Leia pounded onto the Falcon, hitting the control to shut the ramp. "I'm on! Go!" she shouted. She tossed her pack aside and hurried to the nearest acceleration couch, distracting herself from the pain radiating from her shoulder by strapping herself in for the flight to the next moon.

She had been shot and hadn't told the others. The wound wasn't serious — or, it hadn't been two days prior when she had last changed clothing. There had barely been any blood, and Leia suspected it was more of a graze burn than an actual blaster wound, though she hadn't asked anyone to verify.

By the time she felt the distinct sensation of the ship leaving the atmosphere in order to move on to the next moon, Leia's breathing had slowed to almost normal. Rory and Einara were strapped in across from her, both also close to catching their breath. Leia shot them a weak smile, suppressing the frustration she felt with the way the entire mission had turned out.

The uneasy feeling she had had when they landed had either been an indication of something or a wild coincidence. They had been spotted by stormtroopers twice — once two days before when Leia had been shot, and once on their way out. None of them had slept in two days, and they had managed to find very little information about the area aside from the fact that it was apparently crawling with Imperial soldiers about five klicks from where they had landed.

The Falcon seemed to take forever to land on the next moon, and Leia wondered if Han had decided to fly longer than necessary to throw anyone that might be following them off. She knew which moon he had planned to hop to next — Malla - 4 — and it wasn't far from the pink-grass-covered and apparently Imperial-infested moon he had dubbed Jaina - 12. The flight shouldn't take long.

After nearly an hour in space, Leia's shoulder burned, insistent that it be examined. When she felt the ship finally touch down, she glanced at Rory and Einara again before releasing her crash webbing and walking toward the cockpit. She ran into Han in the corridor, his worried expression lightening considerably once he saw her.

"Hey, was wonderin' why you weren't in your spot," he said with a small smile.

"We needed to go and I didn't want to move if we were just hopping a few moons over," she said simply. She placed her hand on his forearm, steadying trembling fingers with the contact. "Where's the med kit?"

Han jerked his head toward the cockpit. "Phibs is up front—"

Leia shook her head vigorously. "Not Naj. Your kit. Can you bring it to your cabin? I need help with something."

His brow furrowed, and Leia had the vague thought that she might be in for a lecture once he saw. Too late to worry about that now. She barely waited for Han's agreement before hurrying to his cabin.

Han entered the cabin carrying the battered med kit and Leia slapped the panel to shut the door. She began to unfasten the closures on her shirt, pushing through the heat pulsing through her shoulder with every movement.

"Leia, what the hell—" Han sounded bewildered, which Leia considered was a fair reaction to someone asking for a medical kit and promptly stripping clothing off in his cabin with no explanation or warning.

She pulled her shirt off, leaving only her support tank behind. "I got shot."

"What?!"

"Or…Ah, I think it was a graze. I didn't…I just need you to look at it, maybe slap some patches on it."

Han shook his head and moved toward the door. "I'm gettin' Phibs—"

Panic surged through Leia. "No!" Han jerked to a halt and looked at her, concern evident on his face. She shook her head. "Han, please, I don't—They can't see me like this. Please."

"Like what?" She shook her head again. "Leia, if you need medical—"

"It's only a graze," she assured him, desperation seeping into her voice despite her attempts to sound calm. "Please look. I think it just needs bacta."

Han sighed and walked close to her, taking her by the shoulders and turning her so her back was illuminated by the cabin lights. She felt him move the strap of her top, pain shooting through her shoulder as he peeled fabric from the sticky wound. "This is really infected. When'd you get it?"

She bit her lip. "Two days ago."

He inhaled deeply and Leia heard him utter a string of Corellian oaths under his breath. "Why didn't Phibs treat this right away?"

"She doesn't know. No one knows."

"Kriffin' hells, Leia!" Han exclaimed. She flinched. He spun her around to face him, eyes wild. "What were you thinking?"

Leia felt tears threaten to spill onto her cheeks. She was too tired to hold them back. She closed her eyes, chin trembling. "The scars, Han," she whispered.

His voice softened. "Sweetheart, no one cares about those."

She shook her head frantically, mind spinning away and getting nowhere. I'm just so tired. "They're bad. They're so—"

"Naj ain't gonna be concerned about old wounds when you have a burn that's oozing pus."

Leia exhaled a shuddery breath and shook her head. "Please just—There's nothing I can do about it now. I just need bacta on it and I can't reach the right spot. I already tried to clean it myself when it happened, and look where that got me."

Han pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. "You have a fever," he said flatly. "Lay down. I'm gettin' Naj."

"Han, please—"

"Leia," Han said, clearly fighting to remain calm. He looked her in the eye. "Only Naj. No one else."

She sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes with her palm. She nodded. "Only Naj," she agreed, sitting on his bunk. Han left.

Naj entered the cabin briskly and shut the door. She set the large med kit next to the bunk and looked Leia in the eye. "You were shot and you didn't say anything?"

"It's a graze," Leia said, though she was starting to wonder if that was true. "Bolt slipped between my shoulder and pack and burned me. It shouldn't be serious."

"When?"

"First time we ran into stormtroopers."

Naj huffed and shook her head, a stony expression on her face. "Turn around."

Leia turned so she was facing the bulkhead next to Han's bunk. She stared numbly at the familiar notes, noting a few new ones to distract herself. There was an entire list that she didn't recall being there months prior, all in Corellian and thus unreadable to her, except for one word — kebroot, which was a tuber native to Alderaan that wouldn't, Leia imagined, have a Corellian translation. Why does Han need kebroots? she wondered. They weren't a particularly popular food outside of Alderaanian cuisine. The last time Leia ate them would have been during the last New Year Fete Week she spent at home. She had rarely even seen them on Coruscant — only the few times she had ventured into a speciality shop specifically selling Alderaanian goods.

Her pondering was interrupted by Naj, who had been examining Leia's wound by pulling her tank top strap to the side. "I need you to take your shirt off."

Leia froze. "Do I have to?"

"If you want this treated properly, yes."

Resigned, Leia closed her eyes, willing the cool and calm mask that had served her so well on outposts to snap into place. She sighed and tugged at the bottom of her tank top, pulling it over her head. As soon as it was off, Naj dropped Leia's shirt, which she had apparently grabbed from the cabin floor, in her lap. Leia looked at her quizzically and saw that Naj was averting her eyes.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Leia asked. Naj had just said she needed her shirt off.

