkness though it made no difference and tried to remember what Fulcrum had told her so many years ago. Fulcrum had been teaching her to hide, to fold her power into herself so it became invisible. The opposite must also be true. She took another breath and delved inwards. It was just like when she felt for Luke on the base. She could help them find her, reach out with the Force and guide them.
She lay there still, until finally an awareness on the edge of her mind made itself known. Distant and far away it was nebulous but she could tell enough to sense another mind. Someone with the Force on the other side of the barrier. Oddly familiar…but not Luke. Was there someone else on the base Force sensitive enough to perceive her? She felt the mind snag and redirect itself. They had felt her. It came closer, still undeniably familiar, yet changed, not what she had ever seen before-
No.
Her chest was wheezing as she scrabbled with her fingers at the prison she found herself in. No, Luke had promised, he had promised her.
It was coming closer. She felt the determination, the power getting closer with every moment.
Luke had promised her he was dead, he had sworn on Tatooine, on his Aunt, Uncle and his lightsaber. She had made him swear on Alderaan.
Darth Vader was dead.
Her sanity hinged on the very fact that Vader had died. Redeemed or not it didn't make a difference to her, she had refused to attend the pyre, the first time she had ever refused her brother anything though she saw the pain in his face. None of it explained how she could feel that presence, that malevolent presence coming closer. It must have been the attack, she thought wildly. The leftover cells that attacked the base, somehow they'd found Vader, brought him back with them.
She was shaking. It didn't matter how he was here. If he thought he was going to take her again, take anyone else, he was wrong.
Han was out there. Not again, Vader couldn't take him again.
She felt half like an animal trapped under dirt and concrete, just waiting. Her conscious thought began to bleed away until it was only panic, pleading…anger. Whatever she had was coalescing into fury as she felt him grow closer. She was not a helpless princess anymore. If he wanted to take her away again to use as a bargaining chip he'd have to kill her. And he'd have to do it before she killed him first. It didn't matter how much Luke had believed Vader dead she would make sure, she didn't care if she had to throttle him herself.
Something broke overhead, dust and dirt rained down and she distantly registered the new air flowing in, she hadn't realised how stale and warm her own had been.
A strong hand closed around her arm and pulled her free.
Leia committed and she came out swinging.
"Get back!" She screamed, "Get back, I'll kill you, I'll kriffing kill you!"
She was blinded by the light as she was dragged out of her tomb but she didn't need to see. She could feel where he was, blinding and burning in the Force and with no thought she was already throwing herself forward. She surged forward, fist first and once, just once, completely gave into her anger.
Her hand connected but not with the sharp angles of a duraplastic helmet but with flesh and cartilage that gave way under her assault.
It was a man. A man who stumbled back, releasing her, as his hands flew to his face. She didn't care.
Where was Han?
He should be here, she'd seen him. He'd been knocked back but he should be here.
Where even was sure.
There was sky overhead. Why was there sky? Where was the hanger, the ziggurat, the X-wings lined up and waiting. Even with the attack they should be here.
"What have you done with him?" She asked hoarsely, looking around in bewilderment. "Where's Han? Where have you taken him?"
The man looked back up at her. His hair was a dark blond and unkempt. He was tall, dressed drably though practically. With a scar bisecting his eye and covered in dirt and half healed hurts (not to mention his nose which was freely bleeding) he looked as they all had during the worst days of the war. Leia had never seen this man before in her life but when she looked at him she thought she was going to be sick.
Oh no, she was actually going to be sick.
She was heaving before he could say anything, already weak. This couldn't be right. How could any of this be real. The Force was on the edge of her reasoning but she refused to even put words to the sinking feeling in her gut.
"Anakin, we must go!" Came another voice, just outside her line of sight.
"I found her!" The man who couldn't possibly be Anakin Skywalker called back, not taking his eyes off her. "She's alive."
