The Name


"Hey," Han called. "Salla!"

The mess hall was empty, cavernous, echoes of his voice bouncing against the walls four, five times before settling onto the hard floor. All but a lone table had been shoved against one durasteel wall, and whoever had been mopping the floor had given up halfway through. Long streaks of heavy industrial cleaners had sterilized the decking on one side, but one side only. On the other, the remnants of fallen food still lined the floor. Warm air whipped his already-mussed hair but he didn't bother taking off his parka. He'd only been planning on a short stop for a ration bar before heading to the Falcon to check in with Chewie.

But then he had spotted her.

A sad shape hunched over the table in a dark corner near the back. Salla was illuminated only by one low-hanging light. A spacer's shirt hung from her shoulders, dark blue like the last wisps of atmosphere before vacuum, untucked and wrinkled, with one too many buttons undone down the front. She had been holding her head in her hands, elbows resting on the table, and the sudden call made her jump and then focus on him with a scowl.

"What do you want?" she growled.

Making his way toward her, he noted the edge to her words, the crisp splice that bit into her usually dry, ironic tone.

"So polite," Han said. "So charming. How do you do it, Sal?"

Her sour expression didn't change, although the tension in her shoulders seemed to dissipate a little. "Oh, I charm people alright. I charm them right before I kill 'em."

Grinning, he flipped a chair around and sat down on it backwards. It was early and the shifts wouldn't change for another ninety minutes, so the mess hall was deserted. The half-assed sterility numbed him from the inside out, the durasteel beams looking for all the universe like the ribs of a giant beast—like they were being dissolved inside a rancor's stomach—and he found the thought to be oddly… Comforting?

It reminded him of hyperspace. Shrewd utility. Brutality.

"Why're you up?" he asked, eyeing her slumped shoulders and the grim twist to her lips.

Blowing out her breath, she tossed her loose hair behind her shoulders. She wore it down much more often since signing her commission and becoming his XO. Before, wild and curly and free around her head, he'd thought of it like a cloud. But today, for the first time, he thought it might be more like a curtain. She wore it up when she was fighting, down when she was more open. More vulnerable. When she might need something to hide behind.

Like the opposite of Leia.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Bullshit."

Nobody chose to sit in this room alone; it was for food and for people.

"You're bullshit," she answered him.

"I'm not the one moping around in the mess at 0500. Spit it out."

She rolled her eyes at him and he kicked her under the table.

"Fuck, god, fine. I miss her," she snapped. "Happy?"

Han dropped the act immediately. He knew who the her in question was, picturing the purple-skinned Chev he'd met months ago. And he also knew that it had been awhile since Salla had been free to leave and visit Prisht.

"Course you do," he said.

Salla sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I feel pathetic."

"Nah," he said, shaking his head. "Not pathetic."

"It's not even a real thing," she said, and it was almost like Han wasn't there. This was Salla at her most raw, her most bare. "It's casual and it was always supposed to stay that way, but… here I am."

He nodded. "Moping."

"Fuck you. I'm not moping."

"You're moping," he said with the insufferable grin Leia had told him in confidence was attractive in an entirely annoying way, Commander. "But I get it."

She looked up at him, her orange eyes challenging. "You don't get it. Your person is right here, on base."

Considering that, his eyes slid to the side and he tried to remember the days before Leia had been his person. She'd been untouchable, a paradigm of upper-class society, smart and courageous and so far beyond what he knew he deserved that it had been more like a game, like a swoop race against fate. Like he was in on the joke of his own fruitless longing for more.

That was how he had played it in public, at least. Privately, however, he had felt the same way Salla looked to him now. Glum. Alone. Hopeless, even. It was hell being constantly reminded that a gulf existed between you and the person you loved. In his case, it had been an invisible crevasse; for Salla, it was a far more literal divide.

Too much of that mood wasn't a good thing, though. Dark thoughts and self-pity had a way of coloring a person's whole viewport, and made things that weren't ugly look like they were. Fucked with perspective. And he needed Salla sharp. He needed his XO on point.

