Remain in Light – Chapter 6: Leia by Erin Darroch

Ratings/Warnings (this chapter): T; themes; angst

Chapter 6: Leia

Part 1:

"We'll see each other again," said Rey, struggling to hold back her tears. "I believe that." She bent down to kiss the forehead of her unconscious friend, then watched his face intently, as if hoping to see some response. After a moment, she seemed to accept the sad reality of his condition, and turned away.

From a short distance, Leia observed the scene in solemn silence, feeling her daughter's sorrow as keenly as if it were her own. By Rey's account, the boy Finn had saved her life, intervening between herself and Ben when the latter seemed intent upon killing or capturing her. Finn, with extraordinary bravery, had lifted a borrowed lightsaber and wielded it in Rey's defence as she lay stunned and helpless in the snow. For that reason, if for no other, Leia was now deeply in his debt. She would look after him and, if possible, see him restored to Rey's side. It was good to have allies, and loyal friends could make all the difference to a life lived with meaning, or a life without it.

She watched her daughter lingering near the entrance to the medical centre, as if reluctant to step away for the last time. It was hard to say goodbye. Leia knew that better than anyone. And today, she would say goodbye again to the daughter she'd only just recovered. The days since Rey's arrival with Chewbacca on board the Millennium Falcon had passed all too quickly and, although they'd made the most of their brief time together, it would never be enough. For Leia, forever would be too short a time to spend in Rey's company. After so many years apart, it was appalling to think of letting her child walk aboard another ship to disappear again. Leia shuddered and went to meet her daughter.

Rey had finally stepped away from the medical centre and was now sitting in a patch of sunshine on the edge of one of the large, squat water tanks that served the adjoining shelter. A strong breeze gusted through the compound, stirring tendrils of her dark hair to flutter across her pensive face. She put on a show of interest in the bustling activity of the base as it was being dismantled, but to Leia's eyes she looked disconsolate. As Leia drew near and extended her arms, Rey's shoulders slumped. She leaned forward into her mother's comforting embrace and rested her cheek against Leia's shoulder.

"He'll be alright," Leia said soothingly. "Dr. Kalonia is confident about that. He's healing very quickly. It will just take a little more time and he'll be back in action."

The medic had indeed indicated to Leia that Finn would likely recover well, given a bit more time and the judicious application of a new medical treatment that they'd recently acquired. But Leia knew that nothing short of seeing Finn on his feet would make Rey feel any better.

Rey was nodding against her shoulder. "I know. I just wish that I could be in both places at once," she said, sitting back and giving Leia a tremulous smile. "It's hard to leave, not knowing what will happen."

"Then stay here," Leia said gently. "You don't have to go. Chewie has known Luke for a long time; he's perfectly capable of finding him and bringing him back."

The towering Wookiee had returned from his solitary sojourn into the woods, and had finally spoken with Leia about Han. The conversation had been more painful to Leia than she'd even imagined it would be, and her heart had broken all over again at seeing Chewbacca's misery, a despondent echo of her own. She recognised that Chewie needed something active and useful to do while he considered his next steps. For over forty years he'd been by Han's side and, although he had a family of his own to return to on Kashyyyk, he seemed to want to extend his time with the Resistance, at least for the time being. Touched, Leia had readily accepted when he'd volunteered to go to Luke. She'd been less ready to accept Rey's decision to accompany him.

"I want to go. Chewie needs a co-pilot," Rey asserted, not for the first time, with a lift of her delicate chin. "It would be difficult for him to fly the Falcon, without ...".

His name drifted silently between them, like a leaf on the wind. Leia gripped Rey's slender arm for a moment, swallowing hard against the rise of emotions that continually threatened to swamp her self-control. She smiled sadly at Rey, and nodded.

For a while, they sat together in companionable silence, watching the ceaseless flow of people and equipment as they went about the business of stripping down the temporary structures of the quasi-military base. D'Qar would soon join the long list of places that Leia no longer called home, ever since Ben's catastrophic betrayal and the shattering of her family. She sighed.