"If you put it on backward, you can at least keep your front covered while I get you fixed up. I…I just thought you'd want to stay as covered as possible since you usually…" Naj shrugged. "It's up to you."

The gesture was somewhat misguided, but so kind and thoughtful that Leia wanted to hug Naj. She slid her arms into the shirt, pressing the back of the piece to her chest. "Thank you," she said, surprised by just how relieved she felt to be able to at least control how much of her chest and stomach were exposed to the air.

Leia knew the moment Naj took in the scars in their entirety. She had been moving about, busy pulling items from the med kit when she suddenly froze. There was no whispered Oh, but her stillness was as loud as any verbalized shock.

"These are all from one interrogation?" she asked quietly. Then, as if realizing she had said out loud thoughts intended to remain thoughts, she rushed forward with, "I'm sorry. You don't need to answer that. I didn't mean—" Naj broke off, apparently realizing that no words would improve the situation. Leia felt the cool sting of antiseptic on the blaster wound as Naj busied herself with the task she had entered the cabin to perform.

Cleaning the wound took more time than Leia expected it to, and her assertion that it had been a simple graze began to seem less and less probably. The pain was deep and burning and flared through her entire back. Leia pressed her thumbnail into the skin above her collarbone just to have something else to focus on. When Naj finally smoothed a bacta patch over the spot, she let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.

"You do feel warm," Naj said, finally breaking the silence. She handed Leia her tank top. "I'd like to run a scan and see what the cause might be if that's okay."

"Of course," Leia said numbly, dropping the open shirt and pulling the support tank on hastily. What was a med scan when her teammate had already seen everything she tried to keep secret?

She hardly reacted as Naj placed the sensors, didn't react at all when the familiar beeps of the portable med scanner filled the cabin. She stared at the writing on the bulkhead, catching a glimpse of her own handwriting in a corner, uncovered and unchanged, still holding the princess two days away from breaking nearly a year and a half later

One final beep and the scanner gave its verdict. "You need an antibiotic," Naj said, removing the scanner sensors and digging through the kit again.

The sound of packaging being opened sent waves of alarm through Leia's body. She turned abruptly. One look at the syringe Naj extracted from a package and the alarm turned into full-on panic.

"I don't do the shot," Leia said, her voice tight. "I take tablets if I need antibiotics."

Naj looked at her, confusion clear on her face. "We don't carry tablets, Leia. Too much risk of someone missing a dose in the field."

Keeping her tone quiet and even was a struggle, but Leia mostly managed. "I can wait until we're back on Home One, then."

"We're most likely not heading that way for weeks. You have the beginnings of a blood infection. You'll be septic by the time we make it off this moon."

"I don't do shots," Leia said, her voice sounding very, very far away. She felt…not quite in her body, not quite out of it, but she knew she was beginning to breathe very quickly.

"Ever?" Naj asked in disbelief. "Didn't you have inoculations when you joined?"

Leia shook her head before correcting herself with a nod. "I-I did, but it-it didn't go well."

"But you survived. You were okay. This'll be just like that." Naj pulled out a vial of clear liquid and flipped it as she spoke, pressing the needle of the syringe into the container to draw some of the medicine out.

Leia shook her head again and, without entirely realizing she had moved, had her back pressed to the corner of the bunk, thighs raised to her chest, the feeling of cool durasteel against her shoulders and neck far from comforting. Her body trembled, though she felt oddly separated from the sensation, her mind rushing to find a way out.

Get away, get away, get away.

"Please," she heard herself whimper pathetically. "Please. Please don't."

Naj paused, staring at Leia. She capped the syringe carefully.

Leia wanted to shut up, wanted to stop talking, but she heard herself repeat, "Please. Please don't. Please," choking on the words in desperation. She felt her body rock from side to side, fingernails digging into the back of her neck, and she could do nothing to stop the pitiful display.

Get away, get away, get away.

"Do you want me to go get Solo or Chewbacca?" Naj offered, sounding far more calm than she should.

Leia felt herself nod even as she continued to rock from side to side. She blinked and Han was in the cabin, concern evident in his furrowed brow. He said something to Naj, Naj said something back, and Leia caught none of it until he sat on the edge of the bunk.

"Hey, Worship," he said, the touch of levity in his voice forced. "Talk to me. What's goin' on?"

She barely processed what he asked. As soon as she saw him sit, all she could think was, Safe. Han is safe.

Leia launched herself into his arms, a raspy, dry sob shaking her body. Safe. Han is safe.

He patted her back awkwardly a moment before clearing his throat. "Leia, Naj is right; you're gonna need a shot."

Leia shook her head, face buried in his shoulder. "Please don't," she begged, voice shaking.

"How many does she need?" Han asked quietly.

"Just the one," Naj answered.

"Princess?" When it became evident that Han was waiting for her to respond before continuing, Leia lifted her head slightly and looked at him, eyes pleading. He brushed his hand gently over her braids. "How many times did they stick ya before?"

Leia felt her face crumple slightly and expected tears, but none came. "I don't know," she whispered. "Dozens and dozens."

"And where'd they stick you?"

"My back. All down my spine." Why is he asking? He knows. He's seen…

"Okay, this one? It's just one stick. It's gonna be in your arm."

Panic. Quick breaths. Ice in her veins. Leia shook her head, tears finally making their appearance. "No, Han, please." She pressed her face to his shoulder again. Safe. Please be safe, Han.

"We're on the Falcon," he soothed softly. "This ain't the same as it was back there." He paused, seemed to shift focus to Naj. "We know where the nearest med frigate is?"

What? Is he thinking of abandoning the mission? We've come too far to quit now. We need a fueling station. We need a spot for refugees. What is he—

Naj seemed unbothered by the inquiry. "We can find out, but unless it's less than a couple of days' travel—"

Leia lifted her head and sat back in one quick movement, separating herself from Han. She stared at him and Naj with wide eyes, irritation momentarily overriding fear. "We're not abandoning the mission for this," she snapped. "It's far too important."

"Well, I'm not flyin' around with your corpse in a smuggling compartment for the next few weeks, so if you're gonna go septic, it needs to happen somewhere else," Han said.

