Chapter Text
Once in a while, when Leia is very, very tired, she wonders if she imagined the whole rebellion. It's a ludicrous thought. She has the scars, both on her body and on her heart, to prove how hard-won the fight was, how real it had all been. There's no doubt that it happened, that all of those events, the terrible and the joyful, the heartbreaking and the hopeful, had happened. But it’s been five years since Endor, and yet, here she is, back in a quiet corner of a reading room in the Coruscant Archives, preparing for yet another Senate vote. If she didn't know any better, it could have been her, years ago, a lifetime ago.
Only now it’s the new Senate, the better Senate, the Senate that is, if she’s honest with herself, a chaotic mix of personalities that almost doesn't deserve to be called a functioning government at all. Everyone’s too hurt, too broken, too scared, to trust each other. It’s the opposite of her first days as a senator, a lifetime ago (because she’s only twenty-six, but she’s been in politics since she was fourteen). Then, there had been unity, among those who would someday rebel. All of them lived in fear of the possibility the Empire’s evils, rather than the surety of knowing just how terrible a power it would be.
The destruction of Alderaan changed all that.
And of course, it changed Leia. More than anyone else, perhaps. Now, she finds herself keeping company with holobooks and ghosts instead of trying to “go and have a bit of fun” on a weekend, like she’d been directed to by the other senators she’s friendly with. They'd said the words so easily, as if fun was as simple a concept as breathing. Perhaps for those who didn't serve in the war, it was.
Friendly, not friends. She’s not quite sure she remembers how to make friends these days.
She has Luke, of course. Though he’s far away right now, building a home for force-sensitive beings to become Jedi if they wish, or gain control of their powers, if they prefer. That latter option was strongly encouraged by Chirrut, who, along with Baze (of course) accompanied Luke on this quest.
As for Captain Rook, well, he ended up on the same planet as Luke, for reasons Leia suspects have less to do with the Force and more to do with the massive crush the pilot has been harboring on her brother for years now.
Leia has a few other friends spread throughout the galaxy. Wedge, Shara Bey, Winter, all the operatives she’s worked closely with, those who transfered from comrade to companion, to friend, but they’re all making their way in this new-found peace, too. They’re not the type of people she could send a holomessage to invite over for a friendly dinner. She’s not alone, she tells herself. Just lonely. There’s a difference. Alone is being trapped in a cell. Lonely is having no one to talk to, once work is done for the day.
Alone is a finality, and lonely is just temporary.
Amilyn will come back from her latest adventure, or Wedge will stop by on some fly-over to another planet, and they’ll catch up. She’ll whip up something in her apartment’s fancy kitchen, set her too-big table for company, and entertain them. Not that Leia really remembers how to host a dinner party. Some days, she’s not even sure she remembers what a genuine smile feels like. And every night, she forgets how to sleep soundly, if she remembers to try at all.
Which is why she’s in the archives, and not in her plush apartment. Thankfully, it’s not in the same building as where she used to live. Even she couldn't handle that level of deja vu.
Or the ghostly memories that would pass by her every day. Memories of her father knocking on her door, checking in to make sure whatever new senatorial task she’s just been assigned isn’t too much for her. Memories of friends from Alderaan who dropped by for a visit. Friends who would still be able to drop by, if only they’d been visiting here, and not on Alderaan, when it had been destroyed.
Memories of the mother she’d never apologized to after their last fight. Breha had meant well. Leia knows that now. Had known that then. But she’d still argued, still pushed back, still slammed the door when Breha had dared to suggest that Leia might settle down some day.
And now? She’s reached some day, but there’s no settling. Not for Leia.
The memory leaves an unpleasant feeling on her skin, like her clothes are too tight, and she clicks the last holobook off. She’ll return to her research on the Droid Rights Charter of Kuat tomorrow. For now, she heads down to the cafeteria attached to this area of the archives. It’s a simple place where late-working organics could get a warm bowl of noodles or a cup of caf. Now that she’s donated most of her salary to various orphanages, refugee centers, and health clinics, Leia is more appreciative of a place that serves a hot meal for no more than two credit chips.
Also, whatever they’re serving, it always beats cooking.
She reaches the caf only to find the old durasteel doors closed. There's a sign tacked on, proclaiming the place closed for work until tomorrow morning.
Well, kriff.
