The Naboo honor the passing of loved ones with flowers, showering the remains with petals until they no longer seem like the bleak husks of the people they use to be. Leia has always favored that tradition. Prefers it to the staid ceremonies she conducts for her fallen soldiers and the all-encompassing manner in which Jedi celebrate death, fire and smoke reducing all to ash. Even the serene, cool distance shown during Alderaanian funeral rites, the entirety of which are conducted in silence, not a tear allowed to shed in public, leave Leia heartbroken.
She has no petal-strewn body to mourn nor cremate nor inter. It oughtn’t matter, but somehow it does anyway. Her husband is gone and there is nothing but regret and little enough time to think about him at all. It’s not so hard to pretend he’s out there, smuggling and swindling his way across the galaxy, when there are troops to keep alive and cases to plead with what little Republic leadership remains. Still, after all the destruction the First Order has caused, she must go on bended knee to prove the righteousness of her cause. Her focus cannot be on mourning, not with so much at stake.
“General,” Lieutenant Connix says. She broadcasts her approach with raised hands, a compassionate smile on her lips. Leia can’t even imagine what she must look like right now if this slip of a girl has decided she needs encouragement.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” she asks, painting a welcoming smile on her face, unsure why she should do so at all. She’s General Leia Organa for Force’s sake. Welcoming isn’t something she needs to be. Welcoming is not the reputation she’s cultivated, not in a long time.
Not ever, probably, if she thinks about it.
“Queen, uh, Soruna has requested an audience with you,” Connix says, self-conscious. And it’s so painfully obvious she doesn’t understand. Nobody requests an audience with General Organa. That’s just a little too monarchical for her Resistance contacts. And nobody except Threepio likes to bring up the whole princess thing for many and varied reasons. Some good, some bad. But Leia understands. She understands immediately. And this time when she smiles, it feels genuine, real pleasure replacing the substitution of it.
“She’s no longer queen, Lieutenant.” Clapping her hand on Connix’s shoulder, she squeezes lightly. “You needn’t refer to her by that title… no matter what she might tell you to the contrary.”
*
“—talked about the service,” she hears Poe say, followed by a laugh full of awe and disbelief. She twists to look through the open doorway, the command center right outside. Just in time, she sees him point in her direction, a satisfied look of accomplishment on his face. Somehow it’s not surprising to Leia that Poe’d gotten to Sosha first. It’s even less surprising to find he’s got his arm held out for her, a gentlemanly maneuver that only looks a little bit ridiculous thanks to the orange jumpsuit he’s wearing. “What’d’ya know? I told you she’d be here.”
“That you did,” Sosha answers while Leia finds it difficult to even breathe. She sounds so much the same, so youthful, her accent refined, full of culture. Sly, she winks at Leia and then it’s only difficult not to laugh. The rest of her relaxes in increments, her lungs regaining command of her chest.
Poe stands eagerly by the door, his hands behind his back, eyes drifting between the pair of them, curious.
“Thank you for the escort, Commander Dameron. I might never have found this enclave without you,” Sosha says, her attention mostly on Leia’s face.
Poe’s eyes, bright with suppressed mirth, find Leia’s. He might well be taken with Sosha, too, and speaks to her with appropriate deference. “Your Highness, thank you for allowing me the privilege.”
“As though I gave you the choice,” she says, a teasing, wicked dimple forming in her cheek.
He inclines his head in acknowledgment and farewell. “Be that as it may. General, I’ll let Lieutenant Connix know you’re indisposed for the rest of the day. Your Highness.” Stepping backward, deliberate, he keys the door shut as he leaves.
Sosha removes her gloves and shakes her head. “Can you believe Shara never told that boy of our adventures? And to think: they were the best!”
“She wanted something different for Poe,” Leia replies, lost in warm remembrance, its purity tempered by pangs of loss. Those had been good times despite everything. How different would it be now if Sosha had always been along for the ride? Shara, too. “You can’t fault her for that. It’s good to see you by the way.”
“It didn’t seem to do a lick of good.” She appraises Leia with eyes that see far, far too much. “And from our conversation, it sounds like he hasn’t found a Kes of his own to slow him down any. And likewise. It’s always very good to see you, dearest.”
Leia’s face heats, pink blooming across her cheeks. Her younger self would never have done such a thing. Blushing was never a part of Princess Leia’s repertoire. Except under very particular circumstances. For very particular people.