Leia blinked rapidly. "You'd put me in a smuggling compartment?" she asked indignantly, appalled at the thought of being crammed in one of the tiny spaces, corpse or not.

"We'll need someplace outta the way where the smell won't bother people, so what do you suggest?"

The solution was obvious, and he was being intentionally obtuse, she was certain. She gestured vaguely to the cabin door. "Turn on the refrigeration in Hold Two!"

Han sounded incredulous. "You want us spending the energy to cool down an entire hold just to keep you in pristine condition?" He shook his head. "We'll be cuttin' the mission short so we don't run out of fuel, then."

Leia pointed a shaky finger at Han. "I will haunt this ship for the rest of time if you store me in a smuggling compartment."

"Or," Naj interjected, obviously annoyed, "just throwing this out there: you can take the shot and not go septic, thereby removing the necessity to store your body anywhere."

The frank reminder of what they were actually discussing crashed over Leia like a tidal wave. She shook her head, mind stuttering and chest constricting.

"You dying ain't gonna help the Alliance any," Han said after a long moment of quiet.

Leia set her jaw. He was fighting dirty, using the Alliance like that when he knew she'd do just about anything… And if he didn't happen to be right, she would've immediately rejected what he said. But, he wasn't wrong. The Alliance, the Alliance was so important, and she wanted to see it succeed. She knew she likely would die before the end of the war, knew her time was as limited as everyone else's, but she didn't need to speed up that inevitability.

She could do it. For the Alliance, she could do it.

Leia took a deep, shuddery breath. "Okay," she said softly, nodding.

"Okay?" he asked.

"I don't want to watch," she said, leaning against Han again, her face buried in his shirt.

He slid his arms around her. "Don't need to. You stay right here. I'll tell ya when it's over."

She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut, focusing her attention on the rise and fall of Han's chest. The intrusion of the needle was brief, but it caused her body to tremble again, and Leia found herself repeating, Just one stick. Han said just one stick, in her mind.

Han tightened his embrace momentarily before releasing her. "Done," he said.

Leia didn't move, her mind a jumble of Safe. Han is safe. and Just one stick. Han said just one stick. and the distinct urge to shriek at the top of her lungs.

He pushed on her shoulder gently, just enough that she was forced away from his chest. She could feel him staring at her. "All right?" he asked tentatively.

Leia nodded twice before collapsing against him again, tears in her eyes.

It took…she actually wasn't sure how long it took for her to start feeling mostly in her body again. By the time she stopped trembling, she was holding a glass of water, unsure from where it had materialized. At some point, she had told Han it was okay to let her go, and though he was nearby, they were no longer touching. Naj wasn't in the room at all. Leia sipped the water, exhaustion causing her limbs and head to feel heavy, heavy, heavy.

Chewie entered the cabin holding a small mug, the yellow one Leia often chose. [Princess, I have your tea.]

My tea? She had requested tea? Leia didn't recall. All the words said and things done and movements made since she first saw the syringe jumbled together in her mind, making a cohesive narrative difficult to parse out.

Leia traded her water glass for the mug and inhaled the scent of the earthy herbal concoction. After she had a few sips, Han sat next to her on the bunk.

"Hey," he said. "Everyone said they're gonna get some sleep soon. Sounds like you had a hell of a time out there."

She nodded numbly. Two days. It had been over two days since any of them had slept.

"You can sleep in here if ya want some quiet," Han continued.

Leia shook her head before clearing her throat and speaking in stilted sentences. "No. Ah, thank you. For the offer. But I'll sleep in my bunk." She had already exposed a mortifying weakness; she didn't want special treatment on top of that. She could sleep in her bunk.

Chewie bent at the knees to look at Leia. He tilted his head and warbled softly. [Do you need anything else?]

Leia shook her head. "No, I'm—I'll be fine." She sipped her tea. "I'm sorry. This is…dramatic."

[They hurt you very badly,] Chewie said. [Your reaction is understandable.]

"Hey," Han said quietly, touching her elbow. Leia looked him in the eye. "You got nothin' to apologize for."

She didn't acknowledge the assurance verbally, but nodded and swallowed some tea. Leia stared into the mug. Her body had traded shaking for chills, an ache slowly creeping through her skull as her eyelids felt heavier and heavier. "I should go to bed," she said faintly.

[That seems like a good idea.]

"Think that'd be good, yeah," Han said. "Sure you don't wanna crash in here?"

She shook her head, causing the cabin to spin for a split second. She stopped moving her head abruptly and drank more tea. "You're being too nice to me."

He raised his eyebrows, a small smirk on his lips. "Too nice?"

Leia nodded vigorously, her speech slightly loose with exhaustion. "I did something really stupid and I had to use up medicine we could've used on someone else and I had a mortifying meltdown and probably got snot on your shirt and you're being nice to me. It's unnatural. I would be pissed at me."

"I did say I planned to store your corpse in a smuggling compartment, so we might be even."

[You said what?!] Chewie growled.

"Don't worry about it," Han said flippantly, waving the Wookiee off. He looked at Leia. "Look, you're upset and sick and exhausted. What good would chewin' you out right now do?"

She scrubbed at her eye roughly with the palm of her hand and shrugged.

"Exactly. Tell ya what: if your fever's gone in the morning, I'll yell at you all ya want."

Leia let out a laugh at the sheer absurdity of the conversation and nodded, sniffing. "Yeah, okay. Deal."


The antibiotic did its job. Leia felt no chills in her body or ache in her head upon waking, and another run of the med scanner showed that infection was no longer a concern. She wasn't running at one-hundred-percent capacity, but she thought she might be at ninety-percent, which was, frankly, better than a fair few of her days post-Yavin.

The pathfinders left to explore the new moon in pairs, intending to cover the area in three different directions and meet up around dusk so they could camp for the night and repeat the process for a few days until they had a decent grasp on the surrounding area and any potential issues they might have with building a fueling station on the moon. Leia set out with Einara, packs laden with every supply they could possibly need.

