Work Text:
Leia’s Paradox
Every seven years, all of the cells in the human body completely regenerate
She can’t remember where she has seen it, probably in some self-help book she had gotten a few pages into before deciding its advice wasn’t intended for her, or maybe one of the recovery message boards she perused in those first few months after waking up screaming one night. The notion was lost on her anyway. What did it matter that now, none of her skin cells had been touched by the hands of her torturers on the Death Star? The scars on her back- though now faded- still remained, the marks of their touch remained on new, untouched skin.
Yet that same fact meant that no part of her had been touched by her mother, who left no similar reminder. No cell in her lungs had breathed the crisp, mountain air of Alderan. Not one of her taste buds savored any of the now extinct spices used to flavor the soup her father had made her when she was ill. She is made of completely different stuff now than she was at home. Doesn’t that make her a completely different person now than she was then?
Because, she supposes, as she reflects on the past seven years, that it makes sense that she is a new person. In fact, it had often suited her to consider her life as two separate narratives, her life before the Death Star, and her life after it. Afterall, since the destruction of her home she has been through things, felt things, seen things, even done things that her former self could never comprehend. Seven years ago, she was barely an adult, hadn't gone more than a few weeks without seeing at least one of her parents, the worst pain she had ever experienced was breaking her leg while climbing one of the mountains near the palace, she’d never seen the conditions slaves lived in, not with her own eyes. Seven years ago she had never killed a sentient. But, seven years ago, she was barely an adult, she hadn’t made her own decisions, the closest thing she had felt to romantic love was a girlish crush on one of the boys on her debate team, she’d never seen the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Seven years ago, she’d never accepted an engagement ring from a smuggler.
But despite all the ways she had grown and changed and been changed, and all the things that she did and all the thing that had been done to her, she still has all of the fond memories of her childhood, she still feels the same passion for peace, equality, and justice burning within her that she always has, she still has seen the beautiful, dense woods of the palace, she still binds her hair in traditional braids and drapes herself in white dresses (at least, most of the time).
Considering the new tissues and cells that encased her soul remind Leia of a story her father told her before bed when she was little: the story of the ancient Theseus and his crew, who set off on a journey to a faraway land. Over the course of their expedition, the parts of their ship broke and had to be replaced one by one. By the end of their trip, each and every screw, gear, wire, and sheet of metal had been replaced. It was the same ship, and a different ship, a paradox, her father had explained to her. But she had never seen the problem with it, back then, as a child, it had made perfect sense in her mind, that the ship could be the same ship, and a completely new one. And now, as an adult, when Leia recalled the story, she no longer pictured Theseus’s ship as looking like an old, primitive craft like the ones she had seen depicted in art of the time, instead, she saw the Falcon, since by now, she was sure Han and Chewie had, at some point or another, replaced every part of that ship. And yet, it was still the Falcon , Han Solo’s most prized possession.
Leia Organa is a completely new person now then she was seven years ago, when she was taken captive on the Death Star and forced to watch as the fascist empire destroyed her home and everyone she loved, and yet she is still exactly the same person she has always been. She could live with being this paradox