Chapter 10: It's a Long Story…

The words fell from her mouth quickly and quietly. She sounded afraid but desperate to know the answer. A calm washed over me in that moment. The uncertainty in her voice, the worry tight on her features, showed me that she was just as afraid of this conversation as I was. I exhaled slowly and gathered my thoughts before continuing.

"When we crash landed on Naboo, Han told me to stay on the ship and hide until he came back." I gulped and my chest tightened as Han's face, shrouded by the grate of the floor I hid beneath, flashed through my memory. "Storm troopers flooded the place half an hour later."

I was vaguely aware that my mother was softly crying next to me, but she squeezed my thigh to urge me on. I struggled for words. I didn't want to tell the story. I didn't want to relive all the pain - especially with her here. That was part of the reason it took me so long to find her, but now that I was here, I needed to tell her.

"They captured me and carried me away on speeders. I escaped and climbed a tree to hide from them. Eventually they couldn't find me and gave up looking for the night, but when I tried to climb down, I fell."

My mother gasped next to me, squeezing my leg to the point of discomfort. She hadn't changed. I glanced over at her, and she nodded for me to go on.

"When I woke up, I couldn't remember anything." I said, the fear I had felt then gripped my heart just talking about it. "It was dark, and I didn't know who I was or where I was…I just knew I needed to get away from there. Like my mind was still urging me to run from them.

"Eventually I made it to a village early in the morning. Even though I wasn't sure what they were, I knew the storm troopers were trouble. The people there were afraid of them. And when they started chasing me, I ran. A woman helped me." At this, I smiled. The memory of the woman holding my hand and shielding me from view washed over me. "She helped me get onto a shuttle just before they got to me."

I looked over to my mother. She was staring at the ground, her face a mask of distant sorrow. I could only imagine what that time had been like for her - losing a child to find out now that you had probably been searching in the wrong place for.

"The woman took me to her home with her husband on the island of Naquaar. It was a small group of islands of fishing villages in a remote part of Naboo. They wanted to take me to the Capitol, but…there were a few problems. The islands were in a fight with the planet government over workers' rights and cultural issues…"

"I remember…" Leia spoke up, no doubt she had been aware of the political problems of Naboo. Leia had been an ally to the Naboo government for as long as I could remember. "There were pirates taking advantage of the chaos leaving ships grounded in that region…We thought…we thought it was unlikely that that was where you were…"

She was choking up, but her eyes begged me to continue.

"The family took me in since I couldn't remember who I was or where I was from. They were kind people and had no children of their own. The woman's name," My mother's name. I thought but didn't say. "was Marzi. She used to sing songs while she braided my hair. The man," My Father… "was Aki. He used to take me fishing with him. They took good care of me."

I dared not to say more, lest I cry and cause Leia more grief. My heart was torn between wanting her to know I had had a good life and wanting to spare her the pain of knowing I was someone else's daughter while she didn't know if I was alive or dead. She had lines from tears trailing down her face, but her brow was furrowed in confusion.

"But, if you were on Naboo the whole time…I should have been able to sense you…when…?"

I wondered for a moment if she had guessed part of the truth. If she remembered what the Resistance had done to our sleepy village.

"When I hit my head and lost my memory, it must've shrouded my force signature." I did not tell her all of why I knew this but went on. "It took several years for my memory to come back, the Force came back before it in bits and pieces. But…but I was afraid…"

That had all been the easy part, at least for me. Now came the harder truths.

"Once I remembered, I felt so torn." I whispered, the pain coming back with force. "I had spent four years with them, and I didn't want to leave them. It would break their hearts and mine. Of course, I missed you and dad…I ached to be home with you as much as I knew that I would miss them, but I was…I was afraid that…"

The tears had sneaked up and were streaming down my face now and everytime I tried to compose myself I felt myself lose it more and more.

"You were afraid we would send you away." Leia said, her voice soft but absolute.

I nodded and she lifted a kerchief to my face and wiped away my tears. It took a few minutes for me to put myself together again and speak.

"One day, my father came home." I said. I had slipped, but I suppose the words had a double meaning. Leia was smart enough to know what I meant. "He said a man had come to his stall today, a war hero. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. He said Han Solo had come to his market stall and purchased one of the bracelets I liked to make, said his daughter would have liked it and showed him a holo of his missing daughter. I burst into tears and told him everything. He said in a few days we would go to the Capitol and turn me over."