She rubs her face, and spins around, heading back down the empty hallway. A ghost stops her in her tracks. Because it has to be a ghost. To see such a familiar face, so far from mission briefing rooms on Yavin IV’s Base… Even to consider those memories makes her shiver, as if the ice is falling down around her once more. But she pushes those feelings aside as Cassian Andor’s eyes find hers, recognition clearly dawning. Because he’s not a ghost, no more than Leia herself is one. He is alive, and he is here, on Coruscant, the one place she’d never thought he’d be.
The few years that have passed since they last saw each other have done nothing to dull the sharp-edged charm he’s had for as long as she’s known him. There’s always been a graceful poise to his movements, a softness in his voice and his gestures that betray none of the deadly efficiency he’s famous for. Now, though, there’s a veneer of exhaustion over him, more so than there even had been in the days leading up to the Battle of Endor.
It’s an odd feeling, to see someone more tired by peace than war. But odder yet is just how much she relates to it, how much more makeup she uses these days to look like the fresh-faced young leader that had been so natural to her only a few years ago.
“Caf’s closed.” She curses herself for such a simple, pointless thing to say. Of course he knows the caf is closed. And is that the best she can do? To greet an old friend, a battle-forged companion, a man who had dedicated his life, over and over again, to the Rebellion? Cassian Andor is a hero, and she treats him… Well, like the tired soldier in a battered uniform he appears to be. Then again, she’s not quite sure she should even consider him a friend, given how little they’ve ever talked, for all that they’ve been in the same rooms countless times.
“So it is,” he says. Then, even softer, he adds. “It’s nice to see you, Senator Organa.”
There’s almost, almost a smile on his face and it’s enough for her to offer a real one of her own in return. “And you…” but she pauses, studying the badge on his chest. “Captain?” it becomes a question in her confusion.
“Reassignment,” he explains. Which doesn’t help, not when she remembers placing the medal on his chest, the one that gave him a skip-level promotion, or even later, seeing his name and rank on the list of commanders the same level as her, right around Endor. It makes even less sense when he adds, “Captain Andor, again, here, after the end of all things.”
That is baffling to her, the idea that one would simply be demoted in the process of transferring into peacetime. But there are many military matters she’s no longer privy to, so she has to assume it’s for the best. At first, she’d assumed perhaps he was in one of his personas, spying on any number of the countless shady characters that now occupy, that have always occupied, the same political sphere as her. But no, he’d said Andor.
And thankfully, he hadn’t assumed she was Senator Solo, as a few others from the war had. “Are you hungry?” she asks.
“A little.” There’s a mircotell on his face that she doesn’t quite catch, some narrowing of his eyes or furrow of his brows. “If anything, sad to miss an opportunity to hear how you’re doing.”
“For that, you could just tune into any HoloNews network.”
“Who’s to say I don’t?” there’s an intensity in the way he’s holding her gaze that she never remembers from any mission brief they shared. No. Instead it reminds her of a dance floor, ages and ages ago, when he had been Willix and she had been a fool.
Now, Leia realizes, she’s still a fool, at least, a fool for forgetting the complicated feelings summoned by Cassian Andor appearing in her orbit.
He adds, “Good speech you gave, last week.”
Last week… that had been… Ah. On the same topic she’d been researching tonight. Droids’ rights. Coming from him, that compliment made more sense now.
“Cas-Captain Andor.” They weren’t comrades, not anymore. She had no right to his first name, or really, any of his time. But a simple question might save her hours of research… “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the mechanical uprising of Kuat Drive Yards, the one a few years ago that….” she trails off, because there is the smallest, smallest tell in his expression, the slight gleam in his eyes that she only recognizes from far too many hours studying him during boring briefings, watching the green-hued light of the mission boards play against the spark that sometimes appeared in his eyes.
Ah. That was quite an answer, indeed. Because if anyone had both the skills to slip into a core world undetected and the motive to aid in a droid uprising, it would be the man standing before her. “And how did you find Kuat, Captain?”
One eyebrow arches up, which means he must be surprised, at least a little, to have been caught. “Do you have the appropriate clearances to know? ”there’s now heat, completely unexpected, completely real, completely overwhelming in his soft voice. An offer, a suggestion, a hint, of things that make her cheeks flame.
