InsaneJournal

This time, Leia sought out Rey. She checked the traveler manifest to determine where Rey was living and made her way through the halls, which felt sterile and, at times, imperial, to her, and stopped outside of the younger woman’s quarters. Leia straightened and took a deep breath in an attempt to clear her mind and relax before hitting the button to send soft chimes into Rey’s rooms to alert her she had a visitor.

When the door opened, Leia gave Rey a somewhat strained smile before clearing her throat. “Is this a good time?” she asked, deciding not to avoid the reason she was there in the first place. “I was hoping we could talk,” Leia continued. She met the younger woman’s eyes. “About your family and your past, if that’s all right with you.”

Rey thought the way the door chimed when someone requested entry was a nice touch. Admittedly, she wasn’t used to living in a place anyone would actually visit, but she was adjusting to the idea.

She was pleasantly surprised to find that her visitor was Leia. She thought the older woman looked...a little tense, perhaps, and she wondered briefly if everything was okay. When Leia asked if they could talk about Rey’s family and her past, Rey blinked. “Now is fine, yes,” she said. She stepped aside, gesturing for Leia to enter. “Is there something specific you want to ask about that? I can tell you about life on Jakku, but anything else is…” She shrugged.

Leia rubbed the back of her neck. “It's more, really, what I want to tell you,” she said after a moment. Leia had always been the type to say what she meant and to be straightforward, something that did well for her politically but not so well personally. “I know you've talked to my brother, to Luke. And - “ Well, she was just going to have to come right out with it, she thought. Though she wasn't sure how.

“Years ago,” Leia began, “my daughter, Breha, was taken from our home, and even though I searched everywhere, asked everyone, even put out a call that I'd pay any ransom being asked, I couldn't find her. I had to assume the worst, that she might be lost to me forever.” She looked at Rey.

Rey sat as Leia began talking. Leia had a daughter? A kidnapped daughter, who’d been missing for years, completely disappeared...suddenly Rey felt very strange, as if all her sense were on high alert. Could it be?

“How...how old was she? When she went missing, how old was she?” Rey had to fight the urge to hold her breath.

“She wasn't yet five,” Leia said. In fact, they had been planning a birthday party in a few weeks, but Leia didn't need to go into that right now. She felt the same energy in the air, the same prickling of the Force, and nodded. She had always had a better awareness of her family, when she sought out the Force. “You feel it too, don't you?” she whispered.

Maz had told Rey that what she sought lay in front of her, not behind. Not on Jakku. She took a deep breath and nodded, feeling tears start to prickle her eyes. She stood, slowly, and held out her arms to Leia. She felt, rather suddenly, like a small child again.

Leia was quick to pull Rey into her arms, enveloping the young woman - her daughter all these years later - against her. She closed her eyes tightly and kissed the side of her head. She didn't want to let go, and at the same time, she didn't even know what to say. That was unusual for her.

Rey held onto Leia tightly. She closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. She could feel their connection through the Force. It was strong, and slightly familiar. Then it hit her. “...he’s my brother...” That was the odd feeling she hadn’t quite been able to put a finger on that she’d felt when shoving Kylo Ren out of her mind. But it wasn’t this strong.

Leia pulled back as Rey spoke, took her daughter's face in her hands. A frown passed across her face as she nodded. She brushed her thumb across Rey’s cheek. “Ben,” she said, swallowing. “Luke told me what happened, what he became… he wasn't Kylo Ren in my time. He wasn't - like that.” It ached and hurt her all over to worry about what had happened to her son.

“I’m sorry…” It hurt more, now, knowing that that the man who’d killed Han was her brother. Wait. Her brows furrowed. “Who i--was my father?” This was a lot to process, but Rey wanted to hear all that she could.

It was interesting to Leia that Rey had the foreknowledge to ask who her father was instead of assuming it was Han. But, on the other hand, Rey had told her that she knew Han, and it was obvious he'd never said anything. If he even knew.

She moved away from Rey and sat slowly, her back tight and her knees creaking. She wasn't even that old yet; just put through hell for too many years. “His name is Kes Dameron,” she said.