Leia looked up at her surroundings. This wasn't Yavin IV. There was no jungle, no ziggurat, even the air was different. No, she was somewhere else entirely, somewhere that had perhaps once been a village, some sort of rural settlement. Shelled out entirely so only the charred bones of the once-houses still stood. She looked back at where she had been pulled from…the skeletal corpse of a barn, perhaps. A collapsed hanger? Certainly not.
"Where are we?"
He ignored her. "We have to go. We don't have much time. Can you walk?"
It was some kind of sick dream. She was still buried and the air was running thin. That was the only possible explanation that a young man, who was holding out his hand to her with no recognition, who felt like Darth Vader but looked like baseline human was talking to her.
"Where are we?" She said again more forcefully.
"If you won't come with me, we'll leave you here, now come on!" His irritation bled through as he motioned with his hand again. He moved towards her and she panicked.
"No!"
It felt like pushing all of her fear out of her body, and she saw him stumble backwards. He looked at her again, calculating, and Leia tried to focus on getting enough air into her lungs.
"Master?"
It was a young Togruta girl accompanied by another man. She was breathing fast, had been running perhaps, and she looked between them in confusion. She was young, Leia thought. Young and proof that Leia was going mad.
Shakily, Leia got to her feet. She wavered but held firm. The three of them regarded her with varying degrees of wariness and interest. Vader didn't try to approach her again but didn't stop the Togruta with the impossible face markings from edging over to him.
'Master, we have to go." She whispered urgently, "They know we're here. This place is about to be swarming with clankers."
The other man made no move to come closer but she felt his scrutiny. When he spoke his accent was so clipped it almost sounded affected.
"She's right, Anakin. It seems our friends left us a gift. The field systems north and west of here have been booby trapped. They know we're here." The craters in the land, the smoking shells of the village stood in testament to his words.
"We need to get back to the city." Vader said firmly. "It's defensible and with the 501st we can hold out until the transporters get down." He paused carefully, "There's no one else here."
Slowly the three of them turned to her.
"Are you…coming with us?" The girl with the impossible face markings asked.
"Of course she is." Vader moved forward and she scrambled back on instinct.
"Leave me here."
"What?" He asked incredulously.
"Leave me here." She snapped. "Go!"
"We're not leaving out here after I just dug through half a wall of rubble to get you out-" Vader began angrily but stopped when the girl tugged him back by his arm.
Leia was shaking. She felt clammy and afraid and wished desperately she could feel the anger that had fuelled her mere minutes ago. He was so angry. He was going to reach out, hurt her, kill her, and pluck the names of every one she loved out of her head so he could do the same to them.
The other man stepped in front of him. He held his hands loosely in front of him, placatingly, but she wasn't fooled. He had the lean and worn look of a man who'd stayed at war too long. Han had looked like that by the end. Luke still did sometimes.
"What's your name?"
She stared at him. Everything felt like echoes here- no that wasn't right. It felt like she was trying to recognise people by sight when she'd only ever seen their shadows before.
"Obi-wan, we don't have time for this!" Anakin burst out behind him.
Obi-wan.
Was this really the man Luke had called Old Ben? She'd seen him die an old man. This couldn't be real. It couldn't.
He waited for her to shake herself out of her thoughts. He didn't show any sign he had heard Anakin.
"Leia." She said eventually. She scrambled for a last name. This man had known her father, her true father, so the House of Organa could offer her no protection. She would rather bury herself again than borrow Luke's name with that beast standing so close. The memory of Han on one knee in front of her twisted in her gut and she couldn't stammer out another lie. "Just Leia."
"Leia, will you come with us?" He sounded so kind Leia almost wanted to. It was a strange juxtaposition. With that ridiculously cultured voice he sounded better suited to academies and offices rather than in the smoking ruin of a battle, wearing scuffed armour and mud splattered boots. "It's not safe here."
It was the barest of suggestions, the gentlest of nudges. She was being pulled in the current of the Force. She was meant to go. She could have resisted if she really wanted to but…her father had trusted this man. That had to be enough.
