namesake
Leia is nineteen and she has just watched everyone she loves die.
There is nothing but absence where she could once feel her parents’ love, and it’s colder than space and just as empty. So she stokes the flames of her rage until she finally feels warm again, even as she slowly burns alive.
And then there’s a cocky flyboy and a short stormtrooper who feels a little like home and as she approaches their getaway ship, an ugly hunk of junk, her eyes follow a familiar tug in her chest and she sees an old man, lightsaber crossed with Vader’s.
He turns to look at them. To look at her. His eyes are warm and he smiles, soft and sweet, a secret little thing just for her. And then, all of the sudden, he’s gone.
“BEN!” Luke screams, and he sounds like he’s lost everything, too. Leia’s heart twists in her chest.
She tries to tell herself that he wasn’t who she thought he was, because her Ben had been sad and mistrustful and grumpy, and surely not quite that old, but she knows.
She knows.