Han decided that what Salla needed was friendship. "She wasn't always mine," he shrugged. "And I don't mind if you're moping. Would have already left if I did."

Salla seemed to struggle with herself for a moment. Fidgeting, she tugged at the collar of her shirt, uncrossed and recrossed her legs. She wasn't usually restless in her interactions with other people. When she was uncomfortable, she said so.

"Need me to leave?" he asked, unsure.

"Would you actually go if I did?"

"Maybe."

"That's what I thought," she replied, unamused. "Just sit there and let me mope."

"Maybe I can help," he offered.

She glared at him.

"The Mercs are being transferred to work Supply. Apparently no one thought about getting food and weapons onto this rock before they shipped us out."

"Of course they didn't," she said. "We have more idealism than ideas in this disaster of a rebellion."

He cracked a smirk but continued his spiel. "And we're not just doing freight," he intimated. "We're creating the whole damn supply chain ourselves."

She tilted her head. "No shit?"

"No shit. We'll be hauling freight like before but we'll have to source it, too. Meaning we'll need you to—"

Her widening grin interrupted him as surely as if she had spoken, and that was amazing to Han. He genuinely cared for Salla Zend and it was nice to see her excitement. That was a forbidden feeling, like fear, and he felt gratified to be allowed to see it.

"Do you think she'll do it?" he asked, picking up the thread of where he left off.

"If she knows what's good for her, she will," Salla said. "You'll approve the trip?"

He nodded. "We'll go ourselves: you, me and Chewie."

Salla's words belied her expression. "My chaperones?"

"I need your help for the next couple of days, setting up a shipping schedule. Rieekan and Leia keep calling this collaborative, so we gotta ask the kids where their connections are, too. Shield generator parts and insulation are the top priorities."

"What's wrong with the generator?"

He shook his head. "Don't ask. It ain't good."

"Food?"

"Well, yeah," he admitted. "Definitely need some of that, too."

She sat back. "I got a girl for food; I'll reach out to her."

"Another girl?"

"Girls make the best smugglers. You know that, Slick," Salla said with a grin.

He opened his mouth to disagree, reconsidered it, and then trudged on. "With any luck, we can get you to Nar Shaddaa for the first run in a couple of days."

Salla's eyes were beautiful, sad and soft, and glimmering with hope, and they made him want to pull her into his arms and comfort her. He kicked her shin again instead.

"Ah, shut up," he repeated and stood up to leave. "Your sappiness is getting all over the floor."

"Fuck you," she called cheerfully after him as he snagged his ration bar and bit into it, leaving the hall with a grin she couldnt't see.

—0—

Apparently, Mon Mothma was a tough woman to reach. Luke knew her current location was a closely-guarded secret within High Command, and even Leia didn't know exactly where she was hiding.

"I know a frequency code," she had said. "But we will have to be careful."

Sitting in the copilot's seat in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, his sister looked small and yet somehow imposing. She spoke with an edge that sounded to him like she was mildly inconvenienced, but that was a protective tone, he had learned, meant to hide her nerves from others, meant to demonstrate superior restraint. She looked like a character from those old stories he and Biggs had shown each other as kids, of far-away planets with kings and queens and, yes, princesses, too.

This princess had not trusted the Command Center's tech equipment to make the call, so Luke, Han and Leia had crammed themselves into the Falcon's cockpit. Because the galactic black market had a vested interest in supplying technology that could evade Imperial attention, her comm system was better secured from detection than most. Risky venture all around, of course, but they had a higher probability of success here.

That, and they didn't know what Mon Mothma might say; Leia worried it could be something the comm specialist on duty should not hear.

On the other end of the spectrum was Luke, who could barely contain his excitement. Every new revelation he received was like a hit of spice to his nervous system; he craved more. At his core lived a desperate desire to know where he came from, and since Ben had confirmed that his story was larger than just a moisture farm on Tatooine, he'd become addicted to the idea of destiny, his own storybook-like tale of bravery and tragedy that made him unique, special.