She gave the barest of nods.
Kenobi smiled. "Ahsoka, come help our friend here."
It was neatly done, she thought, as Ahsoka moved forward and Kenobi blocked her view of Vader. It seemed Kenobi had all the subtly of a senator on a good day as he bent his head to Vader and began planning their route.
"Are you okay?" The girl, no- Ahsoka, asked from her side. Kenobi and Vader set out and Leia struggled to get her feet to move in the right direction. Perhaps there was more than gentle manoeuvring on Kenobi's part when he set Ahsoka beside her, she wasn't as steady as she wished to be.
Ahsoka was looking at her waiting for an answer. Her montrals were barely taller than Leia, she must be so young.
"I'm fine." Leia answered eventually.
Ahsoka smiled at her and rubbed absentmindedly at a streak of dried mud on her cheek. Leia tried not to stare at her facial markings. The last time she had seen them she was sat opposite Fulcrum pretending that she was meditating too. "I'm glad he found you. We didn't know what was happening when Skyguy took off like that."
There were so many things she wanted to ask and so many things that she didn't know if it was wise to reveal she didn't know. She opened her mouth to ask something, anything at all, but was interrupted by a dull boom over the horizon.
"Another of the mines." Kenobi said after a moment. "Come, we must hurry."
There was no time for talking after that. Leia was slowing them down she knew, but Kenobi and Ahsoka managed between them to hurry her along until the skyline changed. On the horizon grew a city, a front line. She could see the defences as she stumbled towards them, manned by troops that called out and let them past when they were close enough to be identified.
It was better off than where they had been she could see, but even the city bore the scrapes of ongoing conflict. Whether it was abandoned or the inhabitants were in hiding she could not tell but troops in identical armour thronged on the streets.
Vader was claimed immediately by one of them and led off while another approached Kenobi.
"Sir, we've had communication from the Negotiator."
"Right." Kenobi said with a weary hand rubbing his brow. "Thank you, captain. Ahsoka see our new friend is put somewhere comfortable, or what passes for comfortable around here and join me in the command tent. Bring Anakin if you see him." And he was gone.
Leia watched him disappear into the throngs of movement.
"Come on. There should be a Med-centre round here somewhere."
"I don't need a-" Leia began as one of her legs gave out and Ahsoka grabbed her arm to stop her from falling. She didn't let go as she began to herd Leia forwards, into a nondescript tent, pitched in the middle of the street. Armoured soldiers came and went, some being dragged in just like her. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw their faces, or rather face.
She'd seen them before of course, everyone who had grown up in the shadow of the empire had. Clone troopers, Palpatine's personal guards, his attack dogs who stood silently behind him while he pontificated to the galaxy.
It was too much. She wanted it to be a bad dream. She wanted to wake up to Han holding her in place like he did when she had one of her nightmares, already talking to her by the time her mind broke through the heavy fug of terror. Maybe if she slept, she'd wake up back in place.
She barely noticed Ahsoka sit her down heavily on one of the functional canvas cots. She saw Ahsoka step aside to explain to one of them, perhaps a medic, who she was, or what she was…Leia didn't care.
It was too much. She closed her eyes against the world and told herself when she woke up Han would be there, Luke would be there, she didn't care if Admiral Ackbar was be there. Just someone.
She was unconscious before she could life her feet off the ground.
Leia woke on her side, something digging painfully into her ribs. She stayed immobile and tried to keep her breathing steady as she heard the small sounds of an occupied Med-Centre. Shuffling, the hiss of machinery. Voices.
"Nothing we can do for you here, sir. You'll have to wait until you can get back to the temple."
"Yeah, I figured. It's fine for now, it was due a tune up anyway."
She tensed at the sound of the voice. So much for going to sleep and waking up back where she was. The canvas of the cot was rough as she pressed her face against it, trying to calm her wild heart and frantic mind.