“No, perhaps not,” she says, focusing on Sosha’s words as best she can. Would Shara blame her for recruiting Poe? For seeking him out and offering him a purpose at the exact moment he’d been at his most vulnerable? Or would she be happy that she’d saved him from a court martial—from death even, assuming his superiors would have sent him to the military prison on Hosnian Prime?
She thinks of Rey and Finn and every member of Blue and Red Squadron. “And no, he hasn’t. He’s got a whole lot of Sharas nudging him on instead.”
“In that case,” Sosha says, “it will not be terribly long before this business with the First Order is concluded, hmm? That is good news.” More seriously, she adds, “I’m so sorry, vehnaa.”
Han’s absence wraps itself around her at Sosha’s words, defines her in a way she finds uncomfortable, restricting. She can’t hang onto the threads of it, but she can’t let them go either… no matter how much she needs to.
No. How much she wants to.
She’d lost him a long, long time ago. The minute she’d committed to the Resistance in fact, though she hadn’t known it at the time, hadn’t known it for a long time after either. Hadn’t even known it the last time she’d seen him. There’s so much she doesn’t know and won’t let herself see.
Maybe that’s why she says, throaty, “We’ve all lost people,” instead of thank you. Or I miss him. Or I thought he’d live forever. Or even I can’t believe he survived long enough to get old.
*
Sosha’s skin is delicate in the way Leia’s is, too easily changed by strife and worry and fear—so different from their youths, when their bodies protected them from the wounds of their hearts. Once upon a time, Leia could spend half the day crying and show up to ops with no one the wiser, her appearance never betrayed by the emotions pulsing inside of her.
Now it feels as though everything is reflected across every inch of her. The tired smolder inside of her that manifests in her eyes. Her many disapprovals etched around her mouth.
But Sosha is still beautiful, perhaps even more so than Leia remembers. She’s grown more regal with age, more poised, more everything. Her hair, pulled into a chignon, much simpler than the hairstyles she’d worn as queen, suits her well. The lack of make-up tempers her loveliness not at all.
Leia, too, can appreciate her now in a way she wouldn’t allow herself back then. Guilt ought to suck her into the ground, guilt like when she thinks about Han by his name or like when she sends people to die for the cause, her cause. Guilt like when she makes the right call. And when, less often, she makes the wrong one. She’s felt a lot of guilt in her life.
She refuses to let guilt touch what she has with Sosha.
*
“You might plant a garden,” Sosha suggests as they stroll down the paths that wind around the outside of the base. They twist through the cover of trees—dubious protection against anything stronger than a brief visual scan, but comforting nonetheless. The canopy is thick, light dappling the ground only intermittently. Motion-detecting lights dot the ground, lighting as they pass, dimming again when they veer too far away. They don’t fully illuminate the trails, but they keep people from tripping all over themselves in the perpetual twilight.
“And why would I do that?” Leia asks, pleased with how warm Sosha is at her side, how easily their arms twine together. Sosha didn’t come for this—Leia’s still not sure why she’s come at all—but she’ll take it anyway.
“It promotes a sense of stability, of care and determination.” She points toward a miniscule clearing nearby, little more than a circle of grass in the presence of giants. Leia doesn’t point out that it gets pretty dark in there, too, the trees too tall, the sun too weak. How would flowers survive? That doesn’t stop Sosha from continuing. ”Love, even. Moonflowers would look exquisite, I think.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s where the kids go to neck,” Leia answers. Sosha swats at her and frowns, shaking her head in teasing disapproval. “Ow.”
“All the more reason then,” Sosha insists. Her brown eyes flash with determination and mischief both. Leia’s not sure how she manages that. “Such a place deserves more beauty than this.”
“All right. So which of my not-at-all overworked subordinates should I press into service on this project?”
“None of them. I will do it myself,” Sosha replies, haughty. She nudges Leia in the side, her elbow sharp, jabbing at her ribs. Which is good as far as distractions go, because all Leia can think about otherwise is she’s staying. “Perhaps Commander Dameron will help.”
Leia narrows her eyes, peers up at the green, living ceiling above their head. “I’m sure he would,” she says, different words locked behind her teeth, a jealous question that is unworthy of both of them. “But I have a better idea.”
“And what would that be?”
“I’ll help. Just let me know when you need me.”
*
“No, no,” Sosha says, laughing, her hands covered in soil as she pulls Leia’s away from the hole she’s dug. “I thought you were going to help.”
It’s a good hole, Leia thinks. Nice and hole…like. It doesn’t look any different from the one Sosha’s made in any case. “What?” she asks, forcing herself to focus on it rather than the gritty warmth of Sosha’s dirty palms against hers. “What’s wrong? I’m helping. This is helpful.”