Leia knew that Chewbacca could easily manage to fly the Falcon alone, but Rey, too, seemed to need something active and useful to do. Han's death had hit her hard, despite their relatively brief acquaintance. They'd clearly connected in a deep and meaningful way, even though Rey hadn't fully realised the nature of their connection until that first, long conversation with Leia. Rey's revelation that Han had offered her a job aboard the Falcon only added another bittersweet note to Leia's grief. Although she would never know for certain, it did seem that—as Maz had asserted—Han had recognised their daughter, and that gave Leia some comfort.

Rey had connected deeply with Chewbacca, too. The two of them seemed to have picked up right where they'd left off years before, with deep affection and an unspoken understanding between them. If Rey had to leave her sight, Leia thought, at least it would be with Chewbacca, who would surely guard her with his life. He was angry beyond words at what he perceived as his failure to intervene between Han and Ben at Starkiller Base. Leia knew that he was being highly irrational, but she understood the emotion. She also understood that the only reason he'd hesitated to fire his bowcaster at Kylo Ren was because, like Han, Chewbacca had been looking for any sign of Ben, the sullen boy who had broken their hearts. Chewie hadn't voiced the thought, but Leia wondered if he regretted merely wounding her son, instead of killing him. She closed her eyes in anguish. There was no possibility of reconciling the emotions that warred within her: a deep longing for the child who had been borne in love, and the futile rage at the monster who had wrecked it all.

"I should go," Rey said quietly, breaking into her thoughts. "Chewie will be waiting for me." As she spoke, she unfolded her long legs and stood, looking down with tender affection at Leia's face. Her hazel eyes were a younger, brighter version of Han's own, and Leia felt her stomach flip at the sight, as it did every time. She nodded and joined Rey in a slow procession towards the Falcon. It was time, at last, to say goodbye.

Chewbacca met them at the edge of the square where the morning's memorial service had been held, and where staff were busily packing away the last meagre trappings of state, such as they were. Ordinarily, the Wookiee was genially tolerant of such ceremonies, accompanied as they often were by copious amounts of free food. But he'd been conspicuously absent from the early morning event, and Leia hadn't gone in search of him. He was grieving in his own way, and she had no desire to make things worse.

Now, walking up to the towering primate, Leia stepped into his hirsute embrace and wrapped her arms around his furry middle. He was reassuringly solid and warm, and his rumbling voice vibrated against her ear.

[*Goodbye, Princess.*]

She smiled at his use of her old title. She did not answer to it now, and many of her colleagues in the Resistance had long forgotten that designation. But Chewie remembered, and she didn't mind him recalling those past times to her mind.

"Goodbye, Chewie," she said warmly, stepping back. "Take care of yourself. And look after our girl."

The latter comment was hardly necessary. For a start, Rey had demonstrated a remarkable ability to look after herself. Furthermore, it went without saying that Chewbacca would not make the same mistake twice. In their sorrowful conversation about Han, Chewie had made it clear to Leia that he recognised now just how dangerous Ben had become, and that he must be stopped. If Kylo Ren ever again came into range of the Wookiee's bowcaster, he was unlikely to walk away from the encounter unharmed—if at all. The thought made Leia shudder. She hoped that such a confrontation would never happen. With some luck, Chewie and Rey would find Luke quickly, and deliver him to their agreed rendezvous point without incident.

She watched as the Wookiee made his way to the Falcon, ushering R2-D2 before him. The sudden reactivation of Luke's droid had been as mysterious and perplexing as any of the other strange developments of the last few days, and Leia suspected that they were all connected. The idea prompted thoughts of the Force and the terrible—and wonderful—impact it continued to have on her life. After a last, lingering embrace with Rey, Leia stepped back to watch her daughter depart. To her amazement, beyond all expectations, her heart was full of love and hope again, even as she grieved for Han and all that they'd lost. She thought of Maz Kanata, and reflected without cynicism on the "wondrous" and "marvellous" workings of the galaxy. An impulse moved her to speak.