Kes Dameron. So...Ben Solo--now Kylo Ren--was her half-brother. That would explain why the connection felt different with him. Besides the possibility of the Dark Side maybe messing it up a bit, if that was a thing that could happen. Kes Dameron. She blinked as the name fully registered.

“Dameron. Is he related to Poe?” Was she related to Poe?

Leia nodded again. “Yes, Kes has a son named Poe,” she said, her voice only slightly tight. And only because of the guilt she still felt around Han and this. “You know him?” she asked, surprised now that she gave it a moment's thought.

Rey nodded. “My friend Finn helped him escape the First Order--Finn defected. He was a Stormtrooper, but he didn’t want to fight for the First Order. I heard Poe was a hell of a pilot. Didn’t get to see him in action, but I did meet him, after the destruction of Starkiller Base. He led the fighter squadron that took it down.”

Leia sat back, relaxing a little more now that the hard part was over. “That sounds about right,” she said, though it had been years (for her) since she’d seen Kes’s son. It didn't surprise her that he was an excellent pilot or that he eventually found his way to the Resistance.

“...I have two brothers.” Half-brothers, but that was more than Rey had ever expected to know. She beamed when she looked at Leia. “I have a mother. Who’s here...” It was a lot to take in, but it was amazing, and wonderful.

Leia beamed right back at her, her eyes prickling with tears. She wasn't going to cry, she told herself, but - well, maybe she would, a little bit. She reached out for Rey and patted the space on the sofa beside her. "I'm so sorry, Rey. I never meant to - abandon you anywhere." She knew there was nothing she was going to be able to do to make up for what happened, for where she had failed, but she could certainly try.

Rey grinned and sat down beside Leia--her mother--on the sofa. “It’s good to know that I was right about it being a mistake--it’s not your fault my kidnappers knew really good places to hide people.” She took on of Leia’s hands in her own and squeezed it. “What was I like, as little one? On Jakku, I taught myself about every kind of ship I could find information on. I even managed to salvage some flight simulators.”

Leia squeezed her daughter’s - her daughter! - hands back. “Oh, you were a little terror, really,” she teased into a sigh. “But not in a bad way. You were always sneaking off to find a ship on Hosnian Prime too,” she admitted. “The Falcon was your first love, of course, and Han said you were a natural talent with it.” So different from Ben, who at a decade older than his sister, had already decided he didn’t want to do anything with mechanics, no matter how much his father wanted him to.

Rey smiled at the thought of a tiny version of herself poking around in the Falcon. She wished she could remember it, but knowing it happened was still good. “I’m glad,” she said. “I think that explains why working on ships always felt like...home. Because it was, in a way.”

Leia nodded. “It was home for you. You tinkered with anything you could get your hands on. Our droids, in particular. Threepio hated it, but Artoo let you fiddle with him so long as you didn't mess up his programming.” She sighed and looked away, but kept her hand tightly in her daughter’s. “ I never thought I'd see you again, Breha, and yet … Here you are.” She shook her head, marveling at that fact, her heart so full it felt like it was knocking around inside of her chest.

Rey chuckled softly. “I have noticed that I get along better with droids that just speak droid and aren’t humanoid-shaped.” Being Leia’s daughter and spending time around Han and--no doubt--Chewie also explained why Shyriiwook had been so easy to pick up.

She gave Leia’s hand another squeeze. “Breha. How did you pick my name?”

Leia grinned. “Threepio is difficult for anyone to get along with,” she agreed.

She covered Rey’s hand with her own. “Breha was my mother's name,” she told her. She considered that for a moment and wondered what, if anything, Rey knew about Luke and Leia’s bloodline. She supposed that it was possible, if she was out on Jakku for so long, alone - Leia shuddered inwardly as she was reminded of all that time lost - that Rey didn't know about Vader, about any of it. She frowned momentarily. Isn't the not knowing what Luke said had driven Ben away? “My adopted mother. Bail and Breha Organa raised me as their own on Alderaan.”