When she heard the receding footsteps she slowly opened her eyes. It was truly night now, with no light coming through the canvas. She couldn't have been out much more than an hour. Carefully she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the cot. Her clothes were filthy. When she thought she had control of herself she rifled through her pockets to try and find whatever had been pressed into her side. She drew out the transistor Han slipped in their earlier.
Her breathing, so carefully even, was coming in gasps now. Her fingers closed around the old piece of metal like a life line.
Her eyes were squeezed shut as she wheezed. This couldn't be real. She wanted to reach out with her mind and feel Luke's reassuring presence. He'd know what to do, not her. She never knew. Before she could a hand fell on her shoulder.
"Miss, are you alright?"
"I'm- I'm fine…" She managed to grind out.
"Kix." The trooper supplied. "The commander said they found you out there in the middle of no mans land. She said you weren't injured."
She didn't have to be a diplomat to hear the carefully hidden doubt in his tone. Slowly, she tried to stand, the clone's hands hovering. She resisted the urge to bat them away.
"I'm fine." She said again forcefully, as if she could will it into being true. "Where are we?"
"The Shi'so system." He answered before elaborating upon her blank look. "The edge of Separatist space?"
She nodded, "Of course." What kind of backwater was she in? She'd never even been to this sector before. This was about as far from Yavin IV as it was possible to get. She wanted to know everything but the thought of asking without giving away her own ignorance made her pause. "What happened here?"
Kix seemed to accept she wasn't going to faint away and moved back. "We had news of a Separatist holdout but they cleared out before we got here. Left a few nasty traps behind which is what got you." He shot her a look but she had had many years of keeping her face politely blank and he carried on. "They'll be there now looking for anyone left behind. We're holding this position until morning when the troop transports can make it down to the surface."
What if she went back to where he as talking about? Crossed the front line, walked though the night and climbed right back into the hole she as dug out from. It was a pretty dream. A comforting one, but she was self aware enough to know if what her said was true, and there was an army out there, she would have a snowball's chance on Tatooine.
"We should get you to the General." Kix said with an assessing eye, "He'll know what to do with you."
She opened her mouth to ask where they would be, but the sound of a gasping coughing fit across the room broke her concentration. "Where-"
"Command centre!" He called over his shoulder already moving to the coughing clone.
She hesitate before slipping out of the tent. She tried to take stock of herself. She'd seen the command centre on her way in, she could remember it no matter how out of sorts she had been. She tried to retrace her steps, though her memory was less than reliable. In the end she just followed the thick cables lining the street, powering the temporary strip lights placed along the side of the road. She didn't look up to where two luminous moons hung in the sky. Yavin IV had no moon.
The cables brought her to what she assumed was the temporary command centre though it contained nothing more than a powered down holo-table and a few clones milling in and out. She was about to swallow down her distaste and pull one aside when she head the faint sound of a laugh on the night breeze. It was so out of place in the abandoned city she paused.
She crept towards it, sticking to the shadows as the voices grew stronger. There was a general hum of identical voices, all gathered together, but even as she moved forward on silent feet another jarring noise broke the din; the sound of two lightsabers clashing against each other.
Making sure she could't be seen, Leia rounded the corner. It seemed she had chanced upon a sort of common, or what had been a common at one point. It had been repurposed by clone troopers sitting on upended trees and rubble, eating ration packs and talking among themselves.
In the centre, face illuminated by her two lightsabers, she saw Ahsoka's frustrated face from where she was kneeling over a pile of kindling on the ground.
"Come on, Snips, before we die of exposure!"
Leia didn't flinch at the sound of Vader's voice but neither did she move forward. He was sat on a hunk of rubble watching Ahsoka struggle.
"If it's so easy, master, why don't you do it?"
Anakin held out his hand, a prosthesis, that even from a distance she could see was badly mangled. She had seen Luke do enough repairs on his own to recognise it.
"I'm teaching you a valuable survival skill, padawan." Leia could hear the smile in his voice. "After all, we cannot rely on the force for all things." He said in a clear imitation of a Conruscanti accent.