"Rey," Leia called softly, and smiled as her daughter turned in response. "May the Force be with you."

Part 2:

I've always hated watching you leave.

Standing by as the Falcon lifted off, Leia reflected miserably on the fact that Han was not at the helm, nor ever would be again. She'd wrestled back and forth with that reality over the past few days, particularly after that quiet morning in the cockpit with Rey. As the sun had peeked over the horizon, slanting through the cockpit canopy, she'd felt his presence again, a distant but very distinct flame that flared for a moment in the darkest reaches of her soul. And then the flame had gone out.

The repetition of that agonizing sensation had been too much to bear, and Leia had resolved to stop torturing herself. Now when Maz's wizened voice floated through her head, she shut it out, tried to distract herself, or gave herself a stern lecture about the difference between fantasies and realities. Han was dead. That was a fact. To prove it to herself, she tried again a few more times over the intervening days to reach out to him through the Force. The emptiness that had answered her was devastating. With every passing hour, Leia became more convinced that those initial feelings of connection with Han had been nothing more than desperately wishful thinking and the by-products of intense grief. The rational part of her mind told her that it was absurd—and more than a little pathetic—to cling to false hope, especially in light of the evidence.

Dropping her head back to follow the path of the Falcon as it soared away, she watched until it was a tiny speck against the deep blue of the sky, finally disappearing into the mesosphere. With a heavy sigh, she turned to walk back to her quarters to change out of her formal clothes and dismantle her elaborate coiffure. After that, she would order the deconstruction of her private quarters, and return to her post in the command centre to oversee the final decampment.

As she made her way through the compound, she considered Maz's parting words to her a few days before. Those words had haunted her thoughts, suggesting as they had that Han was still alive, and that Leia should use her abilities with the Force to reach out to him. Craving any kind of comfort—and mindful of the fact that Maz had been completely correct in her predictions about the return of her daughter—she'd made the attempt one last time, only to fail again. She was unable to reproduce any sense of connection with Han, and the futility of it frustrated and distressed her.

However, against her better judgement, she continued to be intrigued anew by the notion of the Force and the powers it conveyed to those whose physical existence had seemingly come to an end. Luke had spoken to her of his ghostly encounters and conversations with his mentors Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda after their deaths. Once, he had tried to talk to her about a similar communion with their father, Anakin Skywalker. Her response to that revelation, however, had not been very favourable, and Luke had never brought it up again.

As absurd as it seemed, Leia regarded the notion of an afterlife to be a pleasant fiction that was proving, at least at the moment, to be useful. On a deeper level, she recognised that it was merely a coping mechanism that was helping her to get through each day. She realised that, sooner or later, she would have to accept the reality that she would never see Han again. As she entered her private quarters, she reminded herself that she was long accustomed to grief and loss, and that she would somehow find the strength to endure this, too. In the meantime, she was somewhat comforted by the suggestion that Han's spirit and mind, at least, could still be out there, somewhere. And perhaps one day she would be able to talk to Luke about how to reach him.

Thinking of Luke made her think of Rey. Although the thought of her daughter once again being so far away made Leia quail inside, she'd made her decision and she was resigned to it. She was needed here on D'Qar as they prepared to move the base to a new location in the Nastasi system and, in any case, she was not entirely sure that she was ready to see her brother's face. Not yet.

Many bitter words had passed between them all those years ago and, although she regretted much of what she'd said to him then, she wasn't sure she could forget some of the things he'd said to her, particularly because at least a few of those hurtful things had been patently true. She loved her brother and she missed him terribly, but she also felt confused and angry with him for a number of reasons: for being absent from the Academy on that fateful day; for not knowing the truth about Snoke or for not acting on it; and, finally—in Leia's opinion the worst of the lot—for disappearing, leaving her and Han to deal with the aftermath alone. Added to all of that, Leia couldn't help but wonder if the terrible events at Starkiller Base would have had different outcomes if Luke had been there to confront Ben, instead of Han. With these gloomy thoughts plaguing her weary mind, she ducked into her private quarters.