“I do. I mean. I might. I…” her words melt, more than a little at the suggestion in that voice.His words have all the heat of a warm fire, of a kiss, of a great deal more than either of those things. It’s been a long time since Leia has felt anything but tired and cold. Now, her blush travels down, all the way to her collarbone.
“lf you need my intel, it’s yours.” Cassian folds his arms, tilts his head, and leans against the wall. “I’ll even write a mission report.”
Leia blinks. There. She must have imagined it. Surely Cassian Andor hadn’t just flirted with her. That would have been… completely unlike him. At least, unlike him in the way she’d known him, but she’d always been his commanding officer, or his princess, never his peer. Leia had never had peers, not until Luke and Han and Chewie elbowed their way into her life, and treated her as the equal to them she was. But thinking of Han enough to remind her that even if Cassian had been flirting, it was generally better not to act on such a thing.
Relationships, Leia had decided, are for people who were much softer, much warmer, much more capable of love than she was. Hadn’t she said as much to Breha, in their last fight? In what she’d had no idea would be their last conversation? I’m too much me to be loved. I’m not cut out for a relationship. Just let me go and do what I do best. The truth of her own words, spoken in anger then, but matched with reality over the last few years, only proved it. Leia is good at love in the abstract, as a concept that unites beings from across the galaxy, makes them stronger, helps them do the impossible. She is even, if her track record at being elected is considered, rather good at love on the macro level. She can love her planet, her people, her soldiers, her Rebellion. What she doesn't think she knows how to do is love someone, and be loved in return.
So, she returns Cassian’s casual tone, says, “Thanks. How about I make you dinner as payment.” There, it’s a transaction now. Something safe. Something she knows how to handle.
“Dinner it is,” Cassian agrees with a nod.
Twenty minutes later, Cassian is sitting on the edge of her couch, staring down into the mug she’d given him, since she hadn’t done dishes in a bit (or accepted the offer of a dish-washing-droid), and was a little… sparse on clean dishes. “You eat this. You… you really eat this?”
“I do,” she insists, holding up one long, limpid piece of… something with her spoon. Maybe a noodle? Had she put noodles in to the pot before she’d served it? Hopefully she had. “It’s from a recipe.”
“Is the recipe written for humanoids? Or Axzii’vai sea-snails?”
“Is that…” Leia sets down her own bowl. “Did you just make a joke?”
“Don’t get used to it.” He takes another spoonful, chewing slowly. There’s no expression on his face, but there’s never any expression on his face in a briefing room, which she feels her cooking has accidently turned this quiet moment between friends into. And that’s what they were, she decides in that moment. Friends. No longer comrades. Friends.
Cassian eats the meal silently, slowly, not complaining, but certainly not relishing it. Though, at moments, he lifts his head, watching her with something like the ghost of a smile. Maybe. The moments are never long enough to last, caught only the way she can catch a bit of an image of a speeder zipping by her window.
It’s actually strange, eating opposite someone, rather than staring out her window, food in hand. The apartment itself is quite lovely, far more vast than the one she’d had before. Its ‘fresher is spacious, with a pink Naboo-mined marble tub, a showerhead with forty-seven rotating options for water-spray, and a heated auto-self-dryer. Considering the sonic showers she’d gotten used to on various bases, she’d found the whole setup more than a little overwhelming. The opulence carried into the rest of the room with carpets layered on top of its already soft floor, with the furniture, all hand-carved from wood sourced on worlds decimated by war, the bed, more massive than the entire cockpit of an X-wing, and the fine kitchenette. The only thing in the whole room she truly loves is the couch, hand-made by Bodhi, upholstered from old pilots’ chaired headed to scrap yards, and laden with blankets from Alderaan that Shara Bey had found in an Outer-Rim world, then brought back for Leia. The couch is as comfortable as it is familiar, the sole bit of Rebellion-esque chaos in an otherwise carefully designed floor plan.
Which is why, of course, she’d surrendered it to Cassian.
He at least seems a little more comfortable here than he’d been in the hall, especially once she’d turned the window display down, switching it to a black panel. It has full holoprojecting capabilities, can show her a window view from many planets, even, the interior decorator had pointed out, one of the last holofeeds taken from one of the ski resorts on Alderaan. Leia had asked if the view included a nightly repeat of the Death Star’s laser turning the mountains to rubble. The interior decorator had sputtered, then quickly switched the window view back to the real time view of outside. Leia leaves it there most nights, though she is admittedly partial to the forests of Yavin IV, too.