I was silent for a moment, and I knew my mother was confused on where this was all going, because I never came home.

"The next day I asked him why he hadn't just told Han I was here while he was at his stall." I said, sensing my mother's own frustration. "Aki said that he was a selfish man, and he wanted a few more days with his daughter…That was my last day with him."

Leia was silent, and when I looked over at her, I knew she had guessed the truth. Resentment rose, cold and brutal, into my heart as I did my best to grind out the rest of the story.

"Apparently, First Order operatives were hiding in our village. My parents and I were in the market when Resistance agents began to fire on them…Both of them died." A coldness gripped me as I finished the rest of my story. "I would have died too, but I had been helping a pirate fix his ship that had crashed on the far side of the island. I didn't know it then, but he was the Pirate Lord, Captain Farse. He saved me from the fire, and I asked him to take me away with him. I didn't want anymore pain. I wanted to be someone else, so I became someone else. And…the rest is an even longer story."

Leia was silent, but her feelings in the Force were chaos. Her pain and anger ebbed through me, reflecting some of my own feelings. Shame and grief reverberated between us. The tears had stopped, the words had stopped, but the aching pain roared on. She didn't ask why I hadn't come home sooner. Perhaps she knew even better than I did.

"We looked for you. We never stopped looking for you." She said, her voice barely above a whisper. We were both a far cry from the commanding roles we were used to playing. "We put out bulletins everywhere, we searched high and low, but you were like a ghost."

All I could do was nod and stare blankly. I was caught up in too many memories.

"I knew you were alive. I always knew you were alive. And when you commed me…I just had this…this feeling it was you." She said, her voice unsteady but so full of joy. "I don't know why I didn't put it together sooner. Of course it's you."

I looked up at her, and the small piece of joy at being reunited broke through some of the pain. It didn't all go away, but it seemed to balance out the more I focused on her.

"Does Ben know?" She asked, and I could tell the words had fallen out of her mouth before she could choose wiser ones.

Dread pooled deep in my stomach. I shook my head.

"Luke…Luke wiped his memories of you…" She said, and the shame was in her voice again. "I asked him to…He was already so…troubled. He looked up to you so much. I couldn't take his pain and mine. I shouldn't've…I should've…"

I nodded. It was all I could do. Anger crept up inside me, and I tamped it down. Anger was of no use to me now, and I didn't want it to creep into this moment.

"He can't sense it's you?" She asked in disbelief.

We both knew how strong Ben was in the Force, at least as strong as I was, and I knew the moment he was free of that Force blocking cuff, the dam was going to break.

"I hid it from him well enough on the Supremacy, and now I have a device on him that cuts him off from the Force." I said, and I slowly began shifting back into my old self. Into Captain Dare, who was here for business, not a reunion. "Speaking of which, he's the reason I'm here."

I stood up, needing to take a few steps away from her to clear my head. When I turned around, her face was surprised for only a moment before she steeled herself for business.

"You want to trade your brother like a pawn in a war game." She accused.

"This is not about what I want." I corrected her. "I am doing what I have to do for my people. You would do the same for yours. Besides, it is not my decision. The Resistance will make their offer of an alliance to the Kingship and the First Order will make theirs. The Pirate Lords will decide which offer is better and Ben will be released to them."

Ben. I had called him. It felt odd saying his name out loud.

"So it's just that simple to you." She said, her words bitingly cold.

"I'm the only reason why the Resistance received an offer in the first place." I argued. "The Kingship would be happy to see him dead or ransomed back to the First Order. I have a job to do. I'm sure you're familiar with the feeling.

Quiet fell between us, old wounds rising to the surface.

"The Kingship has a lot to offer the Resistance in the way of help, but my suggestion to you would be to offer a total alliance with the Kingship if you want to match half the resources the First Order is going to offer us. There are plenty in the Kingship that would rather die than take the First Order's deal, but no Captain is going back an underdog without good cause. Talk to your officers, tell them there is a chest of kyber, a fleet of ships, and connections all across the galaxy if they're willing to offer their help to us. Convince them to offer the absolute best to us in return, and you might get your son back."

"Might." She laughed a little bitterly, but nodded after a moment. "I understand…And the First Order? Have you met with them?"

