Chapter Text
Leia Organa has never been a leader who sends other people out into danger in her place.
She resists the label of legend, but she knows that her name is a famous one, two words that carry weight. When General Organa extends a hand in friendship, many worlds are thinking not of the person she sees in the mirror, the woman with greying hair who stands no taller than your shoulder. They are thinking of Princess Leia as she is in the stories, the rebel leader who brought down an Empire.
They appear not to think of the child she bore and what he did, and if they do, they still come to the table. Maybe that isn’t the sort of story people like to tell. God knows Leia doesn’t.
Not once, in any of the worlds she has visited as leader of the Resistance, has anybody asked about her son. They ask about the future she sees for the weakened Republic, the threat of the First Order, the strength of the Resistance. They talk war and politics, in short. Leia has spent her whole life talking war and politics, and she knows how to respond. More than respond: she knows how to lead and turn the conversation to where she wants it.
Han used to tease her, in those years of peace after the Empire fell, that she couldn’t talk about anything else. When they might have been sitting in the sunshine somewhere, telling each other about music and the lakes of Naboo and the first time you fly through the Taro nebula over Hos, her mind was on import duties and voter registration and battleships.
He knew what he was letting himself in for though, when he’d set up as her consort and stumbled over his words asking if she wanted to have a baby with him.
She was a woman of war and politics then, as she is today.
So despite the near-open hostilities with the First Order and the Republic’s unwillingness to take action, Leia travels. She could send people in her place, and sometimes she does: one woman cannot cover the whole galaxy.
But when the outcome matters the most, Leia will go in person.
She can see it makes her entourage nervous.
(She has never thought of them as an entourage: they are her comrades at arms, her officers in the Resistance. It is Poe Dameron, on being asked to pilot yet another diplomatic mission with the same familiar faces, who names her inner circle the Entourage.
Wouldn’t you rather be a cabinet? My executive committee? she had asked, amused.
No, he told her. You’re the star, we’re the entourage, right Finn?)
Today they have good reason to be nervous. The only way back from Parix is through the Caleedien system. It’s officially neutral, for now, but as Leia met with the Parixi their intelligence has been reporting sighting after sighting of First Order ships in subspace and First Order troops on planet after planet. It probably won’t be neutral for long.
Poe showed them the starmaps before they left, and the alternative routes were three times as long and not much safer.
So here they are, Poe in the pilot’s seat so focused on his instrument panel and the soft back-and-forth of information he’s getting from the astromech droid he hasn’t said a word in hours.
Finn has moved from the co-pilot seat at Leia’s request, partly to go over her notes from the negotiation with the Parixi, and partly because she can see he is nervous. For once Poe isn’t making conversation to distract him, and Leia isn’t about to ask him to start.
But that leaves Finn jiggling his leg, biting his nails, and watching Poe when he thinks Poe isn’t looking.
It’s not the first time she’s noticed him watching Poe, and she can’t say she blames him. They all dress up for these desperate propaganda diplomacy trips, and Finn isn’t the only one to be distracted by how good their pilot looks in his dress uniform. He probably is the only person who doesn’t realise how good he looks in his own, though.
There are a lot of reasons Leia has chosen these two to come with her, and the fact that they’re both very easy on the eye is not at the top of the list. It is on the list though: she isn’t too proud to work all the angles. She knows the impression it makes, when General Organa disembarks from her shuttle flanked by two very beautiful young men. Whether it will be the deciding factor in anybody’s life and death decision to ally with the Resistance against the First Order seems unlikely, but then decisions aren’t always made on the rational grounds of planetary best interest that politicians and generals like to claim they are.
Leia always plays the best hand she possibly can, and so she presents herself in the formal robes of a head of state, a person who will win the war. It also means she travels with a good-looking entourage who listen when she speaks, who look good in uniform but don’t stand like soldiers, and who smile and joke with aides and local people as if the war was already won. Propaganda, perhaps, but propaganda works best when it is basically true.
That’s another reason she brings Finn with her: what better propaganda could there be for the Resistance cause than the Stormtrooper who saved a prisoner’s life and defected? On planet after planet Finn tells his story with limpid sincerity that has lost nothing through repetition, and she is desperately grateful to him for his willingness to do this, over and over again.