When she finds a glob of something that seems entirely unedible, Leia finally says, “I might have been missing some of the ingredients.”
“How many?”
“Seven?” she shrugs. “And well, I substituted egg-powder, and i was a little short on Nau root so I cut that in half, and…”
“How many ingredients were there?”
“Nine?” Even to her it sounds like a question.
His jaw clenches in a way she’s only ever seen in a mission briefing before. It makes her notice the stubble on his jawline. Her fingers tighten around her own bowl, as she tries not to think of stroking that sharp jaw, just to feel the warm skin and rough stubble.
Cassian stands up. He hadn’t taken his coat off, nor his boots. He’s not the type, Leia thinks, to stay long anywhere. “Right.”
“Leaving already?” a note of desperation she hadn’t meant to show crept into her voice.
“Only if you’re coming with me.”
For the second time that night, Leia is rendered speechless. Not by the strange deja vu of seeing an old friend, nor by the feeling of the past brushing over her skin like the chill of swift nightfall, but by the mischievous tone in Cassian’s voice.
This is a Cassian she doesn’t know at all.
It amazes her, though she scolds herself for being so shocked. Of course he’s more complex than the spy she’d known him as for song, the Fulcrum agent who had done the impossible every time the Rebellion had asked. Of course he has hopes, dreams, desires… that last word makes her cheeks heat. He’d asked her to come with him.
They’re both adults, both are sober, and equal, now, in ways they hadn’t been before. They could. She could go back with him, kiss him, feel the press of his warm body against hers, find comfort in each other for the night, then have an awkward breakfast before splitting ways. At least, she assumes that’s how those things go. Leia doesn’t have flings, not at all. Before Han, she’d had a few crushes. One boyfriend of no real merit, and two different girlfriends, both far more noteworthy, in accomplishments, kissing, and a great matter of other things, than the boyfriend had been.
After Han… there’s been no one. Just the fading of all the desires he awoke in her, the memories that melted into dreams that vanished now into the dark shadows of her mind. They’d had passion, the two of them, but that was all. It wasn’t enough to keep them together, when there was no longer the weight of the war bearing down on them both, making every moment of survival feel like a gift to be glorified, adored, shared with another. It’s his warmth she misses most, she realizes, his humor, his smile, and the feeling of falling asleep with her head pillowed on his warm chest, every beat of his heart reminding her they’d survived everything thus far.
And they’d kept surviving. Even parted on good terms. Leia wanted to be involved in politics. Han wanted… to go explore. Or see friends. Or take part in some new business venture Lando had just dreamed up. He wasn’t a man to stay in one place long, either. Every time she’d asked, Han’s answer was different, but Leia’s had always been the same.
She wanted to repair the galaxy.
Han wasn’t sure anything could fix it, and he was tired of trying.
He knew how to fight, and Leia’s sure that Han has lead more than one mission against some freshly uncovered cell of Imperials after his formal resignation of the role of General. But Han has no time for, and truth be told, no belief that paperwork, votes, and rule of law could ever undo all the evils dreamed up by every power-hungry monster who’d ever ruled the galaxy.
Chief among those monsters, Leia thinks, is the fallen Jedi who had fathered her.
“Le--Senator?” Cassian’s voice cuts into her thoughts. His hand is out. Hovering. Not touching her arm, not daring to. Just like he hadn’t dared to say her name.
Maybe she’d just imagined his flirtatious tone.
“Are you all right?”
“I.. I am. Forgive me, I get lost in thoughts sometimes.”
“I know the feeling.”
Of course. There are shadows in his eyes too, and so much pain in his past. When she’d been given his dossier, eternities ago, it had stated Cassian Andor has grown up inside the Rebellion, and completed his first mission for us at nine years old. He is both capable and confident, and trusted with the most sensitive of our tasks.
A trust he has never betrayed. A trust that gave them the plans for the Death Star, helped evacuate Hoth, aided in countless other tasks, all… for what? Why had Cassian dedicated his whole life, bloodied his hands and broken his body, just to remain a soldier after the war? Why wasn’t he with others, making a new home on Yavin IV?
Why didn’t he have a home?
