Remain in Light – Chapter 2: Leia by Erin Darroch
Ratings/Warnings (this chapter only):T; mild language; themes; angst
Chapter 2: Leia
She felt Han die.
In mid-breath, as she was navigating through the command centre, beginning to formulate a question for Admiral Statura, Leia choked. Her step faltered as her knees buckled, and she reached out for something, anything, to anchor her to reality. The loss was so sudden, so complete, it whipped the air from her lungs. She sank down onto a nearby crate, gripping its rough edges with her cold fingers. Looking down, her gaze fell upon the ring on her right hand. The twin suns winked up at her. She flinched and finally drew a gasping breath. Her head moved, her eyes moved. Her heart continued to beat and her lungs to inflate. Everything in her body was working normally, but she could feel nothing—nothing at all—as if she'd been blown out of an airlock into the vast vacuum of empty space.
And then sorrow pierced her breast like a caustic blade sliding through flesh, muscle and bone. She gasped again, her mouth working to make some sound. Agony. For a long moment, she was transfixed by searing pain, and one final, intimate connection to her husband.
A rush of memories flashed through his mind: worlds and time, friends and enemies, triumphs and failures. Words he wished he had spoken and others he regretted. All gone now, lost in an instant, like the one he would never again be able to hold in his arms.
She swayed on her seat, free-falling into the abyss, helpless to prevent the loss of everything she had left. Her own memories of Han crowded in, of his arms around her, pulling her close. His scarred chin coming to rest on the top of her head. His wry, rumbling voice. Changeable, gold-flecked hazel eyes. The tanned, weathered skin of his face that crinkled when he smiled. That cocky smile.
She closed her eyes. He was gone, gone. The blackness was absolute.
Fleeting memories of the long years they'd spent together flickered through her mind, like the pages of an archaic book being ruffled by a thumb. Suddenly, incongruously, but as clear as a holovid, she recalled their first meeting: Han with a blaster in his hand, running rearguard as they retreated together with Luke down a smoke-filled detention corridor on the Death Star, dodging stormtroopers' bolts and yelling at each other.
Into the garbage chute, Flyboy!
Her own distant words echoed strangely in her mind.
"General Organa?" Admiral Statura's voice filtered through the buzz that seemed to fill her ears. She opened her bleary eyes and tried to focus. He was looking at her intently, his dark, almond eyes filled with concern. "Leia? Are you well?"
Unable to answer, she tried to lift a hand, intending to wave him off. The feeble gesture instead caused his worried look to deepen. He reached out to grasp her drifting arm, then lunged to catch her as her eyes closed and she tipped sideways off the crate.
"Lieutenant!" Statura barked over his shoulder, holding Leia tightly as she sagged against him. Lieutenant Connix darted to Leia's side and helped Statura lower her to the ground.
As they did so, the twin coils of Connix's bright golden hair caught the light and Leia's eyes fluttered. She looked up at the young woman, noting the alarm and concern in her large brown eyes. So young. Leia was seized with an overwhelming desire to warn this foolish, idealistic girl. What are you doing here? You could have a different life. Go.
"I'm alright," Leia rasped instead, forcing the words through her aching throat. She tried to sit up, swallowed hard and put a hand to her face. "Please, just..."
Even as she uttered the words, a vile sensation filled her senses. This feeling was monstrous, abhorrent. Something like triumph. Swelling pride. Deep satisfaction. Leia nearly gagged with disgust and horror. She shoved away the supporting arms of Statura and Connix, lurched feebly to one side and planted one hand on the solid ground, trying to hold on, trying to block the noxious glow of malignant pleasure that invaded her senses. The repulsive sensation persisted for a long moment, then slowly faded, leaving behind a flutter of something like disappointment. Stunned, incapacitated, Leia allowed herself to sink the rest of the way to the ground and curled up like a withering leaf.
The tiny, flickering spark of awareness that was always there, that had grown fainter and fainter over the past few years—but had never once left her since the moment he was born—abruptly winked out.
Ben.
Heedless of the spectacle she was becoming, she wrapped her arms around her head and curled even tighter, drawing her knees up in a futile attempt to diminish the pain.
No, no, no.
In the shocked silence that followed, she became vaguely aware of running feet and reaching hands, the murmur of voices rising in concern all around her. The air was filled with urgent questions and worried speculation. Someone knelt at her side, placed a hand on her shoulder.