Two years of war, destruction and death had tempered that idea somewhat, but it hadn't killed it entirely. He still yearned to know who he really was. Discovering that he had a living, breathing relative right here next to him—his very best friend in the whole galaxy, even, what were the odds?—had reignited any excitement he'd felt about his role in the rebellion, the fight against tyranny and evil.

"You need to calm down, kid," Han said as he fiddled with the comm controls.

Luke shrugged. "I'm calm."

"Like hell you are. She might not pick up."

"I know that, Han."

Leia turned around in the copilot's seat, sharing Han's warning expression. "And even if she does answer, she might not know anything at all. I'm only saying that she knew my father when we were born, not that she knew anything about us."

"I know that, too," he said. "Guys. I'm not an idiot."

"Most of the time," Han muttered under his breath. "Alright. Here goes nothin'."

An audible scramble burst from the comm speakers, scratching at Luke's inner ear like a talon. He fought to keep his hands in his lap and focused instead on the concentrated look on Han's face. The older man was leaning over the controls, peering at the scrambler with a kind of sour grimace.

Seconds ticked by. Luke glanced at Leia and when she caught his gaze, he nodded to Han's back. She pursed her lips, furrowed her brow.

"What?" she asked.

"When does he leave for Nar Shaddaa?"

She grimaced. "Tomorrow morning. He doesn't want to talk about it."

"Sure don't," Han interjected. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here."

"That was fast. How'd you talk Salla into it?"

"She has a vested interest," Leia answered Luke. "And we need supplies badly."

"You sure you can trust the good commander, though? With such an important job?"

He was kidding, of course, teasing Han and Leia about the weird dynamics of their relationship among the command structure of the Alliance. Technically speaking, she outranked them both by a few margins. And they were still at the heart of the gossip mill in the Alliance, all of them; eyes followed them as they went about their business. It was nice to push them a little, to share in the experience.

Plus, Han could always use a little ribbing.

"You're getting on my nerves," Han growled, still hunched over the comm array.

Luke shrugged and returned his focus to Leia. "I was thinking that it might be nice to do some training together. Compare notes. Since this guy won't be taking up all your time."

He had baited them, intentional and sly, and was proud when they shared a look that clearly communicated uncertainty about their priorities. It wasn't fair to say that they'd abandoned him and Chewie; he knew how new relationships worked within an established friend group.

Well. He'd read about it. There hadn't exactly been a "group of friends" to have in the Jundland Wastes.

Was he hanging out with them as much as he had been before? No. But that was okay. The opportunity to tease them both more than made up for it.

"Sure," Leia finally said. "Compare notes."

He peered a little closer, tried to peel away layers and layers of shielding around her physical form. She had never been particularly hard for him to read but sometimes it felt like her emotional shielding was more routinely fortified than even the physical one. She was a fierce warrior—capable of great strength for her size and build—but her mental barriers far surpassed even that. Her training, or maybe her trauma, made her achingly difficult to read at times.

She was unsure about something, that much was obvious. It could be Han and Chewie lifting off in the morning. It could. But it could also be that she wasn't entirely ready to train with him as potential Jedi yet. She had every right to be wary of the proposition, especially since they didn't know how to even begin.

Either way, he needed to try harder not to push her too far, too fast. He'd seen what happened when Han did that, and Luke didn't want any part of it.

"Where's Chewie?" he asked in an attempt to dispel the sudden tension in the room.

The fact that it was Leia in the copilot's chair and not the Wookiee—even if the Falcon's struts were firmly planted in the docking bay—was odd. There were unspoken rules aboard this ship.

"Killed him," Han grunted. "Was a nice service. Planted a tree in his honor."

Leia rolled her eyes. "Han is still angry with him for believing Wes."

"About the cockpit?"

"About everything," she replied. "Don't ask."

Luke dropped the subject, remembering past disagreements that had plagued the crew of the Falcon all too well. Han and Chewie acted more like siblings than Luke and Leia did by a wide margin, and it was best to leave sleeping nreks lie when it came to captain and first mate. Yet another unspoken rule.