Leia knows why she didn’t, re-lived that moment far too often (even without the help of a damn window), but he wasn’t from Alderaan. Fest, though damaged, is being rebuilt. He could go home. “What were you saying?”
“I was saying I’ll walk you to my place, for a better dinner.” His smile, she thinks, isn’t genuine, but it’s not cruel either. It’s the type of smile one offers when they want to, but they’re not quite sure they remember how to. “Just dinner,” he adds.
She lets out a breath. “Just dinner is perfect. I’m sorry mine was…”
“Yours was entertaining,” he replies, letting her open her door before following her out. “And an excellent icebreaker.”
“You never did tell me about Kuat.”
He fills her in, in whispered, coded sentences as they walk through winding corridors, heading away from the senatorial suite. She’s used to this sort of thing, knows that military intelligence during the war preferred to walk and talk, rather than sit in a potentially bugged room. The rebellion had no loss of life, (although severe loss of profits for the shareholders) and it’s nice hearing about a conflict, that, for once, built more than it destroyed. He only pauses once in his telling, as they step into an older elevator, heading many floors down. Cassian admits, “still don't like elevators,” which hints at a story she desperately wants to know.
That surprises her too, how much she wants to know about him. How much she likes listening to him. She’s so engrossed in his story, and not their walk, that she doesn’t notice how far down they are into the depths of the complex of Senatorial residential buildings until there’s a sudden chill in the air when the elevator doors swing open.
Leia shivers.
Cassian moves, and suddenly, a warm coat is draped over her shoulders. Leia looks up, but there’s absolutely no expression in his face, beyond his usual calm expression. Not even a twitch of a smile or a flicker of notice in his eyes.
She pulls the coat tighter around her shoulders, enjoying both the warmth and the weight of it. Military coats had a certain heaviness to them that she misses these days, when most of what she wears are made of silk and lace and lies.
“Almost there,” he says.
Leia looks around, realizing they’re in the barracks now. It makes sense, and yet, “you didn’t want an officer’s apartment.”
“They put me here,” he shrugs. “It’ll do.”
More questions hover in her mind. She wants to ask exactly what he’s doing for the new government, why he’s stationed on Coruscant, a thousand more things. But he’s not forthcoming with any of those details, so she decides to keep those questions to herself.
He leads her to a single door at the end of the hall, and punches in a code, then turns the panel to reveal a second keypad, adds another code, then scans his hand. Leia is quite sure no other room in this hall had those extra layers of security added.
The door swings open. He leans in to turn on the light, and Leia doesn’t miss the careful sweep of his gaze across the room, nor the way he presses a second switch which she’s sure disables other security measures. “Kaytu’s out for the night.”
He’d mentioned the droid a few times as they’d caught up in her apartment, but she hadn’t realized they lived together. It made sense though. She’d rarely ever seen Cassian without the security droid at his side. “Wild party?”
“Maybe,” he replies, with that almost-smile tugging at his lips again.
Leia takes in the room. That’s all it is. There’s not even a door for a ‘fresher unit, so that must be something shared with others on the floor. A cot rests in one corner, the exact same issue one as she’d gotten familiar with on bases herself, a set of shelves in another. There’s a few crates she recognizes as military ones, and knows there must be plenty of ammo, along with other items, in them. A few jackets hang on one wall, and there’s a stack of holobooks by the cot. The small kitchen is just a table with a single heating element, a refrigerated box, and a single drawer.
Cassian nods at the one chair. “Sit.”
She does, and holds back all her questions. Then, she notices the table is missing part of a leg, and is propped up with a bit of scrap metal. It, combined with his meager kitchen, with his standard-issue-canned foods, with the cot in the corner, is too much. “You were a general,” she finally blurts out.
Cassian only keeps looking down into the bowl he’s adding eggs to. The bowl has a chip on its rim, deep enough to notice from where she’s sitting, and she understands why he’d said nothing when she served him soup in a mug. “You could have… you were. You were head of military intelligence, after…” she stops herself from reminding them both of another loss. “I don’t understand.”
“No need for military intelligence in peacetime.”
“But surely, there’s other roles, other skills…”
Cassian finally looks up at her, and there is the shadow of every dark thing from the war in his eyes. Every task they’d asked him to complete, every battle he’d had to fight. “What skills?” he asks, and there is a hoarseness in his voice like the sound of an ocean drained dry.