A short time later, she emerged refreshed and more sensibly dressed. She gave the order to have her scant belongings collected, and the structure dismantled. Tonight, she would be sleeping aboard her command transport ship, the Sabedoro, as they made their way to the first of their rendezvous points. Most of the regular transports were already on their way, and she would see to the final stages of their decampment by sunset.

On her way to the command centre, she passed the landing field where the Sabedoro was perched and there she encountered Poe Dameron, who was helping to load it. Dameron was an exceptionally gifted pilot and a staunch ally of the Resistance. His parents had likewise supported the work of the Rebel Alliance and, later, the New Republic. Leia had spent a great deal of time with his mother, Shara Bey, who had served for a while as Leia's personal pilot when Poe was a child, and she frequently saw glimpses of her erstwhile companion in Poe's face.

Poe and some of the other pilots would be travelling aboard the Sabedoro with Leia and a few others of the upper level command, as well as a cross-section of other staff. It was the standing policy of their organisation to ensure that entire units or service tiers never travelled together. In the event of an attack, they did not care to risk entire sectors of their service being wiped out.

The handsome young pilot flashed her a warm grin and moved to greet her, but then faltered slightly, as if suddenly remembering her recent personal loss and the need to adopt a slightly less jubilant tone. To cover his awkwardness, he resorted to formality.

"Good afternoon, General," he greeted her, with a small nod of respect. He'd known her all his life and they were on an easy, first-name basis, but he was also a soldier of sorts, and occasionally remembered to act like one. He glanced over her shoulder and asked, "Is your daughter not with you?"

Leia tried to hide the flinch she felt in response to the question, but she could see by the dismay on his face that she had not succeeded. She hurried to reassure him.

"It's okay, Poe. No, she left with Chewie not long ago." She didn't need to tell him where they were going. Poe had been at the very centre of the recent action. He'd undertaken missions of great risk to himself, and had suffered significant personal harm in order to bring her the information she required, and to put an end to the threat of Starkiller Base. She felt immense gratitude towards him, and a high degree of respect.

"That's too bad," Poe said, genuine regret in his voice. He squinted against the afternoon sunshine and the sudden gust of wind that ruffled his dark hair. "I would have liked to say goodbye. We met at dinner a couple of nights ago," he explained.

Leia nodded. She knew that Rey had met Dameron in the aftermath of their return to D'Qar, because Rey had asked Leia about him afterwards. Suppressing a smile, Leia recalled her daughter's candid expressions of admiration for Dameron's flying skills and the peppering of questions the girl had levelled at Leia when she learned of their close acquaintance. Rey had been plunged into a strange new world, and suffered devastating losses and setbacks in a short space of time, but she was still a young woman of nineteen, full of life. And Poe was a handsome and charming man. When he spoke again, Leia realised that he returned the interest.

"She's some girl," Poe said appreciatively. "Brave. Resourceful. And a skilled fighter, too." Any details about what had happened on Starkiller Base could only have reached Poe's ears from Rey herself, Leia realised, and she mused with some curiosity over the nature of their after-dinner conversation. Moreover, the warmth of Dameron's tone implied an appreciation of another kind, as well. Leia resisted the urge to use the Force to read his intentions, but she gave him a speculative smile and was mildly amused to see him duck his head.

"She is indeed," Leia agreed amiably, indicating with a gesture that they should walk together towards the stack of crates that Poe had been helping to ferry to the ship. Around them, a handful of personnel continued the work of loading the transport.

As they reached the collection point, a motorised freight cart pulled alongside and its driver hopped out. He sketched a quick salute in Leia's direction and swung around to begin loading up again. Poe moved to help and Leia paused to watch the two young men for a moment. She'd never been one to stand idly by when there was work to be done, but she was no longer young. And today, perhaps for the first time, she was beginning to feel her age.

