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Lucy (9, 10)
I went for "shining example of blue and orange morality," myself.
Anyway, finishing up Lucy and moving on to my baby next.
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Title: The Adventures of Lucy Skywalker (9/10, 10/10)
Fanverse: The Adventures of Lucy Skywalker
Blurb: Leia commandeers Lucy and they share some girl-talk (hair, clothes, murder, politics -- you know, the usual); Han delivers a game-changing revelation, and then cliffhanger.
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Chapter Nine
The Falcon managed to reach the Rebel base at Massassi without any further excitement. Leia draped the blanket around Lucy's shoulders again, ignoring her protests, and all six of them clattered down the ramp. Several Rebel troops approached.
It struck her that they were still radiating the same scent they'd picked up a few hours ago: garbage compactor. Lucy cringed.
The troops had either too much courtesy, or fearful respect of Leia, to mention it, and simply provided an armored speeder to take them to the hangar. Lucy tried to take in everything, but her eyelids kept drifting shut. Leia perched on the edge of the speeder, stiffly upright, and Han yawned.
The speeder came to a halt just as a silver-haired man caught sight of Leia. She jumped off and his remote expression turned warm. He strode over and embraced her, paying no more attention to her soaked, filthy gown than anyone else had shown.
"You're safe," he said, with very evident relief. Leia kissed his cheek. "When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst."
Leia, despite the kiss, was as unflinching as ever. "We have no time for sorrows, Commander," she said briskly. Lucy, who had taken a few nervous steps backward, stared at her in awe. Tatooine was harsh enough, but she couldn't even imagine the kind of environment that must have forged Leia.
The Empire, she supposed.
"- to plan the attack," Leia was saying. "It's our only hope."
The commander nodded. "We'll plug him in right away," he said, and gave the orders to a group of soldiers nearby, then glanced at Leia's organic companions. She gestured for them to approach, and grasped Lucy's elbow.
"This is Lucy Skywalker and Han -"
"Solo," said Han.
"Solo," Leia repeated. "They rescued me from the Death Star, at considerable risk to themselves. Lucy, Han, this is Commander Willard, a very close friend of my family's."
Willard, after one startled look, bowed to them both. "The Rebellion is indebted to you both. You will, of course, be rewarded."
"Thanks," said Han.
"I don't need a reward," said Lucy.
Willard smiled and offered every hospitality the Rebellion could provide, for the duration of their stay. "We'll have quarters prepared for your both," he said.
"No," said Leia quickly. Her composed expression didn't falter in the slightest, but her fingers dug into Lucy's arm. "That shouldn't be necessary. Lucy will stay with me, and . . . Captain Solo will be leaving anyway. Isn't that right?"
"Yeah," said Han.
Lucy was glad her sleeves were so thick. "If you'd like," she said, bewildered - until it occurred to her that hers was probably the first sympathetic face Leia had seen in her weeks onboard the Death Star. Certainly the first since the destruction of Alderaan. She tried to wipe every trace of pity off her face.
"I see," said Willard, plainly not seeing.
Leia wrinkled her nose. "You'll have to excuse us. We escaped through a garbage compactor," she announced.
"Of course." He seemed entirely unfazed by this. Lucy supposed a Rebel leader must be used to this sort of thing. "The debriefing's in two hours, if you - "
"I'll be there," said the princess, and marched off, dragging Lucy after her.
Leia almost breathed a sigh of relief when the doors slid closed behind them. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been properly alone with another person. Alone and safe: lying in a cell on the Death Star, awaiting her execution, hardly counted.
Her mind skittered away from her weeks on the Death Star. She couldn't afford to think about that, not when there was so much to be done. There would be time for grief later - or, perhaps more probably, there would be no time at all, but Leia was an optimist.
Of sorts.
She had no patience for useless fatalism, at any rate. Simply letting the worst happen to you in the conviction that it was inevitable anyway struck her as a sort of moral laziness. The future wouldn't look after itself; you had to hope and fight for what you wanted to see. Expect that you could make it happen. Leia lived with the intention of succeeding at everything she did; when she failed, it wasn't because of any failure of effort on her part.
Lucy cleared her throat. Out of habit, Leia tilted her head back to meet - the air above Lucy's head. Leia smiled and dropped her gaze to Lucy's, the blue eyes level with her own.