Despite there being what appeared to be klicks of forest behind them and far, far ahead of them, the landscape directly in front of them was nearly barren, almost desert-like minus the sand and plus a surplus of red rock formations, and Leia wondered if it was anything like Tatooine. The thought caused the distinct and familiar feeling of homesickness to wash over her, and she found herself wondering if it was possible to be homesick for a person. She liked the pathfinders, but she still missed Luke, she missed Wedge and Shara and Carlist. She hadn't been able to talk with Luke in a month, Shara and Wedge even longer. The work she was doing was important and exciting, but she still longed to see the outpost crew than she had grown to care for.

At least Han and Chewie are here, she thought. She wasn't entirely sure how she would be faring if they hadn't decided to take this assignment.

Einara walked with purpose and Leia walked slightly behind her, keeping an eye out for anything of interest. The weather was warm, though not unpleasantly hot, which told Leia that this moon was likely not like Tatooine. If there was one thing Luke and Han and Chewie all brought up more than anything else when speaking of the planet, it was the heat.

Stopping abruptly and holding a scope to her eyes, Einara looked at something in the distance. "Think there's a settlement a few klicks ahead," she said.

Leia raised her own scope and saw what appeared to be buildings rising out of the red rock. She couldn't make out any beings from where they stood, but she hoped the town wasn't full of Imperial soldiers like the first moon had been.

Shifting the strap on her bag slightly to remove some pressure from her healing wound, Leia eyed Einara as they walked, leftover guilt from the day before ever-present in her mind and gut. Naj and Han had been right to be upset with her; she would have been furious with anyone else who had put themselves and the mission at risk like she had, and for such trivial reasons. Revealing her scarring still didn't feel trivial to Leia, but if she got out of her head and looked at the big picture, it really wasn't a big deal. Or, it shouldn't be.

It wasn't the scars themselves that bothered her, anyway. Well, that wasn't exactly true; she wasn't supposed to be so vain as to care about the scars themselves, but their ugliness and abnormality bothered her, as did the pity in the eyes of the majority of people who had seen them. Even more than that, she had realized, it was the conversations surrounding them that she feared. Would her teammates ask questions if they saw them? Would those questions shove her mind back into that cell? And did avoiding those questions even matter if her attempts to do so landed her whimpering pathetically in fear of a single injection?

"I might need your help later," Leia said to Einara as they trekked forward, stomach churning as the words left her mouth.

"Sure," Einara said, and Leia couldn't help but note how readily she agreed when she didn't even know what she was being asked to help with. "With what?"

"I…" Leia faltered, unsure of how to drop the information. Just saying it seemed too casual. She pushed forward anyway. "I got shot a few days ago and it got infected. Naj treated it last night and the infection's mostly cleared, but depending on how long it takes us to reach camp, I may need help changing the patch."

Einara didn't seem shocked by the information. "Of course."

Leia arched a brow in her direction. "She told you?"

Einara shrugged. "She didn't want to. She doesn't share medical information if she doesn't have to. She was worried you wouldn't say anything and didn't want me to be surprised if something happened out here."

Leia nodded, cheeks flushing in shame. "Understandable given my actions over the past few days," she murmured.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Einara asked, her tone suddenly tinged with frustration. "Do you not trust us or something?"

Leia wasn't sure how to answer. She did trust them as her teammates — she trusted all of them to work hard and do their best in any given situation, to support one another when they were able. But teammate trust and revealing scars trust were in entirely different categories. They weren't supposed to have to cross over one another.

"If you have to help me, you should know I have a shocking amount of scarring on my back leftover from my interrogation a year and a half ago," she said, fighting to keep her voice unaffected. "It is, I have gathered, somewhat disturbing to look at."

Leia stared straight ahead, but she could feel Einara's eyes boring into her. "Who the hell cares, Organa?"

She wasn't sure how she had expected Einara to react, but Who the hell cares, Organa? had not occurred to Leia as a possibility. "They surprised Naj is all I'm saying. I don't—I don't let people see them usually. Even in the med center, I—I try to keep them covered." She bit her lip. She had intended to assure Einara that she trusted the pathfinders, that she trusted her, but she kept talking about the scars instead, and it almost felt like the same thing.

Einara did not think it was the same thing, apparently. "This is going to sound harsh, but if you can't trust us in the field, you're a liability. We work as a team, period. You knew that when you agreed to come on board."

She was correct: it did sound harsh. And Leia knew she deserved every word of it. "I do trust you, Einara. All of you."

"I suggest you start acting like it."

Leia nodded, pride feeling a bit bruised. Despite her discomfort, she took Einara's words to heart: she wasn't acting like she trusted her own teammates, she was a liability as a result. She needed to fix that immediately.

They had walked a couple of klicks in total when Leia heard Einara cry out in pain and saw her drop to the ground. Without taking a second to think, Leia dropped to her belly and pulled her blaster, quickly checking her surroundings for someone with a weapon. There was no sign of anyone.

She looked at Einara. The Twi'lek sat on the ground, boot off, holding her ankle. She didn't appear to be bleeding, and Leia realized that she had misread the situation. She pushed herself off the ground, dusting off her fatigues, and approached Einara.

"Are you okay?"

Einara scowled at her ankle momentarily, wiping a stray tear from her face, before looking at Leia. "Stepped in a snake hole, I think. It's…" She lifted her hand. Her blue skin was mottled with purple and had already swollen a concerning amount.

"That is definitely sprained," Leia said.

"I think it might be broken."

Leia nodded. It was hard to tell from the outside, but she believed Einara. She dropped to her knees and hauled her pack off her back, digging through a pocket for her first aid kit. Their kits were very basic. Naj, as the team's medic, was usually the only one who had more advanced medical supplies in her pack. "I don't have a scanner or bone knitters with me," Leia said. She located a rolled bandage and wrapped Einara's ankle quickly, hoping to prevent more swelling. "Do you think you can make it back to the Falcon?"

"With help, maybe."

Leia helped Einara slide her boot over her wrapped foot and ankle and tightened the laces just enough that it would stay on. She pulled her pack back onto her back and helped the Twi'lek to her feet. Einara winced and leaned on Leia, placing as little weight as possible on her injured ankle, and they began the short-but-slow trip back to the ship.

It took much longer to get back than it had taken them to travel as far as they had. Leia's shoulder still ached from the blaster burn, and the awkward way Einara had to lean on her while they both wore sizable camping packs forced pressure on the healing injury. When the Falcon was once again within their field of vision, she felt somewhat relieved. That relief tripled once she saw Chewie running straight toward them.