Lost in contemplation for a moment, she looked up and squinted as a cloud temporarily blotted out the rays of the early afternoon sun. When she looked down, Poe was standing directly in front of her, a metal packing crate in his hands and a question in his eyes.

"Do you really think Luke Skywalker will return?" he asked abruptly, his dark eyes reflecting a lurking doubt. "After all this time? Why would he?"

"Because he must," Leia answered quietly. Rey's account of her battle with Ben in the snowy woods had chilled Leia to the bone and instilled a dread of the future that she could not shake.

You need a teacher, Ben had told her. I can show you the ways of the Force.

The thought of Ben turning his sister over to the same monster who had corrupted him and wrecked so many lives made Leia want to vomit. Rey was powerful and she clearly remembered much of the training Luke had provided when she was very young. But that would not be enough, Leia knew. Rey needed to complete her training, and there was only one person in the galaxy who could offer her that opportunity. She fixed Poe with a fathomless gaze.

"Luke has to return," she said, "because he's our only hope."

Part 3:

The Sabedoro departed the first rendezvous point with a fresh supply of water and other essentials, as well as a new set of co-ordinates. Leia watched through a narrow viewport as the planet Enjo receded into the distance. Enjo had been the first stop of two they would make on their way to the Nastasi system, part of their convoluted method for minimising risk. For reasons of security, most of the ships in her small fleet would not be given their final co-ordinates until they were within a short jump of their destination. Leia sighed.

"Do you think she's made it to Luke yet?" Finn's worried voice echoed Leia's own thoughts, and it wasn't even the first time he'd asked the question since regaining consciousness two days prior, but Leia turned a reassuring smile on him nevertheless. He was sitting up in his bed in the tiny medbay, looking even better than he had the day before. Moving away from the viewport, she approached the bedside and laid a hand on his arm.

"I don't know, Finn, but try not to worry. I'm sure she'll be in touch soon." Although Leia was once again able to sense Rey through the Force—and she was reassured to know that all was well—she hadn't officially heard from the Falcon by any other means since they'd departed. The extended silence only heightened Leia's longing to hear her daughter's voice again, to see her face. Finn, too, was keen to hear from Rey, and he was growing impatient with his medical confinement. Leia gave him a pointed look. "You should concentrate on getting better, if you want to be well by the time she gets back."

"I feel great!" Finn asserted, giving her a broad grin. She returned his smile, pleased to see how well he was doing.

The brave young man who had fought by her daughter's side and who had almost certainly saved her life at least once was recovering very quickly indeed, the beneficiary of a remarkable new intercellular immersion gel therapy that was proving to be an essential component of the medics' emergency kits. Unfortunately, the medicine was exorbitantly expensive and difficult to come by in large quantities.

For the thousandth time, Leia missed Han and his resourcefulness, not to mention his shady underground connections and his somewhat sketchy—but equally resourceful—friends. He'd run so many side missions for the Resistance over the years, it scarcely mattered that he'd long ago resigned his formal commission. He'd been part of the effort from the moment he'd winged those TIE fighters over the trenches of the first Death Star, and his fate had been inextricably entwined with that of the Rebel Alliance, first, and then of the New Republic and the emerging Resistance, ever since.

Over the past few years, their increasingly intense disagreements over Ben and what to do about him had caused Han to leave home more often and to stay away for longer stretches. He'd continued to accept the odd mission whenever the need arose for his particular set of skills, though, and he never declined a request from her if he could help it. In her heart, she knew he'd done it not so much to support the Resistance, as to have an excuse to see her, to spend a few precious hours together when the joy and pleasure of a reunion could temporarily blur the pain of all they'd lost. Repeatedly over the past few years they'd been drawn together by their shared devotion—and continually driven apart by their shared misery. The still loved each other fiercely, but the loss of both children had created a chasm over which they could find no way to cross. And that, Leia reflected with profound sorrow, was how their story had ended.