Ahsoka growled but tried again. She ran her two lightsabers against each other, face furrowed in concentration.
"Come on, you've got it."
She tried again before in frustration hitting them both together in a violent shower of sparks. She cheered when a spark fell and caught on the pile of twigs, a thin line of smoke streaming upwards. Anakin clapped her on the shoulder with a grin.
"For Force's sake, Anakin! You're supposed be teaching her, not encouraging her!"
Kenobi hurried over but was soundly ignored. Ahsoka didn't look up from where she was coaxing the flames until she had a sound enough fire crackling happily at their feet. She rocked back on her heels and looked up. Leia saw the moment she was noticed. Ahsoka waved her over.
"My padawan, my teaching." Vader said easily. "Come on, relax. The watcher's are set, the transport will be here by morning, there's nothing more we can do. Relax, Obi-wan."
Ahsoka waved her over more insistently. Leia hesitated.
"Leia!" She called over and Kenobi and Anakin turned to look at her too. She swallowed her instinctual fear at Vader's face, the shadows playing off his profile from the fire. Fear would achieve nothing.
She made her way over, picking past the troopers until she was at the fire side. After a moment of hesitation she sat, on an upended tree, as far from them as possible. She cast her eyes on the fire and tried to breathe evenly.
"How're you feeling?" Ahoksa asked.
"Fine." She said shortly. "Thank you." She added after a moment of pause.
Across the fire she could hear Vader and Kenobi bickering like children.
"-honestly, master, yes I went to see Kix, stop fussing-"
"If you would simply do as you were supposed-"
"I had my nose set and everything! What more do you want?"
"You couldn't spare a moment to clean the blood off your face, I suppose?"
Ahsoka leaned closer to her. "They're always like this." She said. "They do like each other underneath it all, I promise."
Leia didn't have the words to respond and so chanced a glance upwards. Vader did have dried blood on his face, from where she'd hit him Leia guessed, and Kenobi looked a moment away from licking his thumb and trying to rub it off Vader's face himself.
It was almost playful. In the firelight the man who sat across from her didn't look like Vader. He barely even felt like him but somehow seeing him smile and joke was worse. He looked like any young man, managing to carve out a lighthearted moment. And yet the truth remained. Leia could still hear that mechanical breath in her ear as she watched her world end in one heart stopping instant.
She shook herself from it. There was a time and a place for grief and it was certainly not now.
"I was told to come find you." She said briskly, "About where I am supposed to go next."
The bickering stopped. "Well, you can't stay here." Said Ahsoka. "The whole planet's been evacuated."
"Not that there was much here to begin with." She heard from across the fire.
"You'll have to come with us afraid." Kenobi said. "There's nothing left here, especially now the Separatists are aware of our location. This place will be razed to the ground after we leave."
Leia fought for control of her face. "I can't go with you."
Vader snorted and leaned forward. She clenched her hands. "Didn't you hear him? There's going to be nothing left. You're lucky I found you when I did. You stay here and you won't see out the week."
Her nails bit into her palm. "I can't go with you. I need to stay here." The thought of leaving felt like an adrenaline shot in her chest. She had no idea how she was meant to find her way back, or if any of this was even real, but the thought of leaving the last place she had seen Han was unbearable.
"We're heading back to Coruscant." Kenobi continued as if he hadn't heard her. "From there you'll be able to find transport to any planet within Republic space." He paused, "Although perhaps we should present you to the council before you move on."
"Why?" Said Ahsoka, sitting forward, intrigued.
Kenobi and Vader shared a glance and Leia tried to contain herself. "I'm not going to any Jedi council."
"The only reason I found her was I could feel her in the Force." Anakin told Ahsoka, across the fire.
Leia's hands were shaking now. The flames flared.
"Lots of people are force sensitive." Said Ahsoka, confused.
