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http://ift.tt/2BjpLSp[follow up from this post]
Leia can’t keep her eyes off it. The box is drab, unobtrusive; it should slide straight out of her attention like a soaped up L’aat snake. (They’d put a L’aat snake in Luke’s bunk once, on Yavin. Luke had screamed bloody murder, and Han had to lean on Leia to stay upright, he was laughing so hard. She remembered how warm he’d been, how he’d smelled of leather and sweat and she’d—)
Leia sighs, and props her chin up on one hand.
It’s a…nice box. They always are. Endorian wood and the bronze flame of the Rebellion inlaid in the top. Shara’s had been heavy in Leia’s hands, when she went to deliver it to Kes; she’d asked for the assignment, thinking it’d be kinder coming from a friend. And maybe part-apology for missing the funeral because Senate business had kept her.
It hadn’t been like when she broke the news to families during the Rebellion. A soldier died fighting—there was a purpose to that, something for the grieving to cling to. Shara had died long and slow in her bed, because sometimes the universe was aimlessly cruel. Kes’ resentment had been like a starving animal, prowling the room. Leia had nothing to offer it but the box, and the cold medals inside.
She had never been especially close with Kes, but that had killed whatever little there was between them. She had ended up locked out and sitting with gawky, adolescent Poe on the grass, going through the medals and rank pins one by one. For bravery in the Battle of Yavin—and this, for saving civilians in the Battle of Duodine.
(I have a son a little bit younger than you, she’d said. He’s training to be a Jedi.)
Poe had brought this one to her, a kind of perverse mirror-image of fifteen years before. I’m very sorry for your loss, General, he’d said, and she knows they sent him instead of one of the others because there’s no malice or grudging to it. He’s just sincere, as though a few weeks before she hadn’t been upbraiding him for needlessly wasting lives in a heroic gesture.
Leia tentatively reaches out, touching the smooth wood of the box, pressing her thumb down on the latch until it aches. She wonders if it makes it worse, if the lives you waste are the ones you love best.
She straightens up, and pulls the box towards her. (It’s a beautiful box. She hates it, wants to burn it to ash.) Opens it quickly, hoping that this will be like a blaster-bolt, or cauterizing a wound, and doing it quickly will keep it from hurting so much.
It doesn’t, really.
Some of the contents are familiar—the smooth medal for extraordinary courage she had bestowed on Han and Luke after the Battle of the Death Star; a general’s rank pin, twin to the pin she herself has lying around somewhere. There’s a couple she doesn’t recognize, but are embossed with the flame-and-stars that the pilots had adopted. Most of the Alliance’s military honors had been made up, frankly; a kind of goodwill gesture to offset the fact that the New Republic was not planning on paying back-wages. (No, no matter how loudly you shout, Senator Organa.)
Leia blinks when she finds the ribbon at the bottom of the box, heavy with a silver medallion. She’s only seen those purple-and-white stripes on a couple of occasions—
She abruptly stands, clutching the ribbon.
Chewbacca is in the cockpit, grumbling about young Jedi copilots who keep disappearing to talk to their friends instead of focusing on navigation. Still, he looks up when she knocks, and growls a welcome. Leia only has to shoo away a few porgs before taking the copilot seat herself.
She could probably still fly this rusty bucket of bolts, she thinks fondly. Its controls are emblazoned on the backs of her eyes, underpinned with a hundred memories—the tense, fraught dance between her and Han on the way to Cloud City; Lando’s calming voice as he tried to talk her down because all she could think about was Han, Luke clutching his handless wrist; fumbling joy in the wake of Yavin, Han kissing her and kissing her and kissing her.
Ben had probably been conceived in the Falcon. (Both Ben and Luke had made the same horrified face, whenever Han brought this up.)
Leia clears her throat. “Did you know that Han had been awarded Meritorious Conduct?” she asks, deliberately keeping her voice light. Chewbacca huffs.
“He was so ashamed of that. Running with a bunch of idealists, but the smuggler couldn’t even get a single demerit.”
“We were militarized rebels!”
Chewbacca looks at her, and Leia feels herself go warm. Chewbacca has always had the mysterious ability her feel very immature, even now, when the last thing she could be described as is ‘young’. “It wasn’t exactly hard to get demerits,” she says, and she resents the sulky, adolescent tone in her voice. “Draven gave me one once for excessive enthusiasm, just because I kept trying to get myself assigned to a particular mission.”
“I think he wanted to be good,” Chewbacca says with a shrug. “Even if he wouldn’t admit it.”
All the air leaves Leia’s lungs at once, quick as if she’d been spaced. She clenches her jaw, refusing to cry. (She hadn’t cried yet, she doesn’t plan to. There will be time for crying when this is over, time for mourning when the work of the day is done. Leia is where the loss of the galaxy turns, she’s used to its weight by now.)
Clutched her hand, the ribbon is warm. “That sounds like him,” Leia says, and she’s grateful that she can say it so smoothly, only durasteel pride in her voice. Wordlessly, Chewbacca reaches out and covers her hand with his huge paw. Together, they watch hyperspace slide past, flickering past the viewport.
Leia ejects the box out the trash chute. The only thing she keeps back is the purple-and-white ribbon—Chewie grunts approvingly when she hangs it in the cockpit, in place of the gold dice.
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