"The signal is there," Han said too loudly. "You sure the frequency—?"

"Identify yourself."

The voice was loud, deep and threatening, and all playfulness dropped like a stone thrown over a cliff. Eyes widening, Luke turned a quick, panicked look to Leia as Han nudged her leg with his.

"This is Pearl," she said and threw an annoyed look Han's way. "My security code is three-six-four-four-alpha-zero-charlie. We are on a secure frequency."

A pause, then a different voice. "State your business."

"Tell her my code name. She'll take my call."

Luke was entranced and mystified by the spycraft of the whole thing, the way Leia slipped into command mode so easily. It was a side of her he knew existed but garnered such weight that no one could deny her what she wanted. Sometimes he had to remind himself that she wasn't only a princess from a rich Core world; she had also been a teenaged Imperial senator and a spy for the Alliance to boot.

"Pearl."

Female. Mature. And weighed down by a thousand burdens. He'd heard Mon Mothma's voice only twice before, once shortly after the Battle of Yavin, when she had thanked him personally via secure comm frequency. It had been short—perfunctory—and he'd had little to do but say you're welcome and then let her move on to speak with her generals. The other time she had been touring an Alliance base—gods, had it been on Camarra? Filippi? He couldn't remember—and he had been one of hundreds of people who'd watched adoringly from his spot on the loading bay deck.

Both times her voice had been soothing, calming, in control. From what Leia had told him, Mon Mothma was not an unkind woman but one with a nearly singular focus; her skills did not lie in active combat but in recruitment, in fundraising, in telling the stories of the front lines to the masses too terrified to rebel. Everyone had a purpose within the Alliance, and that was where Mon Mothma excelled.

She was also the last founding member of the Alliance to still be operational. Some had died, some had been frustrated by the slow progress of the war and moved into independent guerilla-style tactics in their own systems. And some had simply been silenced, retired to Outer Rim planets to rot away in obscurity.

With just one word, he could hear it all in her voice. The weight, the burden and the loss, as it gathered on her shoulders.

"Ma'am," Leia replied, and it was like a younger echo of Mon Mothma herself, saddled by her own shackles. "We need information."

"We?"

"I am with my two men."

Han made a rude gesture to Leia. Yours? He mouthed to her and she pushed his hand away. Mine, she mouthed back to him. Luke snorted in amusement, then covered his mouth with his hand to muffle his laughter.

"I see," Mon Mothma said. "What information do you need?"

"I assume you have heard about our most recent revelations?"

Mon Mothma did not hesitate in answering in the affirmative, and Luke assumed with a certain amount of heat that General Dodonna had filled her in.

Indomitable, Leia continued. "What do you know about my birth parents?"

The silence that followed was a living thing, pregnant with meaning but with no context to what lay within. They waited, quiet: anticipation resting in the set of their shoulders. Luke thought it was weird that she was taking so long; it was a scrambled frequency, sure, but Han had made certain it wasn't traceable. And Leia would never put Mon Mothma in danger with a reckless call. Surely she knew that.

"I made a promise."

Luke's heart jumped to his throat as he fought to remain an impassive listener. A promise.

"To whom?" Leia asked.

"The viceroy."

Luke sucked in a breath. Bail Organa had known something. And yet as much as he wanted to sit with this information, to savor the revelation as if a gift on Life Day, he was immediately distracted by Leia's quick, biting words.

"What was the promise?"

Another pause, shorter this time. "To reunite you if the viceroy was killed. To bring you to General Kenobi myself."

Luke couldn't help himself. "Reunite us? You knew we were… you knew?"

It was like he could hear Leia's thoughts. You knew he was my brother? You knew. And you didn't tell me? There it was again, that crack in her walls, the way her shield wobbled and was restructured again. Leia was never a static being to him; constantly moving, she was a churning wildfire beneath her calm facade.

"I knew you had a brother, but I didn't know his name."

Leia's eyes shot to his, then back to the comm array.

"I also didn't know you were related to General Skywalker. I had thought… well, it doesn't matter now what I thought."