She remained on the ground, too stunned to move, too numb to speak. Her thoughts flinched away from the yawning black hole in her awareness where her son had been. Instead, by force of habit, her flailing mind reached for the surest source of comfort, her refuge for almost thirty-five years. She groped in the darkness for her last, vanishing hope of sanctuary.
Han.
She choked out his name, managed to say it aloud, and vaguely sensed the ripple of response in the small crowd of Resistance fighters that surrounded her. Word would spread quickly. The helping hands on her shoulders and back turned to ineffectual but well-meaning pats of comfort, and murmured words of sympathy as her colleagues began to understand the probable cause of her behaviour. After a moment, she allowed them to lift her to her feet and lead her to a seat on one of the ubiquitous shipping crates that lined the room.
Statura's olive-skinned face swam into view, his dark eyebrows drawn up in an expression of sorrow and sympathy. He said something to her but she simply shook her head. Her ears were ringing as if a concussion grenade had just exploded.
You were right, Han, she thought. It's too late. There is no saving him.
"Drink this, General." Connix approached again and pressed a cup into her hands, then gently supported her arm to lift it to her lips. Mechanically, she took a sip of the hot kaffe, swallowed hard and let it scald her aching throat. She took another sip, and then a gulp, relishing the pain of the scorching liquid as futile tears spilled down her cheeks.
We have lost him forever. And now I've lost you, too.
She let her glazed eyes roam around the command centre, noting with detachment the fact that most of the onlookers had already returned to their stations, a few of them casting curious looks in her direction now and then. Statura and Connix hovered nearby, wanting to help. She waved them off with mumbled words and a weary gesture. Reluctantly, they retreated, although she could feel their eyes on her. She drained the last dregs of the kaffe and set the cup down, then scrubbed at her tear-stained face with both hands.
The only person now who could be of any help whatsoever was Luke, and although she was certain that he must know—just as she did—what had happened on Starkiller Base, he'd made his position clear long ago. Even if he were to arrive now, she thought bitterly, he would be too late. Her thoughts tried to veer away, but she was trapped in a mental whirlpool that kept sucking her back down into an abyss of grief and utter hopelessness. She drew a shuddering breath and tried to quiet her mind.
In desperation, she tried to think of where Han might be now if, as Luke had always insisted, there was something more to them than their physical bodies. Her brother had told her before, many times, of his belief in some existence that persisted after death, something that the Force could allow them to tap into. She'd always smiled tolerantly at him when he spoke of such things, but now she clutched at the idea like a lifeline.
She'd felt Han die, just as surely as if she'd witnessed it in person. The idea of trying to communicate with him now seemed absurd, almost pathetic, but she closed her eyes anyway. Casting her thoughts wide, she tried to open herself to the mysterious channel that she used only sporadically, without fully understanding how it worked. She groped again in the darkness, trying to reach him, desperate to make that connection one last time. Desperate to say goodbye.
You deserved better than this, Han. I'm sorry. I love you.
And then, like the flame of a sputtering candle flaring in a gust of wind, she sensed something: a tenuous connection to a distant presence that was achingly familiar. Her heart lurched and fluttered painfully in her chest. She kept her eyes tightly closed, trying to block out the sounds of the bustling command centre. To her astonishment, she thought she could feel him, but only faintly, and he was fading away. Was she imagining it? Had shock and grief simply unhinged her mind and produced a convincing delusion?
Straining as if to catch the sound of distant conversation, she thought she could hear a woman's voice, a shouted question:
Can you save him?
The slender thread that had long connected her to Han suddenly revived and stretched taut, vibrating with energy. Her own frantic thoughts were an incoherent jumble, a tumble of wordless images as she tried to communicate something—anything—to let him know she was there with him at the last—that he was not alone.
Only one thought in her mind was perfectly clear, and it pierced the vastness between them like a laser, shining bright.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
In a flash of golden light, she saw a vision of a gloved thumb, pointing up.
Note: This chapter incorporates a brief passage from the novelisation of TFA (the description of Han's "last thoughts" as he begins to die). I don't imagine that Leia can pick up on specific words like this through the Force, but I do imagine she gets a sense of the imagery and emotions behind them.