"I - I'm really sorry," Lucy said, turning red, "I know I shouldn't bother you, but could I borrow some clothes? I don't know any other women and the stormtroopers burned my house."
"I . . . what?" said Leia.
"When they came looking for the droids. They destroyed everything."
It took her a moment to put it all together. Then Leia stared at her, horrified. She'd ejected the droids, sent Artoo to find General Kenobi; instead, they'd somehow ended up with Lucy, and stormtroopers had tracked them to her doorstep. Nothing could have survived their search; Lucy quite literally had nothing but the clothes on her back. She was just lucky she hadn't been home.
"I'm sorry," Leia said, knowing the words sounded cold and dispassionate, even as guilt burned in her gut. I never meant this to happen. I never meant - I'm so sorry. She forced herself to relax her grip on the other girl. "If you can wait for me to bathe, I'll find you something."
Lucy nodded. Twenty minutes later, after Leia had scrubbed every bit of garbage off her skin, dressed, and incinerated her robes, the princess emerged to find her standing exactly where she'd left her.
Lucy took a tentative step forward, then stopped. "I don't - I just meant to ask if you could spare any clothes, until I can get my own. I don't want to . . . I'm filthy."
"I know - that's why you're going to take a bath now," said Leia. She overrode Lucy's inarticulate protests and dragged her to the bathroom, ordering her to disrobe while she ran another bath. Lucy had only unbuckled the stormtrooper belt, however, when she froze, gaping at the water gushing out of the faucets.
"You can undress behind that curtain, if you want," Leia told her, then remembered just where Lucy's destroyed home had been. "Oh! Do you mind water? There's a sonic shower, if you'd rather -"
"No!" Lucy exclaimed, then flushed again. "I mean. I, ah, I don't mind. It's just - on Tatooine, I could buy a house with that much water. Just washing my hands, back on the Falcon, felt . . . decadent, I guess."
Leia blinked down at the water. She'd been raised to be conscious of the privileges of wealth, but she couldn't say she'd ever considered water one of them. Lucy reached out, then snatched her fingers back, looking embarrassed.
"I'll go look for some clothes," said Leia. "You can put yours . . . um . . . are you attached to them?"
Lucy laughed. "No," she said, taking two cautious steps towards the tub and peering inside, her fingers closing on the rim. "I didn't even usually wear these, but skirts aren't practical for wandering around the Jundland Wastes."
"Right," said Leia, in perfect incomprehension. "Just call for me when you're ready, okay? And scream if you start drowning."
She left Lucy to work herself up to using what appeared to be a small fortune by Tatooine standards, and raided her wardrobe for clothes. It was almost a relief, to occupy her mind with something so trivial - though, of course, it was hardly trivial when you didn't have any. Leia dug through her drawers, trying to imagine how much an ordinary girl, or at least a girl brought up in ordinary circumstances, would even want.
A dozen sets should be fine, Leia thought. We can buy more later. We'll both need things that fit properly, anyway.
Lucy had said something about not wanting to bother her, but Leia ignored that. It never even occurred to her that the niece of a Tatooine moisture farmer might not expect to be welcomed by a princess. If it had occurred to her, Leia would have dismissed the thought immediately. Thanks, in some part, to Leia's actions, Lucy had lost her home and nearly everything she owned, and she'd responded by risking her life to save her.
Han had done nearly as much, but he hadn't lost anything to the Rebellion - and besides, he was quite happy to be paid in money. Lucy couldn't be repaid at all, but Leia could at least provide for her, take her under her wing. It wouldn't be a burden: would never have been, probably, but certainly not now, when Leia had no one left but generals and handmaidens. She'd like a companion - and she liked taking care of people - and she liked Lucy herself, without even much knowing her.
Well, she knew enough. Lucy had more than proven herself in the few hours they'd known each other, and besides, they'd crammed more living into those hours than most friends did in a decade. It was only natural to feel a certain camaraderie - there were just some things that people couldn't live through without becoming friends. Leia suspected that escaping a planet-destroying battle station was one of them.
She preferred not to think what that would imply about Han Solo. He wasn't . . . he wasn't like Lucy. Where Lucy shared Leia's allegiance to the Rebellion, all her ideals and convictions, Han had no loyalty to anything other than himself. He couldn't be trusted, and next to that, nothing else mattered.
"Princess?"
