Chapter Text
PART I - ECHOES
Stars Shining Bright Above You…
Chapter One
The Mercy Medical Frigate, Alliance Flotilla, Deep Space
Following the events of The Empire Strikes Back
Leia Organa glared across the narrow mess hall table at Luke Skywalker. Laughter and conversation blanketed the room while the occasional dropped plate or utensil put a punctuation mark on it.
Their argument had lost most of its heat already, as cold as the untouched food on the plates sitting between them.
Luke placed his forearms on the table, leaning into her. “You know I’m right.”
Leia lowered her head and shut her eyes.
Bespin had stripped them away one by one. Sleep. Rationality. Patience.
The ghosts of that city in the clouds had followed her onto The Mercy like stowaways.
Alderaan had been devastation on a massive scale.
Han had been different.
At times it felt as if she were still there, standing frozen on the landing platform as Slave I slipped away with Han inside.
She opened her eyes.
Across the table, Luke watched her with a steadiness that hadn’t been there before Bespin.
Even after Yavin, after command, after becoming Rogue Leader, some bright piece of him had survived unscathed.
But Bespin had sharpened him.
“We’ll send for you as soon as we know anything,” he said.
Leia leaned forward, mirroring him before she realized she’d done it.
“What if he’s there right now,” she asked, fingernail digging into the plastoid table. “And I’m filing reports.”
Luke sat back in the sterilized glow of the mess hall. Indistinct chatter came across the radio he wore on his hip and he reached down and turned it lower.
“Chewie and Lando are probably there already.” He paused, tracing his thumbnail along the edge of his tray. “If you don’t trust me then you must trust that Chewie’d do anything to get Han back.”
He kept talking. Calm. Infuriatingly right.
Leia let his voice blur into the cafeteria noise and turned instead to the report waiting for her aboard Home One.
Hoth. The asteroid field. The long drift to Bespin on failing sublight engines.
You do have your moments.
“Are you even listening to me?” Luke asked.
Luke intended to return to Bespin with a squadron of Rogues to retrieve his X-wing before rendezvousing with Lando and Chewie aboard the Falcon.
All of them agreed Leia should stay behind.
All except Leia.
She glanced at the chrono mounted above the exit. Threepio and her footlocker were probably already shuttling over to the Alliance's Command Frigate.
“I trust you,” she said softly. Behind her someone dropped a tray and cursed.
Luke blinked, surprised by the surrender. A fresh-faced pilot in an orange jumpsuit waved as he passed and Luke nodded warmly.
He lowered his voice. “So, you’ll wait?”
She nodded, suddenly aware of every scrape of utensils and burst of laughter in the room.
A presence settled at her shoulder. Firm and insistent, like strong fingers wrapped around her bicep and pulling her from a collapsing command center.
“Leia?”
She forced herself back to the present. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll wait.”
Relief flickered across Luke’s face. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“We’ll see.”
The Mercy Medical Frigate, Alliance Flotilla, Deep Space
One Week Later
Princess Leia stood on the hangar floor watching the team of X-wings as they lifted up onto their repulsor engines, lurched forward and glided out into space. She paid particular attention to the one Y-wing in the bunch that held Luke Skywalker and another pilot. She and Luke had stood and watched the Falcon fly away in a similar fashion just over a week before.
Luke had wrapped his arm around her then, with easy certainty.
She could still feel the phantom weight of an arm resting across her shoulders.
“Are you ready, Your Highness?”
Leia jumped, startled to find her pilot standing right in front of her. He was to shuttle her over from The Mercy medical frigate to the Alliance flagship: Home One.
The pilot looked embarrassed. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, it’s fine,” Leia replied, noticing the starfighters were already gone and wondering how long she had been standing there staring into space. She shook herself free of the thought. “I’m ready.”
While she followed the pilot over and toward the awaiting transport vessel carrying her small bag of Alliance-issued supplies and toiletries, she looked back to the space that she had just vacated. For an instant her exhausted mind tried to shape the shadows into something familiar.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Slim hips and long legs carrying that careless swagger that no ethereal figure would have the right to possess.
She blinked and it was gone. More like, nothing had ever been there. She was exhausted and needed food and rest.
Turning around, she accepted the pilot’s hand as he helped her onto his ship. There was much to be done, she thought as she slid into the small jumpseat that would serve her for this quick ride.
The sound of the repulsor engines firing up filled the cavernous transport hull and the sensation of liftoff made Leia’s stomach do a flip. Empty harness buckles rattled furiously.
She shut her eyes and tried to focus on Home One. On duty. On reports. On the war waiting for her.
It worked.
For a little while.