“It’s all wrong.” Sosha blows the stray hairs out of her face and bends forward, her head drawing close to Leia’s as she pokes at Leia’s work. She wears the same perfume she’d worn the last time they saw each other, something soft and spicy and floral all at once, nameless—to Leia at least, who’d never thought to ask before and kind of likes the mystery of it now. There’d never been time. Not on those few occasions they’d reunited.
“Alderaan had mountains. And ice. I can snowshoe through a blizzard if I had to,” she replies, a spasm flashing through her at the remembrance of her home world. That reaction is as much a part of her now as the child she’d carried, the husband she’s lost. She doesn’t let it trouble her much. ”Flowers were for specialists and dedicated hobbyists.”
Sosha flashes a smile at her, sweeps a mound of dirt back into the hole Leia’s dug. “That’s a useful ability.”
“There’s no snow here,” she says, her exhalation more like a laugh than the huffy breath of feigned annoyance she’d intended. “It’s not gardening.”
“I guess we’ll just have to rely on one another then.” Dusting her hands together, she reaches for one of the tiny, vulnerable plants she’s had shipped in. Drops it easily into the now Sosha-approved hole in the ground. She grabs Leia’s hands and brings them toward the dirt, the tangle of their fingers filling the hole together. “As I don’t know a single thing about snowshoeing through blizzards.”
She’s seen a move like this before and falls for it again all the same.
And just like the first time, she lets her nerves get the better of her, her stomach fluttering somewhere between sick and anticipatory. Her knee-jerk reaction is to pull away, put distance between herself and this thing hunched between them. But Sosha doesn’t push, not even gently, not even like Han—she’s not Han, Leia wouldn’t be interested if she were, Han is Han and Sosha is Sosha—she just goes about the business of teaching Leia how to garden. Points out the best depth for kahlas, why it’s important to break up the clumped roots of jil flowers just a little, where Sosha’s favorite plants used to grow in Theed and how she wishes it were warmer here so she could send for them.
It’s… nice. The nicest Leia’s felt in a long, long time.
Leia hasn’t had much use for nice lately, but she finds, all the same, that she would like to feel more of it.
*
“How long are you staying?” Leia asks, arms crossed to keep her hands from twitching with nervousness, the trees around them almost pressing against her, too close.
“As long as you’ll have me,” she answers, plain, stepping toward Leia, taking her by the hand. Bold, she cradles it between her palms and presses a kiss to Leia’s knuckles. She lifts her eyes and smiles, an enticing offer twinkling there. It asks for so much, demands nothing all the same. “If it’s all the same to you.”
It’s complicated. They’ve always been complicated. And there are no fewer complications now than there’d been before, not really. The fact that Leia would dare broach the topic anyway… “Why?”
“I’ve missed you. It’s been lonely.” She shrugs her shoulder. “There aren’t many people with whom I share so many similarities. And you stopped visiting.”
“Former royalty are in short supply, I suppose.”
Sosha rolls her eyes. “I might like to help, too. The Resistance is the only option worth pursuing any longer, it seems.”
“Mmm. Well, I’m sure Poe would love to get you into an X-wing. Either way,” and here she has to draw in a deep breath, attempt to calm her wildly beating heart. She’s not a girl anymore, but tell that to her response to Sosha’s presence, her offer. “I’d like it. If you stayed.”
Sosha steps in even closer, body flush with Leia’s, so close Leia can feel each measured breath Sosha takes. Leia’s eyes search the forest around them, expecting someone—Threepio, most likely—to interrupt, but when no one does, she lifts her hands to cup Sosha’s face.
“I’d like it a lot,” she says and it’s not smooth, not even remotely. Han’s probably laughing at her from the afterlife, the bastard, but it makes Sosha’s eyes brighten and she nods and she stands on her tiptoes and she plants a quiet, entirely proper kiss on Leia’s mouth, nothing at all like how her scoundrel would have done it and somehow exactly like him all the same and that’s what matters. Her heart can’t tell the difference, can’t separate the feeling of want she’d had for him and the feeling of want she has for Sosha now.
Holding Sosha close, she doesn’t let herself question it, not yet. Might not ever. I love you, she thinks—somewhere out there, here jackass husband is replying, I know, because that’s the only declaration of his she can remember, the audacity of it crossing the years right along with her—and also, I like you. I want to know everything I’ve missed.
I’m glad you’re staying.
“Rhela lilies grow in the shade, don’t they?” she asks instead. “Why don’t we have some brought in?”