Leia started up. "Are you done? If you are, there should be two buttons on your left - the top one will drain the water, and the lower one will dry you off."
"Um - all right." There was silence, then a faint whoosh accompanied by a yelp of surprise. Leia brought her a robe and undergarments, averting her eyes while Lucy dressed. Belatedly, it occurred to her that she could have just as easily summoned one of her handmaidens to do all this. She just didn't - Leia paused. She felt something odd around Lucy, a sense of . . . familiarity, almost, of belonging. She didn't want anyone else looking after Lucy, and she didn't want anyone else near her right now.
"I - I didn't expect you to take so much trouble, L - Princess Leia," Lucy said, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Leia noticed idly that it was as long and heavy as her own, and wet, looked almost dark.
"I think we've been through enough together to use first names," she said. "Though I suppose I could call you Miss Skywalker if you'd like."
"No, I - Lucy is fine," she said, and gave a nervous laugh. "Leia."
Leia led her out to the main chamber, chattering all the while. She didn't think she could bear any silence between herself and another person, or any mention of - things she couldn't think about. Lucy seemed inclined to be quiet, but Leia kept talking anyway.
"- and here's the mirror, I thought you might want to hold them up to your face or something. I didn't know if you had any particular preferences about colour, or . . . Well, I had no idea about anything, so I thought you could just choose for yourself." Leia threw the doors open wide.
"I . . . I'm not picky, really," said Lucy, blinking at her reflection. "Anything you don't want should be fine."
"I can't say I particularly want any of these. It's not my . . . it doesn't make any difference to me."
"Oh." Lucy smiled. "I like black and white. And red. And blue. And yellow. But I'll be happy with anything that fits."
"That shouldn't be hard. We're nearly the same height, and -" Leia, holding an olive-green dress up to Lucy's face, paused in front of the mirror. By some coincidence, their postures were identical at their moment - spines straight, shoulders thrown back, chins lifted a little - and she could see that the crown of her dark head was just about level with Lucy's. She didn't think there was a quarter-inch of difference between them. "Actually, we are the same height. And about the same size, too."
For a moment, they just stared at the mirror, inexplicably arrested by their paired reflections. It wasn't as if they even resembled each other that much: just big eyes and high cheekbones and soft chins, and even those were different - Lucy's eyes a clear blue where Leia's were dark, her tanned skin drawn tight over the cheekbones where Leia's cheeks were pale and round, a cleft in her chin where Leia's was smooth. They were just shaped the same, like the same outline filled in with different colours.
"You're thinner than I am, I think," said Lucy, her expression at once gratified and unsettled.
"I've lost some weight," Leia said lightly. "I imagine you're closer to my size than I am - we'll both need new clothes. I don't really like brown, do you?"
Lucy opened her mouth, then shut it again.
"Not really," she said, and glanced at the pile of gowns strewn across Leia's bed. "The white dress is pretty."
"Which one?"
Chewie had taken a much-needed nap after their arrival. When he woke up, four hours later, he immediately asked where Lucy had gotten herself to. Han scowled.
"How would I know?"
The Wookiee promptly listed seven reasons why Han should have some idea where Lucy had gone. She was their friend, after all - and quite evidently incapable of looking after herself.
"Aw, hell, I don't know," Han muttered. "Her royal princessness dragged her off and I haven't seen her since. They're probably sitting around gabbing about whatever it is that women talk about. Hair or something."
"Ow!" said Lucy.
Leia yanked a comb through her hair. "Sorry," she said cheerfully. "I've only combed my own hair a few dozen times in my life, and never anyone else's."
"It's all right," said Lucy, wincing. "I wouldn't be much better - my aunt always did mine."
Leia glanced over Lucy's head, meeting her own reflected eyes. "Your aunt? You have family?"
"Not any more. The stormtroopers killed them," said Lucy. The comb stopped moving for a moment, and she dared to move her head, looking up into the mirror. She didn't need the Force to read the princess' pale, stricken face. "It's not your fault, Leia."
"I didn't realize that anything - but I should have. I should have known," Leia said, more to herself than to Lucy.
"Ben - General Kenobi to you - said it's impossible to anticipate everything," Lucy told her. "Even for someone with as much wisdom and experience as he had. You can't be that much older than I am. How old are you, anyway?"
"I'll be eighteen on Empire Day," Leia admitted. "Repulsively enough."