Alderaan. The planet the Empire destroyed with the first Death Star--Rey had heard of that. She searched Leia’s face for a moment, then decided not to ask if Bail and Breha had been on the planet at the time it was destroyed.

“What was she like?” Rey asked. “And...did you ever find out who your birth parents were? I know Luke is your brother, and the two of you clearly found out you were twins somehow…”

It had been over 20 years since Leia had last seen her mother. She remembered the moment so clearly, saying good bye and telling her breezily not to worry as Leia left Alderaan at her father's request to seek out Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine. If she had known then… “She was wonderful,” Leia said a moment later, her voice quiet, reflective. “Strong, commanding, yet gentle and fair. She ruled well,” she said, “all of Alderaan loved her.”

Her expression changed, just slightly, at the question about her birth parents. So the news of outrage on the Senate floor hadn't reached Jakku. This was the moment where Leia could make the same mistake she had with Ben. “I did,” she said. “We did. I -” she hesitated for a moment. “My birth mother's name was Padme Amidala. She was a senator from Naboo. My father's name was … Anakin Skywalker.”

Hearing that made Rey proud to be named after Breha Organa. Even if having two names would take some adjusting to. It was nice, though.

Anakin...she'd heard the name, in the jumble of all the things she'd once thought were legends. A Jedi who--it clicked. “...oh,” she said. The Jedi who had become Darth Vader. Who Kylo Ren--Ben, her brother--idolized. “Ky--” She stopped herself. “...Ben wishes he could be Vader. He didn't...handle it well, did he? Finding out?”

Leia swallowed. “That's what Luke has told me,” she said. “I - Han and I didn't tell him. That seems to have been a mistake. I don't know what happened. I - hearing what happened, I regret not telling him. I didn't know how. I didn't tell anyone. I -” A pained expression crossed her face. “It's difficult.”

Rey leaned her head on Leia’s shoulder, hoping that would provide her mother with some comfort. “You were afraid people wouldn’t understand--that they wouldn’t even try. And you didn’t know, for a long time. Children can’t choose their parents...and neither parents nor children can control what choices the other makes.” She knew it must have been hard for Leia, discovering that one of the people who destroyed her home planet had been her own father. For her own part, knowing Kylo Ren, who had tortured her and tried to kill Finn and had killed Han, was her half-brother was still hard to wrap her head around.

It did provide Leia with comfort. How many years had passed while she wondered if Breha was dead or alive. She slid her arm around her and held her close, her fingers in her hair and she turned her cheek against Rey’s forehead. She nodded. “How did you get to be so wise?” she teased lightly. She could see herself in Rey. She could even see Luke in Rey, in the words she said, in her insights, even in the way the Force flowed so freely through her. She smiled.

Rey sighed contentedly and relaxed as Leia stroked her hair. This felt...amazing, knowing who her mother was and having her here and...well, Rey didn’t feel like moving anytime soon. This was comfortable and comforting and something she had missed for so long. She smiled at Leia’s gentle teasing. “I have moments,” she said. “There’s a lot I’m still figuring out.” But Leia was, and Luke, and figuring things out didn’t seem quite as daunting as it once had.

Leia couldn't help but laugh a bit, and she pressed a kiss to Rey's temple. "I'll let you in on a secret," she said, her voice low. "There's a lot I'm still figuring out too. I don't think there's anyone who's got everything figured out entirely." She used to think that Luke had things figured out, but then she'd learned he'd gone and run off to become some hermit Jedi, so that crossed him off her list, too. And though she'd been through so much in her life, Leia never felt like she had a handle on anything at all.

“Mm. Then I’m in good company.” Rey smiled and curled in closer to Leia on the couch. To be completely honest with herself, she could probably happily fall asleep like this. And sleep easier, in a way, than she had for a long time. She had a family now, and she could stop wondering who and where they were, and when they were coming back. That was a big weight off her shoulders.

All those years that Leia had missed were catching up to her. She rubbed her daughter's back gently and leaned her head back against the couch, closing her eyes. It was good, she thought, to just enjoy the moment like that, even if she felt like she had nothing left to say.