[What happened?]

Leia opened her mouth to answer — most of the pathfinders' understanding of Shyriiwook was improving but still very basic — but Einara beat her to it. "Stepped in a hole. Think I broke my ankle."

Chewie offered to carry Einara onto the ship and she readily accepted, dropping her pack on the ground before he lifted her off her feet. Leia felt relief in her shoulder as soon as Einara transferred her arm and weight to Chewie. She grabbed Einara's pack and followed after Chewie toward the ship.

Han exited the Falcon, glancing around, obviously in search of Chewie. When he saw his copilot carrying Einara with Leia trailing behind, laden with two packs, he jogged toward them.

There was a repeat of the conversation with Chewie — a what happened? followed by a brief explanation. Han took Einara's pack from Leia before she thought to ask for help, and they boarded the ship one after the other.

It didn't take long to run the ship's ancient med scanner and determine that Einara's ankle was broken. Han had bone knitters in the Falcon's stash of medical supplies, and within half an hour, Einara was resting in the med bunk, bone knitters accelerating her healing. It would be a couple of days before she could put weight on the joint, but the break was apparently simple enough that complications were unlikely.

Leia made sure her teammate didn't need anything else before grabbing her pack off the floor of the main hold and pulling it back onto her shoulders. She found Han in the lounge, sipping on a mug of caf. She caught his eye and tilted her head in the direction of the ring corridor. "I'm heading back out," she said.

Han's expression clouded with concern. "By yourself?"

She shrugged. "I don't know what other choice I have," she said. "The others will be waiting. They'll be worried if we don't show up and will waste time looking for us."

"Can't you comm 'em just this once?"

Leia shook her head. The rule was no comms until they could establish that they weren't being listened to. The short-range frequencies they had to rely on when not on a ship with transmission scrambling capabilities were easily picked up with the right equipment. They had tech on outposts that operated similarly to the tech on their ships, but when they were in a new location, the risk was too high.

"It's safer for me to just go. I can handle myself."

"So can Voln, but she wouldn't've made it back here without you helpin' her."

Leia clenched and unclenched her jaw. "My options are kind of limited here, Han," she said tersely. She knew going alone wasn't the best idea, but she was also confident in her ability to move quickly and quietly. Getting out of trouble by herself might be tough, but avoiding it altogether would be easier without another person involved. I'll be fine.

Han ran a hand through his hair, seemingly conflicted over something. He sighed. "Fine, I'll go."

She arched a brow at him curiously. "Okay." She paused a moment. "For the record, I didn't ask you to."

He shot her a disbelieving look. "You were ten seconds away from it."

Leia shook her head, suppressing an amused smile. "I wasn't, actually. You just volunteered all on your own."

Han was speechless for a moment before sighing again. "Look, I don't hafta—"

"No," Leia interrupted. "But you're right; it's probably better than going by myself. Pack up. We need to get moving."

Making up for the time they had lost wouldn't be easy; Leia had resigned herself to the fact that they would likely show up at camp late enough for the others to worry. It's still better than them panicking and wasting time because we didn't show at all, though, she reasoned.

They set off in the direction of the settlement Einara had spotted. "We should at least get close enough to see what's going on there," she told Han. "If the Empire's around, we need to know."

"You wantin' to go into town?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I won't know that until we see what's there. But it wouldn't be a bad idea to get a feel for the purpose of the settlement. It's in the middle of nowhere. I'd like to know why."

Han nodded thoughtfully. "I can't be callin' you Leia in the middle of a crowd if we go in. You got an alias you use for this stuff?"

Leia nodded. "Amidala."

Han raised his eyebrows. "That's a mouthful."

She shrugged. "It's my middle name, and it was kept pretty private for most of my life, so it has no public association with me. It's at least safer for me to use than Leia is."

"How many names you got?" he said, sounding somewhat amused.

"Just the three," she said. "Leia Amidala Organa. Are middle names not common on Corellia?"

Han shrugged. "Dunno."

"I'm guessing you don't have one then?"

He scoffed. "Sweetheart, I don't even know my last name. How the hell would I know if I have a middle name?"

Leia stopped walking, confused. "Your last name isn't Solo?"

Han seemed to realize his mistake as she spoke. He stopped a few steps ahead of her and scratched the back of his neck nervously before shrugging in a clear attempt to appear more unbothered than he felt. "That's the name that was given to me when I enlisted. Guess they needed somethin' to scream at me when they weren't usin' my number."

"You didn't have a last name?"

He shrugged again and looked back at her, eyes betraying how cornered he felt. "Told ya before, my ma died when I was real young. I don't remember what our last name was."

"They didn't tell you what it was or at least give you a new last name?" Leia asked, baffled by the idea. She knew her situation was different than Han's — she had been adopted, after all, and her parents had made it very clear to everyone that she was as much an Organa as any natural-born child would have been — but she assumed that caretakers would still make sure the children they were responsible for had a full name even if they were never adopted.

"Who's they?" Han asked testily.

Leia squinted at him, surprised that what she meant wasn't obvious. "Whoever was responsible for you. Whoever took care of you after she died."

"I took care of me," he snapped, jamming his thumb into his chest.

Leia flinched. She knew so little of Han's life pre-Death-Star, and knew even less about his life pre-smuggling-career. She couldn't rightly say what she thought his childhood had been like. She knew his mother was dead, knew his father had been at the very least uninterested. She knew he had spent some time on the streets in some capacity, though she had assumed that period of his life had been when he was older — a teenager, maybe.

She wasn't sure why she had assumed that.

"Don't," Han said abruptly, yanking Leia out of her own thoughts.

Leia met his gaze. "What?"

"Look at me like that."

"I'm not looking at you in any particular way, Han." She had barely been looking at him at all as she shuffled through a handful of memories of their conversations about his life, trying to recall what she knew for sure about his past. Whatever he saw in her expression, he was projecting.

He began walking toward the settlement again without another word. It took Leia a moment to process his movements and she had to jog a few steps to catch up with him. Han didn't say anything more and Leia hadn't yet determined what the right thing to say was, so they walked at least a klick in silence.