"General? Are you okay?" Finn's voice broke into her long reverie, startling her back to the present.

His eyes were roaming her face with a look of deep concern. With a sharp pang of loneliness and longing, Leia shook off her morbid thoughts. She gave his arm a reassuring pat and leaned in to plant a kiss on his stubbly cheek.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just very tired. And you should try to remember to call me Leia." She gave him another smile and moved towards the door. "I'm going to turn in. You should get some sleep, too."

Finn's dark eyes never left her as she exited the room. He was alert and restless now, and would soon be up and about. She suspected that she would need to find something useful for him to do, some suitable role to keep him occupied while he waited for Rey to return, or he would drive her slightly crazy.

Part 4:

Back in her quarters, she began preparing for bed. Running through the habitual motions of plaiting her hair and brushing her teeth, she tried to keep her mind a blank, to resist the urge to reach out through the Force just one more time. She knew it wouldn't do her any good to open herself to that void and find it as empty as ever. She wanted more than anything to stop torturing herself with the irrational notion.

But an hour later, lying wide awake in her lonely bunk, she gave in.

And, just like that, he was there again, like a distant twinkling star.

For a long moment, she held her breath—as if to breathe out would blow the spark away like so much dust. But when she finally exhaled, the sensation of him out there—somewhere—burned steadily on. It was a distinct and familiar presence that she'd first identified right after the Battle of Endor, when she'd begun to explore her powers in the Force. Over the years, she'd refined her skills and developed the ability to identify him out of a crowd of millions, anywhere in the galaxy where he'd roamed. Now she lay rigid in the bed with her heart fluttering in her chest, trying to concentrate, to hang on to him. Without a doubt, it was Han's essence she was sensing.

But what does it mean? I don't understand.

Lying on her back in the darkness with her eyes closed, she felt hot tears of sorrow and frustration sliding from the corners of her eyes, trickling towards her ears and down her jaw. She could sense him, but her rational mind kept reminding her of the searing pain she'd felt the moment he'd been struck, as well as the detailed reports from Chewbacca, Rey and Finn about what had happened. Whatever this was she was feeling, it couldn't be Han, because Han was certainly dead. A muffled sob escaped her and she turned her face into the pillow. Holding the tiny flame in her mind like a hand cupped over a candle, she felt comforted nonetheless, and finally drifted off to an exhausted sleep.

Sometime later, in the dead of night, she bolted awake. She was riveted to the bed, transfixed by an electric connection to his unmistakable, living presence. The sensation took her breath away, as if Han himself had snatched her bodily out of bed and crushed her in a fierce hug. The flickering candle in her mind was now a blazing torch. Although she'd always been able to reach out to him, Han had been perfectly Force-blind and he'd never been able to reach back. Now, inexplicably, she felt him calling to her through that channel, yearning for her and insisting upon a response. Shaking with the intensity of it, acting on instinct, she answered in the only way she knew how, with a sort of push of emotion: of joy and relief and worry—and immense love.

Where are you?

Abruptly, the connection disappeared. As if a lamp had been switched off, she was in darkness once again, bereft. Her stomach did flips as she scrambled out of the bed, irrationally feeling that standing up would somehow help her reach him again. She turned in a circle, casting her senses out. With an effort, she tried to calm her breathing, to remember the lessons she'd had from Luke so long ago.

Where are you? Han!

With a flood of relief and joy, she felt the connection return like a beacon growing steadily brighter in intensity. A rational thought flitted through her head, followed by a rush of doubt, fear and worry—that none of this was real, that she'd become unhinged with grief and was simply suffering a powerful delusion. Ruthlessly, she batted those thoughts away and focused as calmly as she could on maintaining the connection. She could feel him. It was definitely him. She waited, trembling and anxious, for his answer.

When his response finally came, it was as clear as a ringing bell.

I'm here.

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End Note: Reviews are always greatly appreciated, no matter how "old" the story is. Trust me. :D