Leia's lips opened in surprise, Han hissed in a rush, but Luke was decisive. "You knew him? You knew my father?"

His heart was full to bursting, questions zinging through his head at lightspeed. A general, he thought. He was a general.

"I knew him by reputation only," she said. "I knew he and General Kenobi were close. I can only assume that you are his progeny and that General Kenobi guarded you for his fallen friend. Other than that, I'm afraid I know little else."

"No, please," Luke said, leaning so far out of his seat that he should have fallen. "Please. Who was he? How did he—?"

"I'm sorry," she interrupted before Luke could finish his question. "Anything else I have for you is pure speculation."

Luke opened his mouth to press further but Leia turned heated eyes on him until he sat back in his seat.

"Thank you," she said, and then nodded to Han to disconnect the comm.

Luke watched, disappointed but full to brimming with his own thoughts about the one new piece of information he'd gleaned from Mon Mothma.

General Skywalker.

A name. A confirmation of sorts. He'd been well-known enough for a junior senator from Chandrila to know his name. Not to mention whatever role Leia's father had played. Had Ben been a kind of intermediary, maybe, between the Jedi and the Senate? Was that how it worked? Is that how he'd known to give Leia to Viceroy Organa?

General Skywalker.

"You two okay?" Han asked.

Luke was exultant. He felt like he could levitate if he tried, that he was full to bursting with energy and pride. A general. And someone who had been known to all these important people, these senators on the right side of history.

But Leia's voice pierced his mental hurricane like a light beam in a dark room. Quiet but direct.

"My father knew about you, Luke," she continued. "He made her promise to reunite us."

Luke leaned forward, absorbing Leia's words with care, but his heart still fluttered with excitement.

And then the devastating blow, delivered with such heartbreak that Luke's stomach sank.

"He lied to me."

He was terrified of that dead tone of her voice, the one he remembered from the day Jan Dodonna first told them they were twins. He hated the flavor of powerlessness that lined its edges. He hated that his sister, such a competent, formidable person, could be so hurt. For Luke, this was all gain. For Leia, it was all loss.

"They were protecting us," he offered, trying to help, trying to bring light to the dark moment. "Vader was out there killing Jedi. They must have thought that two Force sensitive children raised together would be too obvious. That he would sense us."

He found us on Home One, after all, Luke thought but didn't say.

"Protect you from what, though?" Han asked. "It seems like a lot of secrecy for two infants, if you ask me."

Leia was on the same track. "People don't form conspiracies for no good reason, Luke. We were separated and hidden. That is an extreme reaction to something."

As Han and Leia spoke in quiet whispers, Luke, gnawing on that insight, tried to glean more information from the scraps they'd been fed. But his brain was a constantly-winding circle, returning back to the most interesting information he had heard from the call, the one piece of the puzzle that satisfied a hunger he hadn't been able to satiate since Ben had died.

General Skywalker, he thought over and over, like a mental refrain.

General Skywalker.

—0—

The quiet stillness of the night on Echo Base found Han and Leia dreading the morning, and doing everything they could to forget what it would bring. Ensconced in her assigned bunkroom, with the door locked, they whispered easy things to each other, tried to be hopeful, even though their efforts were in vain. Reality existed outside of their private bubble, a bubble that was about to be rather violently burst.

Pressing his groan into the sweat-salt skin of her shoulder, Han felt the air leave his lungs in one short exhale, his lips finding hers again through the rampaged coronet of hair he'd destroyed just thirty minutes ago. Her hips pressed back against his and he felt her shudder around him, pulling him deeper and deeper into the moment, as if he wasn't already totally consumed.

"Leia," he bit out with a breath that just wouldn't come fast enough.

She turned her head to his and he caught a flash of heated brown eyes and a bottom lip that had clearly been bitten. Had he done that or had she? He couldn't remember and didn't have the cognitive space to wonder for long. This experience was swallowing him whole. His chest tore wide open, bringing her small body into his as much as he was driving into hers, and it was good, so good, how could it still be this good after months and months…?