She’s pretty sure that when he isn’t flying, Poe is looking right back at Finn. He’s better at not getting caught doing it, but General Organa has spent her whole life around young men in desperate situations, and she’s not fooled. She’s seen Poe’s eyes go soft and the way he bites his lip and doesn’t say anything overt. Why he chooses not to say anything is his own business, and so far it’s always just the right side of plausible deniability. Leia is fond of him, and she doesn’t ask.
Poe Dameron is part of her entourage because she can always trust him to say the right thing, in public life as much as in private. He’s also here because he’s far and away her best pilot.
So when three separate sensors start beeping in syncopation, he reacts instantly.
“Yeah, got ‘em,” he tells the droid, flicking switches and slowing to drift velocity to stay concealed behind a small moon. Over his shoulder, he says, “First Order Tie fighters and a transport. It’s small, could be an officer’s ship. I’m gonna see if they pass.”
Their little ship is as heavily armed as its size permits, but a firefight so far from home is always a last resort. If he can keep out of sight, he will.
Leia and Finn both rise to stand behind him, watching the three ships approach.
“Don’t accelerate until I say, BB-8,” he murmurs. “They might not have seen us. Maybe they’re not interested – not every ship in the galaxy is interested in us, right?”
“Quite,” Leia agrees with a smile. “Let’s not flatter ourselves that we’re always the centre of attention.”
Nevertheless, she feels like she’s holding her breath as the ships come closer and closer to the moon.
“Finn, stand by on the guns just in case,” Poe says, and Finn slips into the gunner’s seat on the other side of the cabin.
Leia takes the co pilot chair and watches as the ships approach. They appear to be heading for the planet their moon orbits, glowing a dull green above them. Or they could be heading straight towards her ship.
“We can’t hide here,” she decides. “They’re going to see us any second now, if they haven’t already. Get moving, let’s aim for 'purposeful but not panicked,' alright?”
Poe nods and re-engages the engines, and just as he does, the first blaster fire flashes to starboard.
“Well, they’ve seen us,” he mutters, accelerating as fast as the ship will go.
“And they aren’t interested in finding out who they’re shooting at. Can we outrun them?”
Poe shakes his head grimly. “Not a chance.”
Another shot flashes past them, before a third clips the little ship’s underbelly. It shakes with the impact, and Leia braces herself on the dashboard as alarms wail.
“Shut off the noise, BB-8,” snaps Poe. “I already know they hit us.”
Their three pursuers have spread out, leaving them no choice but to maintain their course towards the planet.
Behind her, Finn is returning fire.
“Gotcha!” he cries, but despite the clear scorch mark on its hull the ship he has hit keeps pace with its companions. Finn grunts in frustration, keeps firing.
Another shot clips them. Leia is braced for it, but Poe is almost thrown out of his seat. The alarms start up again.
The planet is right in front of them now.
“I’m gonna take us down to the planet surface!” Poe calls back over noise of the impact alarm. “We’ll have a better chance of losing them there, and if we can’t then we can try to land and hide out somewhere. Okay sir?”
“Do it,” Leia orders. She doesn’t like the sound of hiding out on the planet, but it’s got to be better than being blown to pieces up here. If anyone can lose these ships, it’s Poe Dameron.
As they enter the atmosphere, another noise sounds from the dashboard.
“They’re hailing us,” Poe says. “They spend 10 clicks shooting at us and now they want to talk?”
“Any chance they know who we are?” Leia asks. She has a sinking feeling that they are being herded deliberately down to the surface.
“The Parixi might have told them,” Finn says.
“Well, let’s find out,” Leia decides, leaning forwards to accept the transmission. Talking is usually better than shooting. Not always, but most times.
When she hears the voice on the other end, she realises this isn’t one of those times.
“This is General Hux of the First Order,” he says, and Leia feels her blood turn to ice. “General Organa, I have something to discuss with you.”
“Do you open all your conversations by chasing people through space and shooting at them?” she retorts. “Because as things stand, I’m not feeling that you’ve established the basic trust necessary for a constructive discussion to take place.”
“No, I can see that,” Hux replies. “But I prefer to always conduct my negotiations from a position of strength.”
Leia looks up to meet Poe Dameron’s gaze. He makes a gesture of asking permission, and she nods at him.