"Tomorrow." I said, simply. "I'll need your offer as soon as possible."

"I'll have it to you tomorrow morning." Leia said, the cold mask of a leader in her voice, but then. "How…how is he?"

I toyed with something on her desk, a marble replica of Alderan, rolling it round and round in my hand. It dawned on me she hadn't asked about my arm, and I was thankful for being spared another painful story. Still, how was Ben?

"Physically? He's fine. The most he has to worry about is surviving my crew, but they're under orders. They're more afraid of me than they are of him. They'll let him be." I said with a smirk. "As I'm sure you've guessed he's far from fine, though."

It wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, but I wasn't going to lie to her, nor was I going to try to give her any more grief for one day. I set the miniature Alderan back on her desk and turned to look at her. She was still sitting in a chair in her sitting area, hands folded in her lap, eyes distant. She looked every inch the politician I remembered, even though she had aged, but she could not mask the pain in her eyes.

I sat back down in the chair next to her and took her hand. Her brown eyes met mine, and I watched as they warmed, creasing around the edges as she smiled softly.

"You have your father's eyes." She said, her voice light and free of grief for a moment. "You remind me so much of him."

I smiled, struggling not to start crying again. It was funny how things worked out: boarding a ship because I wanted to be like my father in a round-about way was the reason I had become a pirate like him. Even if I was much better at it than he was.

"You know in all my years as a pirate, I've managed to avoid meeting him again." I said, guilt tight in my chest as I admitted to my wish to stay away. "I guess I can't keep that up any longer. I want to be the one to tell him."

She nodded, laughing slightly to herself.

"He will be proud. I know nothing would make him happier." She said, squeezing my hand tight.

I can think of one thing…

"Go easy on him. He's got foot in mouth disease." Leia said, with a look somewhere between love and annoyance.

We both burst out laughing.

"I'm so glad you're home." She said again, her warm hand finding my cheek, seemingly searching for traces of the girl she hadn't watched grow up. The Force glowed with joy, then. "But you're not staying…are you?"

My heart felt for a moment as if it might burst as I realized I did want to stay…at least for a while longer. It was so unfair. All of it. But maybe I could…

"I can stay the night here…we could…have breakfast?" I asked, hopefully, already expecting her to be too busy to make it. "I know that's not what you meant. I'm sorry…I just can't stay any longer."

She smiled softly, but I could see she was disappointed.

"Breakfast would be lovely." She said, simply.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

My hand flew to my belt which was devoid of the lightsaber that had been confiscated.

"General Organa." A muffled voice came from behind the door.

"This guy." I said, rolling my eyes and earning a laugh from my mother.

Leia unlocked the door with the flick of her wrist and the Pilot came bursting into the room.

"General Organa, I was just…making sure you were…okay…" He said, his readiness for battle fading into the awkward realization that there was no real threat.

Both of our eyes had stayed mercifully dry for sometime, but it couldn't be hard to tell if you looked closely that we had both been crying.

"Am I…"

"Interrupting as usual, Commander." General Organa said with an easy grace and a casual smile. "Captain Dare, this is Commander Poe Dameron, the best pilot in the Resistance."

Poe Dameron…

"Pleased to meet you…Captain." His eyes still narrowed in suspicion as he smiled.

An unbidden image of a boy from my childhood rose to mind.

"I'm going to be the best pilot in the Galaxy!" He shouted as she chased him around his fathers ship with a toy blaster.

"Not if I beat you to it!" I had countered with a taunting tone.

It was the same boy. His parents had been Rebel heroes, like mine and visited often. We had been friends as children.

We had had sex on Florrum five years ago…and again on Kijimi 3 years ago…

I suddenly wanted to bury my face in a couch cushion.

"The pleasure is all mine, Commander." I mustered instead, struggling to keep my cheeks from turning red. His already had. My mother gave me a knowing look.

Maybe I could just die right now…That would be nice…

"Poe," General Organa began, interrupting my thoughts. "If you would take Captain Dare to room 1203 and see to it that her belongings are returned to her. She'll be staying here for the night."

There was one last sweet shared smile between my mother and I before she went back to work at her desk.

"Now, Poe." She said in response to his look of shock, her eyes still focused on the datapad she worked on.

And, with that, they left.