"But those people aren't quite as adept at using it." Said Kenobi, carefully. He looked uneasy across the fire. "Nor quite so strong in it."
Ahsoka looked at Leia with wide eyes. "You know how to use the Force?" She asked in astonishment.
Leia shook her head jerkily.
"No. I don't. I don't know anything about it."
It sounded false to even her own ears. In truth she didn't even like thinking about it. Luke would've taught her in a heartbeat, she knew. But how could she? What good could possibly come from this invasive power in her mind giving action to everything she thought. The universe had been saved the very day that Kenobi had taught Luke how to harness the Force and not Leia. If Luke, bright and kind Luke who didn't have a single harmful intention in his body, was tempted by the Emperor, no matter how momentarily, she would've crumbled. Give in to her hate, indeed.
"You're lying." Said Vader.
The flames crackled as she held herself still.
Kenobi's voice was gentler. "They'll only want to ask you some questions. You burn brightly, Leia. They'll want to know where you received your training."
"I haven't been trained." She said automatically.
"Liar." Said Vader again.
It was too much. She had sprung to her feet before she had made the conscious choice. She wanted to leap at him. She wanted to hurt him, she reach through the fire and drag him through it. Her hands shook. The flames grew higher. Vader didn't look away.
"You're coming with us. There's nothing here for left for you. Who were you looking for earlier? Han, was it? There was no one else alive when we reached you. He's dead."
"Anakin!"
"Master!"
Leia felt numb hearing that name from his lips. All of her anger, frozen in fear. "Don't say his name." She felt as though her face had become a mask, porcelain that would crack and shatter.
Vader ignored the shocked rebukes of his companions. "She's got to know. She's coming with us, whoever she's looking for —this Han person, he's dead and she'll die too, if she stays."
"Don't say his name!" She said though clenched teeth, more strongly this time.
She couldn't see past the growing rage inside her. All she could think about was Han. Han's face as he was lowered into the carbonite chamber. Han being dragged back from being tortured at Vader's command, his screams as she listened, unable to help. Han wasn't a man who should ever have screamed. She'd heard him scream her name just before-
Anakin stood up and loomed across the fire. Even without the armour he was imposing but the fear was draining away, leaving only the urge to hurt him, make him feel her pain…the anger felt good. It felt righteous.
"Don't say his name? Han! He's not coming back so you're coming with us!"
It happened in an instant. The flames kept between them and Leia screamed in rage. She let it run through her, released it entirely. The lightsaber clipped to Anakin's belt flew into her waiting hand and she had activated it without thought. She was going to kill him, kill him before he could kill her family, before he could reach anyone she ever loved again.
In an instant three lightsabers ignited around her. Kenobi was in front of Vader, his stance protective. Ahsoka's two matching lightsabers were a light on the edge of her vision.
"Put it down."
Kenobi was steady as he looked at her, Vader's face nothing more than a shocked expression behind him.
She didn't want to put it down. She wanted to run him though, maybe that would finally bring her peace. She could kill the man who killed her father and perhaps she wouldn't be so incandescently furious all the time.
Ahsoka wavered in her peripheral vision and Leia wondered if she could feel it, the hate emanating from her.
She didn't want to calm down, she didn't want to think. Her eyes darted around her, surely there must be some way to…
She saw the lightsaber in her hand and she sagged. It was Luke's lightsaber, that was all she had known it as. Not the green one he used now, but the original that he had been told had belonged to her father. The thought of Luke drained her energy until she could barely hold herself in check. She wanted her brother. He should be the one here not here.
The lightsaber deactivated and, with no conscious thought from her, rolled from her hand. It landed at her feet, where it was immediately kicked away by Ahsoka's booted foot.
Kenobi straightened. Behind him Vader looked at her with a tangle of expressions she didn't have the energy to decipher. There was shock, anger and something worse. Something that she could only term as interest.
"I think," Said Kenobi slowly, as Ahsoka finally removed her lightsabers, "that the visit to the council may no longer be optional."