She couldn't tear her mind away from the thought that he didn't know his last name. What age did I learn my full name? She couldn't remember not knowing she was an Organa. Three? Four? Imagining how young Han would have had to have been on his own to not know his family's name left her chest feeling tight.

He swore under his breath and stopped walking, turning abruptly to face her. "You didn't deserve bein' snapped at like that," he said. "Just don't like talkin' about back then is all."

Leia stared at him, lips pursed. "I wasn't trying to force you to talk about anything."

Han swallowed hard and ran a hand through his hair. "I know. I just don't—I know." He looked over her head, obviously avoiding eye contact, and scratched his jaw absently. "Not everyone's adopted into palaces, Princess."

He was still avoiding eye contact, so Leia knew the withering look she shot him was missed entirely. "I think it's safe to argue that the majority of orphans aren't adopted into palaces," she said, her voice tight. "Do you actually think I'm that out of touch?"

The pause before he shook his head would have been insulting if Leia hadn't known it meant he was really thinking through her question. "Guess not. No." He shook his head and finally made eye contact with her. "You don't wanna know about that stuff, anyway," he assured her.

Irritation flared in Leia's chest. "Han, you're my friend," she said cooly. "Of course I want to know." He tensed so much at the statement that she felt compelled to add, "But only if you want to tell me."

It was clear after a beat of silence that he didn't, so she started moving toward the settlement again, Han walking alongside her. Leia wished she found distracting others as easy as he usually seemed to. Han almost always had a story or some absurd observation to move attention away from painful topics; she couldn't think of anything to say that would offer that sort of relief.

Noise from the settlement filtered through the air and Leia listened carefully, attempting to guess what sort of town they had stumbled upon. "You think they have a market?" she asked, glancing up at Han.

He shrugged. "Probably. You need somethin'?"

Leia smiled slightly. "Lunch that isn't ration bars or mystery protein."

"That is an excellent idea, Princess," Han said with a grin. With something new and uncomplicated to focus on, the tension between them seemed to evaporate.

The settlement wasn't large, but it was busy, and Leia wondered how the variety of beings milling about within the town's borders came to be there. There didn't appear to be a dominant species in the groups she saw. Humans didn't outnumber the Rodians or Cereans, and there were a fair number of Twi'leks and Ungrilas and beings wearing armor that covered all identifying features.

"Surprisingly cosmopolitan," Leia murmured.

Han's eyes darted from being to being and Leia could practically feel the tension coiled in his muscles. He opened his mouth as if to speak before apparently thinking better of it. His right hand remained close to his blaster, though not in a way that drew attention to it. Leia felt him rest his left hand on her pack, not touching her body but still maintaining contact. Her heart rate ratcheted up. Han was unnerved and she wasn't sure of the cause.

There was a market. To Leia's relief, the food vendor they chose wasn't particularly chatty, and they received their meals without having to engage in much conversation. They found a spot out of the way of roaming beings to stand and eat, attempting to maintain as low of a profile as possible. Han had fallen about as silent as the food vendor had been, but Leia barely noticed. She was more focused on the roasted bantha skewered together with some sort of purple and yellow vegetables in her hand.

She took a bite of the warm food and closed her eyes in appreciation. "I think I might cry," she said after swallowing the well-seasoned meat.

Han chuckled softly. "I've been tellin' you: you gotta eat real food every once in awhile so you don't forget what it tastes like."

"I'm sorry for ever doubting you," she said before looking at him and adding, "About that particular topic, anyway." Leia took another bite, this time of one of the vegetables. They were equally tasty, and she immediately regretted only ordering enough for lunch. Not that any extra will keep, she thought bitterly.

They ate and watched the people that moved through the settlement. There were far, far more beings in full-body armor than Leia was used to seeing outside of an Imperial-run city, though rather than the uniformity of white stormtrooper armor, the armor these beings wore varied wildly in style, color, and quality.

"We gotta get outta here," Han said as soon as they finished eating.

Leia's alarm from earlier returned. She still wasn't sure why Han was so on-edge, but she trusted it was for good reason. They walked through the settlement, focusing their sights on the border of the town.

"What's going on?" she finally asked once they were out of the hearing distance of most groups of beings.

Han shook his head, though he seemed about to explain when he glanced behind them and suddenly leaned close to Leia's ear. "In a coupla seconds, I'm gonna turn around. You're gonna disappear and run."

Leia resisted looking at him, focusing straight ahead toward the border of the settlement and the wooded area just on the other side of it. They were maybe a minute's walk from being able to hide amongst the trees. "I'm not—"

"I'll meet you at camp," he interrupted, pulling away from her.

She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say anything, she heard a woman shout, "So-lo!" in a sing-song voice.

Han turned abruptly and it took every bit of willpower she possessed for Leia to not turn with him. She kept walking, and barely caught Han's lazy drawl as he said, "Fennec, what a lovely surprise—" before she slipped between two buildings and — hopefully — out of sight of whoever had recognized him.

She ran until the buildings ended, then took a sharp left turn and, briefly looking at her surroundings, dropped back to a brisk walk while focusing solely on the trees in front of her. She was close to being able to cross out of the settlement, close to being able to disappear in the midst of foliage and leaves.

Leia made it across the town border and into the woods before she heard the blaster fire.


It could have been Han's blaster. It could have been any number of blasters. Everyone in the settlement had been carrying one. The four quick shots followed by two more after a few seconds' delay could have been from some altercation halfway across town, and that was what Leia tried to tell herself as she jogged toward the coordinates where the pathfinders had tentatively planned to meet and, if the surroundings were favorable, set up camp.

She had felt out of her depth with Han so on-edge. The settlement hadn't seemed unnerving to her. She hadn't noticed an Imperial presence at all, hadn't noticed anyone recognize her. Han's nerves had distracted her, confused her. He hadn't said what had him worried, hadn't explained anything. It was possible he had spotted whoever had called out to him — had he called her Fennec? — from the get-go, but it seemed odd that he wouldn't have said anything while they ate if that had been the case.

She hadn't fought him on his instructions to disappear and run because she had been rattled, but as soon as she spotted the other pathfinders, doubt that she had done the right thing seeped into her mind. I should have stayed with him, she thought as she approached the campsite. I should have stayed.