"Touch me—" she said, and he hurried to comply even before she finished her request, demand, whatever it was.

Reaching around her waist, he dipped his fingers close to where they were joined, sensitive fingers sweeping over hidden skin. A strangled yes fell from her lips and he knew he was lost. Lost in what they were doing, yes, but lost in a whole other sense, too. Lost because he swore he could feel her breaths against his lips and the stutter of her heart through his chest.

"Are you—fuck," he cried, cut off by his own deep thrust. "Close? Are you?"

He couldn't tell. It was like a thread he'd lost in the dark, in the complete obliteration of this moment with her. Being completely enveloped in her, in her, in the center of his entire universe, he couldn't tell what was a contraction against his cock and what was movement. This position wasn't one for softness; this was as close to fucking as they ever got and, god, it was good—it was so good—that he was afraid he'd never find that thread again.

She hummed and tilted her head down, her hair hanging around her like a curtain as she dropped to her elbows. "Yes. Close. Harder, Han."

He grit his teeth and rose up onto his knees, holding her hips in his hands as he moved faster, faster, the whole galaxy spinning as she started to pant his name, as the air turned thick and his words turned to moans.

"Leia," he said but it was like a curse, because this was going to end and he wanted it to end, wanted to come but fuck, when would he feel this again with her?

I don't want to leave, he whispered, but had he said it out loud? He didn't know. I don't want to go. I don't want to leave.

The pace was unsustainable now, a ricochet of thrusts and counter-thrusts, the line pulled so tight that he abandoned any sense and threw himself whole into the finality of it. Fuck it. This wasn't an end, he was coming back. This wasn't an end…

Her climax pulled him with her, cracking his bones apart, boiling the marrow within. There was no Han, no Leia, no Alliance or Empire. The cosmos existed for just this one reason, this culmination of hard histories and shared losses because here, right now, was this, with her. How could anything else ever mean more than this moment?

When he finally opened his eyes, he was lying on his side facing her. Boneless, she lay facing the opposite direction from him, breathing hard in large gasps, but even that was too far away for him and he draped around her like a cloak, knees crooked behind hers, nose in her hair.

"Don't wanna go," he murmured again, safe in his afterglow, safe because she wasn't looking at him and he couldn't have admitted such a thought if she had. He was no deserter, not to the good guys, not anymore, but damn it. He just didn't want to go.

"I don't want you to go, either."

She pressed her hand above his, interlaced their fingers over the skin of her slick stomach, and weighed down with sleep, his eyes fell closed. With that dark thought brought to life—exposed to her—he felt drowsy, called to sleep by exhaustion and dread for the day ahead.

The alarm was set. Lift-off was at 0600, four hours from now. He should have been sleeping this whole time but...

I don't want to go.

And it was like she heard him. She turned in his arms and there she was—shrewd and brutal—looking at him as if she wasn't at all surprised to see him conflicted.

"A week," she whispered. "And then you'll be back."

He swallowed, tried a cocky affect, failed miserably. "Don't go messing around with the whole base while I'm gone."

"I'll do my best."

He smiled sadly. Her fidelity wasn't his real fear: his faith in Leia was absolute. And he believed in what he was doing, too. He knew it was important. He'd done this work a million times as a contractor to the Alliance.

It was more that—

"Got a lot to lose if I fuck up," he admitted.

And the menagerie of fears he had held at bay stampeded through him. Thoughts of all shapes and sizes. Ways to die. Ways to get caught. Ways to lose her.

It was like a storm of a completely different nature than the blissful one he'd just weathered with her. Horrible images assaulted him, fears he'd never really acknowledged to himself until now. If the Empire attacked and he wasn't here…

If Vader found her when he was away...

The last time had been harrowing, catching her unawares, vulnerable in the throes of her nightmares. And while he couldn't hope to ever fathom whatever it was Luke and Leia knew about the universe, he had been able to protect them when they had needed him most. The thought of leaving her defenseless was at the core of his worry. Not jealousy or even the thought of missing her.

It was her very safety that stopped him cold. Just about the only thing in the galaxy that did, anymore.