“There’s position of strength and then there’s ‘land so we can shoot you more easily’ and you know what, this sounds like the second one,” he says.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it that it isn’t,” Hux says. “General Organa, I have a proposition for you regarding the person you used to know as Ben Solo.”
Leia can’t help the thump her heart gives at hearing her son’s name in this man’s mouth, but she can control her reactions. No one will hear Leia Organa’s voice shake, and the only person to see her knuckles go white as she clenches her fist is Poe Dameron at her side, who will never tell a soul.
“Keep flying,” she mutters to Poe. “Try and lose them in the cloud but land if you have to. Finn, keep shooting. We’re not just going to roll over and make this easy for them.”
Finn’s face is grimly serious, but Poe flashes her a grin and she loves him for it.
“Yes, sir!” he says, and pulls their ship into the most sickening dive she has ever experienced, which from the woman who flew with Han Solo for 30 years is really saying something.
When he levels up they have come through the clouds and are speeding terrifyingly close to the planet’s surface. It looks survivable: rocky hills giving way to plains of grass and scrub. It’s all she can make out at this speed.
For a second she thinks he’s done it, they’ve lost their pursuers with the sheer audacity of his flying.
Then she hears the shrill of the proximity alarm, and Poe’s soft, “Fuck,” and a second later she feels the ship shudder as the blast hits them.
With any other pilot at the helm they would probably have lost control, but Poe manages to drag the ship out of its downward spin to limp along for another few clicks before even he has to admit defeat.
“We’re going down,” he says flatly, not taking his eyes off the dashboard.
It’s the only warning he has time to give before they crash.
***
It’s one of the best crashes Leia has been in, actually. They all walk away from it, and even the ship looks repairable, if they had a full team of mechanics and spare parts and weren’t being hunted by General Hux and the First Order, that is. But it seems unfair to judge a technically impeccable crash on their unfortunate circumstances, especially when Poe is so pleased with it.
“You see that?” he crows to Finn as he shuts off the damage alarms. Smoke is coming out of one of the panels and Poe has a black smudge across his forehead. “That was even better than last time I crash landed with you under heavy fire! You bring me luck, buddy!”
“Any time you need me, I’ll be there,” Finn grins back.
Watching them, Leia feels terribly old: they are both so delighted with each other it’s as if they can forget what’s going to happen, even if it’s just for a moment.
She doesn’t want to burst their bubble, and when the comms panel beeps with another incoming transmission she doesn’t have to. They all know who it is.
Poe silently presses the switch to accept the transmission, and sits back to let Leia speak. She doesn’t look around, but she knows Finn has come to stand behind them.
“General Organa,” says Hux’s voice. It sounds distorted now: their comms must be damaged. “I have your location. If any of you want to make it off this planet alive, it is in your interest to come out here to hear my proposition regarding your son.”
“So tell me your proposition,” Leia snaps. Sometimes she feels she has spent her whole life being talked down to by arrogant men in uniform. “I wouldn’t even waste my time sending a droid for something so vague, let alone get out of my ship and come myself.”
Poe glances at Finn and bless them both, they are almost laughing at her show of scorn.
“You tell him, sir,” Poe mutters.
There is a short pause. Then Hux’s voice says, “Kylo Ren is an unstable fanatic who we both wish to contain. If certain conditions are met, I can offer you the opportunity to do that.”
Leia closes her eyes and tells herself it’s the smoke. But she knows it isn’t.
It's the swirl of her memories of a baby kicking inside her, the way she never knew that the pain of childbirth is only the first time your child can hurt you. You think it’s over, in an afternoon of clean blood and tears, but that’s only the beginning. She knows that now.
It isn’t Ben who shot them down, but these are the people he has chosen: men who would slit his throat in the dark and ask his mother to do their dirty work. She would choose childbirth a thousand times before she chose this, but of course it isn’t her choice to make. It was Ben’s, and he has made it.
She opens her eyes. Poe Dameron is looking at her, and it isn’t because he’s waiting for her reply. He’s waiting for her to see him, to offer support if she will accept it: it’s written in the tilt of his head and his anxious eyes, but he isn’t going to speak before she does. She raises one hand and he nods just once, and leans back.