Explaining why she was alone — what happened to Einara's ankle, what happened to Han — took more time than she expected it to because she kept having to pause and gather her thoughts, pause and think of the right way to order her words, pause and banish the echoing sound of a blaster firing from her mind over and over again.

After nightfall, she paced on the edge of their camp, doing her best to appear as if she were patrolling, though her movements were just slightly too frenzied to be perceived as normal. Han hadn't shown up. They had eaten dinner, and Han hadn't shown up, and they had made their plans for the next day, and Han hadn't shown up, and those that didn't have night watch had gone to bed, and Han hadn't shown up. Han hadn't shown up and it was her fault.

I should have stayed.

Leia gripped her right forearm with her left hand, fingernails nearly breaking the skin as the sun dipped below the horizon, shrouding the entire camp in darkness. He still hadn't shown. Leia had volunteered for night watch with Jarys — someone needed to take Einara's shift, and she wouldn't be able to sleep anyway,

She was glad Chewie was back at the Falcon; she wasn't sure she could bear the guilt of watching the Wookiee fret over his missing best friend. Then again, Chewie would have gone with him instead of running like a coward, Leia thought bitterly. She watched the tree line, listened for any sounds that might indicate movement, and paced, her stomach sinking with every step.

Jarys stoked the fire to keep it burning while Leia listened for sound beyond the crackling and scraping, pleading with the moon, the universe, the Force, anything, for signs of life. With every half hour that passed, the more convinced Leia became that she would never see Han again. Her chest ached, her lungs wouldn't fully expand. He's gone, she thought over and over again in an attempt to desensitize herself to the idea, to ensure she wouldn't break when she found out for certain that her friend was indeed dead.

Han, I'm so sorry. Leia clenched her fist, digging her nails into her palm. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you. She closed her eyes, chin trembling. I'm so sorry.

Twigs snapped, leaves rustled, and the distinct step, drag, step, drag of someone limping through the forest caught her attention. Leia stared through the trees toward the racket, heart sputtering at the sight of familiar boots on the feet of a haggard and undoubtedly injured smuggler. He's walking, she realized with relief. He's hurt, but at least he's walking.

She walked to him briskly, not wanting to startle him, but not wanting to delay, either. She didn't stop to look at him — there wasn't enough light for a proper assessment — and slid her arm under his shoulder in an attempt to help support his weight. He didn't have his pack which made helping him easier, but their height difference limited what aid she could offer. Leia did her best to help him get closer to camp and the light of the fire.

They didn't speak. She had about a thousand questions for him, but thought it better to wait until she could get a good look at him before possibly asking questions she could easily see the answer to. Han didn't seem inclined to say anything at all. She directed him close to the campfire in silence and helped him sit with his back against a log.

The first thing she noticed were the bruises around his eyes. Blaster butt, Leia guessed. He was breathing heavily and still hadn't said anything, which Leia found concerning. She spotted a gash on his forehead and reached out to brush his hair out of the way so she could get a better look. Before she made contact, she saw blood on her own hand and looked quickly for the source. A blaster injury below his shoulder seemed the likely culprit — she could see a burn from a bolt covering an area the size of her hand through a rip in his shirt. The center oozed blood.

Fear, guilt, and anger warred within her, refusing to leave her in peace. Leia wished she could feel simple, pure relief seeing that he was alive, but being stuck in her own thoughts for the afternoon as she'd become increasingly convinced that he was dead had stolen that possibility out from under her. She touched the burned flesh on Han's back lightly and he sucked air through his teeth. "Got you good," she said softly, fighting to maintain a sense of calm.

"Just a graze. Not so worried 'bout that one," Han said, his breathing still labored.

She chewed her lip and moved in front of him to face him, finally brushing his hair aside to look at the gash on his forehead. It didn't appear deep. "Which ones are you worried about?"

Han closed his eyes and tapped his right leg. "Got a direct hit in my calf."

Leia dropped to her knees and rolled his pant leg up with trembling fingers. He was bleeding and the area around the wound was heavily bruised. "It doesn't look great, but I don't think it hit any major vessels," she observed. "Good thing, too. Considering how many you've dodged, it'd be pretty embarrassing for you to die of a blaster bolt at this point." She looked up at him, smoothing the fabric of his bloodstripes on his knee and hoping for a laugh. Han leaned against the log, eyes still closed, breathing still shallow. He smiled in a way that seemed forced, but it was better than nothing.

Worried, Leia looked around for Jarys or anyone who might have woken up and wandered out of their tent, but they appeared to be alone. She stood. "I'm going to get the kit. I'll be back in a few seconds."

Han waved her on and Leia ran for the communal med kit, grabbing her half-full canteen on the way. She had no idea when he had last had water, but it couldn't hurt.

She made it back to his side in record time and helped him sip some water, wanting desperately to make sure he was actually, actually okay. She shook her head, a heinous and confusing mixture of anger and affection flaring in her chest as she opened packages of antiseptic pads and bacta patches. "I should have stayed—"

"I told you to run for a reason, Leia." He closed his eyes and breathed heavily. "Fennec, she works for the Hutts. That whole kriffing settlement…think it's a smuggler's haven. I saw too many familiar faces. Must've been thrown together recently 'cause I've never heard of it."

"Do we need to worry about her coming after you?" Leia asked, silently adding, Did you kill her?

Han shrugged. "Don't think so right now."

The vagueness of his statement bothered Leia. "What does that mean?" she asked as she again knelt to clean out the wound on his leg.

"'Don't think we need to worry 'cause she works by herself as far I know and there ain't no way she's walkin' right now."

"Is she dead?" Leia dabbed at the wound, examining the mostly cauterized surface and trying to determine if he'd had significant blood loss.

Han inhaled sharply as she touched the wound, but answered her question. "Doubt it." He shifted uncomfortably. "One of her boots was damaged near her heel. I got a bolt through the tendon. Not deadly. Just incapacitating."

"How much blood did you lose?" Leia asked, thinking of the transfusion kit in her bag. She could…She didn't know how she'd handle a needle sitting in her arm given the way she'd recently reacted to an injection that took all of two seconds, but she could do it if he needed—

"Think everything's mostly cauterized. She doesn't embed anything in her bolts. Likes clean kills."

"But you're here," Leia said, reassuring herself as she pointed out the obvious. She smoothed a bacta patch over the wound on his calf as gently as possible. "You're alive."