“You’re brilliant. You can run data, or aid in translations or--”
“Assassinations?” there’s the ghost of a smirk on his face, but no warmth at all in his voice. “Let’s be honest, Organa. We both know exactly what skills of mine were honed, and they were,” he pauses to pour the mixture into the now-hot skillet. The food crackles loud in the silence, sizzling with far more heat than either of them have in their voices. “They were not the skills that will help me find work in peacetime.”
“You say that word like it’s a curse?”
“To a soldier who knows nothing else, maybe it is.”
He returns to cooking, and remains silent. The smells wafting from the pan carry a great deal of heat, of spices she can’t name, and a happiness she’s not sure she deserves. It’s been so long since she ate a meal with a friend.
As Cassian divides what appears to be a hearty stew between two mugs, he says, “i don’t mind this,” he says. “To be clear. It’s a good place. Safe. Comfortable. It’s my own, which is more than I can say about other assignments.”
“Didn’t you bunk with Luke a few times?”
That got a real smile from him. “Bodhi. Bodhi was my roommate. Skywalker was the… bonus roommate.”
Leia giggles. He sets the mug of stew down in front of her, and places a spoon beside it. “Do you see them?” he asks, leaning against the counter with his own mug.
“Luke and Bodhi? They visited once… I don’t think Coruscant is really either one’s favorite planet.” Leia takes a small spoonful of the soup, and tastes it. Almost instantly, she melts. The stew is warm, in more than just temperature. It’s the kind of heat that spreads like a comfortably blanket over her shoulders. A sigh escapes her, before she takes another sip.
“I think I’ll take that as a compliment to my cooking.”
“You should,” she replies. “This is excellent.”
“I’m sure you said the same thing to the Ewoks,” he teases. He… he teases? Is Cassian Andor teasing her?
“Only after I was assured no sentient beings went into their stew,” she retorts, but with a smile. She’s visited Endor more often than any other planet, lately. It’s nice sitting with Wickett and the others, letting Threepio translate, chattering about new cubs and fresh crops, ignoring all the galaxy’s politics outside the village.
‘It was excellent work you did there,” he said. “I was… I’d meant to tell you that.”
“You were on Endor?”
He hesitates, says carefully, “I debriefed with pathfinders, after.” He doesn't’ say if he was with Han’s pathfinders, and leia’s not sure she wants to ask. She’s spared asking, by him adding, “that night, by the fire…”
Then, he stops.
“What is it?”
Cassian takes a long sip of his soup, which means Leia can’t tell if the redness that appears on his cheeks is from the heat of the soup or… whatever he was going to say. “It’s…” he tries again. “You looked happy, there.”
Out of all the things he might have said, that one is not one she expected. She hadn’t even realized Cassian had even been there. That night, her thoughts had been elsewhere. “I was,” she says. Before she knew Darth Vader had fathered her. Before the complicated work of nation-building began. Before she and Han fell apart, like ice melting in the spring. Though that, perhaps, she should have guessed, given how much she’d enjoyed dancing that night with another soldier, one who she’d even gone looking for the next day and never found. But that was life in wartime, long days, sharp losses, and small joys. She finishes her stew. Softly, she admits, “Sometimes, I think there’s another Leia, out there, somewhere, far from here, and she is happy.”
Instead of offering pity or too-quick sympathy, like all the others do, Cassian just nods. “I wonder, sometimes, if I’ve left parts of myself behind, each time I’ve… each moment that…” he swallows. She can hear the words he’s reaching for, the ones he can’t find it inside himself to admit to. The man who was brave enough to help steal the Death Star plans can’t say the words I’ve been happy. “And maybe those ghosts linger in those moments, forever.”
It’s an all too real feeling for her, as well. The laughter, the genuine smiles, never come as easily as they did before. Her former joy haunts her, along with all her pain. “You’ll have those moments again, Cassian,” she says. “I know it.”
His eyes meet hers. “Who am I to contradict a senator?”
“Leia,” she says. “I’m just Leia to you.”
“You,” he replies, stepping over to pick up her mug and place it in a small basin of water, “are never just anything. But, tell me, is Endor where you’d go? If you wanted to find your happiness?”
