WHO: Leia Organa, Han Solo WHEN: Earlier this week WHERE: Their housing unit WHAT: Han comes back from camping with Anakin to find that Leia's gotten new memories. WARNINGS: The Force Awakens spoilers. Do not read if you don't want to be spoiled.
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The mountain felt like an oppressive force, a constant reminder that he was grounded here. He couldn't run from the problems that seemed to be accumulating all around him: Chewie, Anakin, Jacen. And when he looked at Leia, he saw other problems, things that had never occurred to him in their sixteen years of marriage. What did it mean that he remembered more of that than she did? How did they start over, when the weight of the future lurked all around them?
Those were questions that Han had yet to answer.
"Leia?" Han folded the map that he had in his hands. He'd been marking off the trails that he and Anakin had scouted and hadn't noticed her presence. She'd been quieter since he'd got back, but not enough that he'd worried. They'd been like that with each other ever since he'd got memories that she didn't have. There was a distance between them that he couldn't breach, not entirely. He'd thought that maybe Jacen's confession had changed that, that maybe they were ready to try again… Maybe he was ready to try again.
The Force was strong in her family. Her father had it. Her brother had it. Her sons from two very different worlds had it. That was the crux of the problem though. Leia had never trained in the force, so her powers were that of a Sensitive. She could pick up bits here and there, but in the end, she hadn't learned to control it. When she felt Han's death, the galaxy's light left her. She'd persevere, because that's what she did. That's what she always did, she was the survivor, but that hope that she might see him and Ben again and they could be a family… That was gone forever. Suddenly, a decade was wasted, and she couldn't get it back. It was so stupid to have let him go, to let either of them go.
Seeing Han here, young but with an entirely different future, increased her turmoil. He was the same man she'd known, but he had three children. Chewie died there. Was she the same Leia? Was it disingenuous to want to run to him now?
She'd been reading about the American government before all of it got destroyed. It seemed a lot of the people here were trying to recreate that. It was a mess. People had been in space, with one punishment for so long, that it was going to take a strong arm to reel that back in. Not for the first time, she wished she hadn't given up politics.
Leia looked up from her book, and though she looked like the twenty-something that Han remembered, she was so much older now. Even her eyes had the look of someone who had been through a lot. "Good trip?"
Han studied her expression before he answered. She looked different somehow; like, she'd changed in the few days that he'd been gone. Han had never been strong in the Force; that had always been for his wife, his children, and his best friend. But he was perceptive. Even if he didn't understand how, or why, something had changed between them.
"It was. It was good to get away from all of this." He hadn't told her about what Ravi had said, that their eldest son went to the dark side. He hadn't told her, either, that it felt like all his fault that their family had fallen apart. "But it feels like I've been gone a lot longer than I was." His expression seemed to soften, and tired though he was, he offered her a slight smile. "I missed you."
Leia was a pragmatist. She rarely let her guard down in front of people, and that came from the duties expected of her when she was young. A princess had to be strong for her people; she could only afford to break down where no one else could spread rumors. She'd only been good at concealing her grief, never her anger. They thought her an ice princess, but the truth was: if she broke down, the whole rebellion could follow. She had to be strong.
Han and Luke, they were the ones she could share things with. Luke once told her that he wished she had anyone she could lean on. In time, she learned to lean on both of them, and then the First Order tore things apart. No, sending Ben away had torn things apart, and she lost all three of the closest people in her life.
"I have been gone longer." There was no sense in keeping it from him, especially when every cell inside her was screaming for him to hold her. A whole decade without that face, only to have him taken away forever. It was too cruel. "I got new memories, and I'm afraid they don't match up with yours."
Han's expression turned to a frown. This wasn't what he had expected her to say, and yet looking at her, he thought he recognized the changes he saw in himself. The familiarity of having grown older only in dreams.
"How much longer?"
Leia didn't answer at first, just simply set her book aside and perched on the edge of the seating. It was strange, all those little aches and pains from aging that you stopped noticing after some time. Their absence was almost as acute as the knowledge that she'd lost everyone who ever mattered to her. She thought that feelings Han's death would be the end of her.
"About thirty years after the Battle of Endor." A lot had happened between that and Starkiller.
"Thirty different years." It wasn't a question. She'd said as much herself. Their memories were different. He moved towards her, setting aside the map to lean just above the seating unit. He wanted to take her hands into his, but he didn't. What were they in the future that seemed to make her so sad?
"The details are different," she said, reaching out for his hands. His were cold. She remembered the last time she'd seen him, pressing her cheek to his chest, somehow knowing that was the last time she'd see him. "But the loss is still the same."
A son who turned to the Dark Side. Luke, gone. No one called her princess anymore, which was just as well. You couldn't be a princess over a homeworld that was destroyed.
He held her hands in his, wondering when it all had changed. How long after Endor had their paths diverged, and to what extent? He looked down at her. She was just as beautiful as he remembered, the princess among the clouds. She hadn't been a princess then, but the title felt right. Now, he wasn't so certain.
"Whatever it is," he said, finally, resolute, "we'll get through it. We always do."
Her hand on his softened as she traced his fingers with hers. A few hours ago (or a few days, memories were confusing things to have messed with), she never thought she'd get to see him again, much less touch him. Her eyes were shining with tears. Han's loss had been so painful. She always knew it would be, but she hoped that she'd go out before him. Or maybe at the same time on that damn ship of his.
"Fate has a way of being cruel, Han. I'm an old lady under all of this. An old lady who has suffered so many losses. I don't know where to start."
Han pulled closer to her, wondering at what could bring about such a change in the woman he loved. And he did love her. All those years together, pushing her away only to find that she was exactly where he needed to be… Ever since Chewie, he had been selfish and unthinking. He knew now he needed to be the one to change.
"You don't have to. Leia...I…" Understand, he thought. I understand what it is to lose everything. His eyes seemed to say the words that he couldn't. His next words barely spoken at all, "I love you."
"I know."
She'd needed that. It was often unspoken between them, with a quip and a retort in an argument. She hadn't even said it when he left for Starkiller, though she knew that it was the same for him. Leia clutched his hand and threw herself against his chest. Would she ever get over him? No, probably not and that was more than fine with her.