She looked at him, brown eyes running over his features in quick flits, like she was trying to memorize his face. She didn't try to put him at ease, didn't offer platitudes to comfort him. They knew what they were doing here, starting a once-in-a-lifetime relationship in the middle of a war. There was very little chance of this ending well for them both, and he doubted they would live to see the Alliance win, if it did indeed win. Still, the stakes seemed much higher when he wasn't here to fall with her.

Her eyes settled on his. "And you wonder why I resisted this for so long."

He blinked at her words, taken aback by her forthrightness. Had she had always felt this way? Like she was on the edge, one step away from tumbling into the abyss?

Of course she had.

"I'm coming back," he said, and now there was strength behind his words.

She smiled, pulling him down so she could kiss his forehead. "You're coming back."

—0—

Oh, but he was handsome and confident and full of cocky energy as he walked up that ramp.

Leia hid her fond smile behind a mask of careful neutrality even as she touched the healing tear on her lower lip. She'd bitten it raw late last night—early this morning?—when he had escalated the tension between them by flipping her onto her hands and knees. Something about his sudden shift, the way he took control as he entered her in one quick thrust, a harsh breath in her ear and his work-roughened fingers on her hips...

Are you going to help? Chewie asked, drawing her out of her reverie.

"I was told to stay here," she answered him. "Quite firmly, in fact."

Chewie gave her a questioning look and she nodded toward Salla, loading the Starlight Intruder's main hold.

"You move, you die, Highness," the former smuggler shouted. "I'm in a hurry and you're distracting my commanding officer."

You are hurried for the same reason that Cub is distracted, Chewie offered.

Leia smiled. "He has a point, you know."

Salla huffed and turned back to load the last of the empty crates without further comment. Still smiling to herself, Leia pushed off the crate she was sitting on, seeing that it was the last to be loaded into the Falcon. As Chewie bent to pick it up, she wrapped a hand around his forearm.

"Keep him out of trouble," she murmured.

Chewie blinked at her, blue eyes confused. Of course, he growled. I always do. Please stay out of harm's way, too.

"I am never in harm's way."

You were born in harm's way, Little Princess.

"Oh, hush." Leia cocked an eyebrow but let the comment slide. "You think you are way funnier than you actually are."

Chewie whuffed a quiet laugh. I know, he said and his voice was very low, as if sharing a secret.

"Are you two going to kiss and make up?" she asked around her smile.

The tension between Han and Chewie hadn't been real, or at least not entirely real. She suspected the crux of the problem was the same as the one between herself and Luke; the relationship between man and Wookiee had changed, and how would they proceed in this new dynamic?

Chewie hadn't seemed bothered by his lack of time with Han, but Leia could tell that it had crossed Han's mind. And while she lamented that they were leaving Hoth on this first supply run, she was happy that captain and first mate would have some time alone together, to do whatever it was they did that made them the idiosyncratic pair they were.

There is no genuine friction, Chewie replied, too low for anyone else to hear. But I like to tease Cub.

She smiled, fell in love with the Wookiee even more than she already had.

"Then be my guest," she said.

He flashed his grin and lumbered away as Salla sealed her hold and Leia was left with her final farewell, watching the line of Han's body as he strolled down the ramp. Her heart squeezed and she let the emotion flow through her, working as always to dip her feet into the abyss Luke seemed naturally destined to embrace. What did she feel? She felt pride for Han, confidence in his abilities. Fear, too, because he was going into Hutt Space and that was always a risk.

What was noticeably different from similar scenes in their past was a very real feeling of assuredness that given any possible vector of escape, he would come back. There was no real certainty—this was war, after all; nobody was truly safe—but if it were up to Han Solo, he would return. And that was new. That was the solace she needed.

"Thanks for the help," he said, drawing up to where she stood, sarcastic even now in what should have been a sweet moment.

She held up her hands in a mimicry of him. "I was told to stay put. So I stayed put."

"Salla ain't so tough."

"Yes, she is," Leia said. "Make sure you listen to her."