“Maybe?” she replies. Because what other answer is there, that doesn’t involve time travel or other impossible things? Because she’d even been happy on Coruscant, sometimes, even during the dark times. Because her father would stop by her apartment, bringing her a dish of food from home, or simply to sit with her and drink tea, talking over any matters crossing her mind, from trade route negotiations to her crushes on various friends. “And you? Where would you be, if you were happy?”
His back is to her, and perhaps it’s a small mercy that she cannot see his face, based on the way his body freezes. She thinks, perhaps, he won’t answer, but finally he does. His voice is thick with emotion, his words a rumble of loss and memory and hope. “On a U-wing, on the way back to base. On the way back home.”
Cassian didn’t name a base. That, in itself, was enough of an answer. He’d been in the fight his whole life. And now the fight was over, at least, according to the HoloNews, and he had no home.
There’s only the drip of the water from the basin, the soft hiss of the shoddy electrical heat in the room. The silence stretches all the way into the past, summoning the ghosts of all they both lost. Leia stands, suddenly. Approaches, and then, only a foot from him, offers, “may I... “ her hand floats above his shoulder, not wishing to presume.
His answer is to turn, wordlessly, and lean into Leia’s open arm. Her body reacts, pulling him closer, holding him tightly. His breath is hot against her neck as he takes one steadying breath, and then another. Leia holds him a little tighter. She can’t give him back the war that he misses, can’t remove her signature from the peace treaties, but she can give him this, this small moment, this warmth.
Finally, he steps back. His hands cup her face. For one moment, Leia wonders if they’ll kiss. What she’ll do if they kiss. What would happen after a kiss? After the next day? It’s too much to even consider, and her heart races. Fear, not of the unknown, but the known, seeps into her bones. Because she knows she cares, and caring always leads to pain.
I like nice men, she’d said. She should have said, I like believing men are nice.
Then, Cassian moves, just slightly. Not to claim her lips, not to let his hands skim down to her hips, not to tug her into a more intense embrace. No. All he does is kiss the top of her head, and to hold her softly, like she’s the one only a moment away from shattering. “It’s late,” he says.
“It is,” she agrees, shaky now. Because this has gone wildly off script. They’re supposed to kiss with more and more fire, to shed clothes, not to bare their hearts. They’re supposed to stumble into bed and do a thousand things that will bring a moment’s pleasure. To chase passion, not honesty.
“I’ll walk you back.”
“That would be…” She stumbles, finds the word, finds she means it. “Nice.”
She can see just the hint of a smile if she turns her head just right. It’s a moment that she’ll treasure forever. A moment that lingers as they walk back together, this time, not talking, not really, beyond offering small, short stories, of faces and places long gone from most other’s minds. Finally, Leia says, “I’d like to try and cook dinner again, sometime.”
“Maybe that should be a team effort,” he replies.
Team. A good word. She can do teamwork, even if she can’t handle a relationship. Really, maybe neither of them can. “That would make me happy.”
“Then we’ll do so.”
His comm beeps, and he curses softly. “I have to take this. Can you… do you know the way home from here?”
She nods. Doesn’t bother to tell him her apartment isn’t home, because he must know that already. Neither of them can use the word home the way other people do. The way she used to. Home is just a bed, just a place to dream of the real home long gone. Her home, she thinks, is the same one occupied by all ghosts, a place between waking and sleep, a place between now and the past. A place only another ghost can see.
Leia’s taken two steps down the long hall when she pauses, realizes she’s too comfortable for this cool night. “Your jacket…” She begins, though she doesn’t move to take it off. Loves how it envelops her, hides her, keeps her safe. Clothes, she thinks now, as she hadn’t when she was younger, should be armor, not art. What good is being beautiful when beautiful things are broken just as easily as not?
“Keep it, I’ll see you again.”
He nods at her, just once, but he smiles, and that, coupled with the promise and the comfortable weight of the warm jacket on her shoulders is the most at home Leia has spent in years.
Then he disappears down the long hall in the opposite way of her own path. Whatever work he’s doing for the government, whatever missions they’ve assigned him, they certainly do nothing to lessen the weight on his shoulders. If anything, he seems to disappear as he walks away, first fading into a man she no longer recognizes, a man with faster, more sure steps and yet less grace in his movements, his stride larger, faster, and then, sliding entirely into the shadows, as if he was never there at all. Leia is left alone. Alone, but warm in his jacket, warm with pleasant memories and hopes for the future.
Alone, but at home.