“That’s an interesting suggestion, General,” Leia says. She has been in war and politics her whole life and she knows her voice is calm. She can hear this man speak of containing her only son, and her voice will be calm when she answers him: not much of an achievement for 40 years of struggle, but right now she’ll take it. “But you’ll forgive me if I find it hard to take at face value.”
“Indeed. But as you have doubtless observed, you don’t have much choice but to come out here and discuss it, do you?”
Dameron reaches out to cut the mike, looking to her for permission before he does it.
When she nods, he kills the outgoing sound and says urgently, “Sir, we do have a choice - we’re armed, we can fight. The odds aren’t great but we can call for help, hold them off until someone can reach us - ”
Finn is nodding. His hand rests on the back of Dameron’s chair, not quite touching his shoulder. “Yeah. He wants us alive, we can use that to play for time,” he says.
For a second she considers it. It won’t play out like they hope, of course: not this far from D’Qar and reinforcements. The second Hux sees a ship approach, it will all be over. But she could say yes, make a clean end of it. She looks at their earnest young faces, made strange by the ship’s emergency lights and the smoke, and cannot doubt that they would do it. They’d go down fighting for her. She only has to say the word.
But what kind of leader gives an order like that? Accepts certain death for her people rather than negotiate?
She looks at them, at something just beginning between them, and knows she won't ask them to make a stand here. There is always time for fighting later, when all the other options are exhausted. God knows the other options seem to run out soon enough.
She holds Dameron’s gaze until he nods, understanding. He nudges Finn’s hand with his shoulder without even needing to look round.
“What does Hux think I’ll do, do you suppose?” she asks.
It’s a question for Finn, really, but she doesn’t want to make him feel like he’s representing the First Order by directing it at him. He’s chosen to be here with them precisely because he doesn’t think like those people.
But they exchange a look, and it’s Finn who speaks up. “I don’t know much about family - I can’t remember mine, but I thought people did anything for them, don’t they? They’re like, more than your squad or your commander or anything. That’s why we didn’t have them, I guess: if First Order troops can’t have family, Hux must think it’s a powerful thing, mustn’t he?”
“Yes, I suppose he must,” Leia agrees. She can’t say Hux is wrong, either.
“You know, I have like, 12 cousins I don’t even need,” Poe interjects. “You should take my cousins. They can forget your birthday and do better in school than you – have yourself a whole family experience.”
“I couldn’t,” Finn objects, straight-faced. “You already gave me that jacket.”
“Yeah, but you saved my life, I owe you. And it suits you,” Poe tells him, tipping his head back to see Finn and gesturing, as if Finn standing there, not even wearing the jacket in question, proves his point.
Frankly Leia is impressed he can manage to flirt on the battlefield, but he never loses his focus: the second Leia opens her mouth, his eyes are back on her, all attention.
“Alright, so Hux thinks family is important; he probably thinks it is important to me. Now let me ask a different question,” she says. “What do you think I will do, Commander Dameron? Do you think I’ll accept a proposition like this? You know me better than Hux.”
He blinks at her, surprised. “Uh,” he begins, and then hesitates. “I have a feeling like there is no right answer here, sir.”
“You’re right, there isn’t. Give me a wrong one then.”
He smiles, because he’s good at smiling in desperate situations. That’s another reason she brings him along to negotiations: she knows his tells, but he hides them very well indeed.
Eventually he shakes his head and says, “I don’t know what you’ll do. Honestly. I wouldn’t like to call it,” he shrugs, smiles again. Softening his words with charm. “Depends what the conditions are. But you’re not asking us because you don’t know, are you?”
She folds her hands in her lap, adjusts the ring on her finger. Han gave it to her, 20 years ago now. Here – found something you might like, he’d said, kissing the top of her head and pressing a cold box into her hand. Gifts made him uncomfortable, and he hadn’t stayed to watch her open it.
It’s impractical, but she wears that ring a lot now.
Leia turns it round and round on her finger and looks at Poe. She isn’t trying to stare him down, but it might feel like that from where he’s sitting.
“No, I’m not. I know what to do,” she says, thumbing the channel back open again.
This isn’t about family. It’s about war and politics, and if Hux thinks he is dealing with Ben Solo’s grieving mother then goddammit Leia Organa will use that against him while there is breath still in her body.