Rolling his eyes, he stepped into her space and slid his hands around her waist.

"She knows Prisht better than you do."

Han tilted his head to the side, questioning the veracity of her words, even as he leaned down to kiss her.

She dodged his lips with a jerk of her chin, glaring at him reproachfully. "And we need this contract, Han. I need you to—"

"Leia," he said. "Shut up."

She shook her head but he caught her lips, the words stolen from her with all the finesse of an avalanche. Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and treasured the moment. She didn't need a long, drawn-out scene here; they had said their goodbyes much earlier this morning in the privacy of her bunkroom, and so he kept it hard but tame, hands quiet on her hips, well aware that she wasn't entirely comfortable with excessive displays of physical affection in front of the entire loading dock.

"Go," she whispered and pushed him away.

He grinned his boyish, white grin and stepped back. "You looked like you could use a good kiss."

"Go," she repeated, an order this time but framed around her exasperated smile.

He winked and turned, sauntering up the ramp and Leia watched him until he was out of sight, as the boarding ramp closed behind him, as the Falcon hissed and hummed her start-up sequence. She felt the pressure in her chest increase as both ships rose from the deck and flew away into the snowy atmosphere of Hoth, exhaustion sweeping through her like the frozen winds outside.

Work. Work was what she needed.

Winding through the long corridors, she moved slowly and touched her torn lip every now and then until she reached her office and allowed herself to collapse in her chair. Physical exhaustion was part of it, certainly, but she suspected this was something a little more nuanced than a simple poor night's sleep. She wasn't upset, not yet. She hadn't even really had time to miss him yet.

A younger Leia might have told herself to just pull it together. This Leia, however, was trying to allow herself those emotions and there was no shame in worrying that Han might run into danger on Nar Shaddaa. She also knew that he had two companions that would do everything in their power to keep him safe.

So she allowed herself to feel the pressure. To feel the exhaustion. To feel like disturbed earth in a freshly-planted garden: not a character flaw but a current state of being. In the quiet of her office she lasted about two minutes before she felt the need to move again, focus on something else.

Emotional stability must be like a muscle. She might have to work at it a little.

She checked scouting rosters. She stared at the requisitions list. She poured through intelligence reports. And when all that was done, she opened the Alliance's data network search function and typed General Skywalker into the field.

The name had haunted her since her conversation with Mon Mothma yesterday. She had pushed away its implications, knowing that what she wanted the most was for Han to feel loved and cherished before he left, but the idea of that name was written in invisible ink all over her thoughts.

On the screen nothing showed up under search results.

Oh, and that brought with it fresh emotions. A tremor swept through her, beginning at her fingertips and rising to her hands, arms, chest, then plunging down to her stomach, where it coalesced into a churning mess of anxiety and anger. She tried to sift through it and put names to the roiling pit, because if she could identify it, she could find a way to fight it.

Anger. Easy enough emotion to identify. The few times she had asked her parents about her biological heritage, they had demurred politely and moved the conversation to other topics. She was enraged at the bald-faced lies that they had told her. Lying by omission was still lying, and she had deserved better than that.

Helplessness, yes. She didn't like not having control, didn't like that it seemed she never had any sway over the currents that moved the pieces of her life around. She felt like one of Chewie's holographic dejarik pieces: just move her where you needed her to be. A Jedi youngling, for a later time.

Fear, too. The faint scent of conspiracy bothered her, the way there had been not one, not two, but three people who were tasked to reunite Luke and Leia at some defined point in the future. She knew, within this rushing swirl of emotion, that there was an element to this story that had not been revealed yet.

General Skywalker.

The words blinked on her holo terminal as she stared right through it, lost in thought.

General Skywalker.


Author's Note: The next chapter of Specter will drop Thursday, October 1st. I hope you are able to enjoy the coming of autumn and the chill in the air as we transition out of this hellish summer. Special thanks to my partner-in-crime, the esteemed AmongstEmeraldClouds. And, too, thank you to all our reviewers. We are always so excited to share them with each other after the hours of discussion and work we put into each chapter. -KR