Han rubbed his temple for a few seconds before pulling his hand away from his head and examining his fingers. "She didn't want me dead. Live bounty's fifty thousand more."

Leia nodded, though she found she had little else to say. Han wasn't particularly chatty without being prodded, so the rest of his wound dressing happened in silence. Once she had pressed patches over the wounds on his back and forehead, Leia stood, looking down at him. She dug through the med kit for the anti-inflammatory medication she knew Naj carried and handed Han a couple of pills. "For all the swelling," she said. She frowned. Han was missing his pack, which meant his tent was gone. "My tent's set up. I can swap out with Naj once my watch shift is over if you want to sleep in mine."

Han agreed to the suggestion more quickly than Leia expected him to. He's in rough shape, she thought as she showed him to her tent, forcing her worry to the back of her mind. After Han was settled, she found Jarys on the other side of the campsite and filled him in before returning to her post.

The quiet of the night provided ample opportunity for the fear, guilt, and anger that churned in Leia's blood to surface repeatedly with increasing intensity. She replayed the events leading up to her leaving Han, trying to locate the moment or happening that had led to such a disastrous — and nearly deadly — outcome. He had been worried shortly after they entered the settlement, but he hadn't said a thing to her. Leia hadn't know exactly where to focus her senses because she hadn't known what Han had noticed that had him so tense. If I had known what he was seeing, I could have noticed Fennec before…I would've heard her, surely.

Spending hours stuck in her own thoughts — hours looking at the situation from every angle — had Leia about ready to pick a fight by the time her watch shift was up. She borrowed Naj's tent and sleep sack, but very little sleeping actually occurred. She worked through every moment of the day, puzzling through how to prevent anything like it from happening again, and by the time light filled the sky and she heard a couple of the others stir, Leia was simmering with anger toward Han.

He hadn't told her anything. He hadn't warned her and he could've been killed. She needed to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.

"We need to talk," she said as they packed up her tent and sleep sack. The group was heading back to the ship. The settlement being a safe haven for smugglers wasn't necessarily a problem, but if bounty hunters were welcome as well…they could hardly stick an Alliance-run fueling station or Alderaanian refugees next to a group of actual mercenaries who would gladly turn them in to the Empire for profit. They needed to leave the area as quickly as possible.

Han glanced at her, eyebrows raised, before returning to detaching poles from tent fabric. "What about?"

"What happened yesterday? That can't happen again."

He scoffed softly. "No kiddin'," he muttered more to himself than to her.

Leia tightened the strap on her sleep sack and moved on to help him with the tent. "You didn't tell me what was going on. You can't do stuff like that," she said tersely.

"Last l checked, I got us out alive, Princess, so if you're complainin' about that—"

"No, you put us at risk by not communicating."

Han rubbed the back of his neck briefly before returning to the tent. "Shand's a sharpshooter; I didn't have time to explain everything once she started trailin' us. I needed to make sure she didn't see your face because she would absolutely turn you in if she saw it was you, and she would know it was you. She ain't stupid."

Leia shook her head. "I'm not talking about while we were walking. You knew something was wrong while we ate lunch and you didn't say a damn thing."

"Since I didn't say a damn thing, how could you possibly know that?"

"I just do. You were acting nervous. I know what you're like when you feel like you have everything under control and that wasn't it. It threw me off completely. I knew I should probably be looking for something suspicious but I wasn't sure what, and if I had known, I might've noticed her before—"

"If you'd noticed her before she wanted to be seen, she'd've shot you through the skull, Leia."

"It doesn't matter. You can't just plow ahead and expect me to follow without communicating with me when you can. You should have told me your concerns. I'm looking out for the Empire; I don't always know what to look for when it comes to kriffing cartels."

"That's rich," Han said with a scowl.

"What?"

"You goin' on about communicatin' in the field when you got shot and didn't tell anyone."

Leia pressed her lips together, thinking through her words more carefully than she usually did with Han. He was deflecting, but he also wasn't wrong. He didn't know about the conversation she and Einara had had or about the lifetime of fear and guilt she had experienced while he was missing, both of which had hammered home the importance of open communication on missions. "I shouldn't have done that. It put the mission at risk. I'm learning my lesson; I'd appreciate it if you learned it with me."

Han set his jaw, clearly not intending to respond. Leia watched him for a moment. He looked as if he had barely slept, though the black eyes probably didn't help in that regard. He had assured the group that he could make it back to the Falcon without aid, but he was still moving stiffly and seemed prickly. Her timing might not have been the best to start a conversation like that, but she needed to know he'd work together with her before they set out again.

Leia gathered the tent poles from the ground and Han's hands and slid them into their case. "You're not my bodyguard, Han. If we're in the field together, we're teammates. You have to tell me what you notice if you have the chance."

"Why?" he challenged. "So we can start a month-long argument in the middle of a firefight?"

She bristled. The accusation wasn't exactly unfair, but it wasn't exactly fair, either. They argued plenty when working through possible plans, but they also both knew when to shut up and follow directions. At least most of the time. "No, so we can make calculated decisions together rather than one of us flying blind all the time."

"Look, I don't intend on this bein' a regular thing—"

"It doesn't matter," Leia interrupted. "We've had to go in the field together twice now; it could happen again, and I need to know that you trust me enough to communicate with me when you're able to, or I'm going to have a really hard time trusting you when you only have time to say run."

Han deflated slightly and rubbed his temples, exhaustion clear on his face. "I trust you, Leia. You know that."

She leveled her gaze at him, choosing words similar to the ones that had affected her so deeply the day before. "Act like it, then."

Naj and Rory approached as Leia strapped her tent to her pack. "You two about ready?" Naj asked.

"We're heading out in five," Rory added.

Leia nodded and stood, pulling her pack onto her back in one quick movement. She turned back to Han and stretched out her hand in an offer to help him stand that — she hoped — doubled as a sort of silent agreement: I trust you if you trust me.

He took her hand.

A/N: Oof, that was a lot! Thank you all for continuing to keep up with this beast! I've really enjoying reading everyone's thoughts on the story so far! The next installment should be up Friday, November 24, 2023.

Also, a reminder since I haven't mentioned it the past few updates: if FFN is ever down, I post everything over at AO3 under the username WalkAwayTall as well.