Lucy blinked at their reflections. "That's funny," was all she said, before shaking her head. "Who managed your hair? Your handmaidens?"
"Mm-hmm." Leia hit another tangle and grimaced. "Your hair must be as thick as mine. It's miserable to keep up, isn't it? I'd have chopped all mine off ages ago if I didn't have people to help me with it, and Al - I wasn't living in a desert."
"It's horrible," Lucy said hastily. "We didn't have time to brush it more than a few times a week and I didn't want it like my - didn't want it short. If I hadn't put it up somehow, I'd have probably passed out from the heat." She considered Leia's dark coils of hair. "I never thought of putting it over my ears, though."
"I wanted something that made me look like a senator, but wouldn't get in my way when I got into trouble," said Leia. "I found it on some old holos, from before the Empire –- one of my father's friends in the Senate wore hers like this sometimes. I always admired her, so it seemed a nice tribute, too."
Lucy felt a prickle of interest. "Oh, who was she?"
"Senator Amidala."
Lucy's eyes widened. "Amidala?"
"You've heard of her?" Leia seemed to be trying to look unsurprised.
"No, never. It's just . . . that's my name. Lucy Amidala. I suppose my mother must have admired her too, or something. What was she like?"
"She was one of the youngest senators in history," Leia replied instantly, "and she was one of the first people to oppose the Emperor, even though she helped put him into power in the first place. She died about the same time as the fall of the Republic, though, so nobody really hears about her." She frowned. "Nobody knows how she died, either, just that she was pregnant. I wouldn't be surprised if he had something to do with it."
"I don't know much about the old Republic, except the wars, but she sounds impressive," said Lucy. "The Emperor started as a senator himself, didn't he?"
"Yes. In fact, he was originally the senator for Amidala's own constituency. They came from the same place, and he mentored her when she was a girl and helped her with her early career."
"That sounds . . . horrifyingly creepy," said Lucy. "So how did he end up becoming Emperor, anyway?"
Leia made herself comfortable. "Well, it started with the blockade of Naboo by the Trade Federation, when Palpatine was still Senator - "
"Wait, what's a trade federation?"
Chapter Ten
From politics, it was an easy step to silence. Leia, for once, didn't seem to mind the quiet, and she didn't kick Lucy out either - or let her leave. Lucy didn't mind.
She couldn't say she was less in awe of the princess. The realization that Leia was a seventeen-year-old girl who liked fancy clothes, voiced every thought that crossed her mind, and dreamed of more than the galaxy had seen fit to give her - a girl, that was, not unlike Lucy herself - only made her more extraordinary, not less so.
But it also made her more comfortable to be around. Lucy went from standing stiffly in a borrowed robe, staring at the mirror, to perched on the corner of Leia's bed, uncomfortable in a flowing white gown that caught the calluses on her fingers, to sprawled across the bed while Leia slouched in a small, uncomfortable-looking chair that still seemed like a throne when she sat in it.
For awhile, Lucy had been afraid that she'd overstayed her welcome. But now that they weren't busy with stormtroopers and bottomless abysses and so forth, Lucy had the distinct impression that Leia didn't just appreciate her help, but actually liked her, and enjoyed her company. In any case, the princess seemed to take a distinct pleasure in fussing over her, and Lucy could tell that she didn't really want to be alone.
Lucy understood that. She hadn't been alone since she'd buried her family, and she had no intentions of being so. And her grief could only be the tiniest fraction of Leia's. So she stayed, her chin on her hands, readily entering into conversation and just as readily falling into comfortable silence. Leia's meeting - well, everyone's - was still twenty minutes away.
Lucy was dozing, and Leia just about to talk her awake, when what sounded like an entire raiding party pounded on the door. Lucy instantly jerked upright, her eyes half-wild and her hand curling around her lightsaber even when she smacked her head on the bedpost. Leia sprang to her feet almost as quickly and considerably more smoothly.
The thing on the other side of the door gave a familiar low roar.
"Chewie?" said Lucy. Leia sighed and lowered her blaster.
"I think we have guests," she said, and opened the door. Han and Chewbacca stood there, the former scowling and the latter doing his best to loom over her. It was a very impressive loom, Lucy thought, sleepily hooking her sword back on her belt, but it hardly seemed like a seven-foot Wookiee needed to put that much effort into dwarfing a five-foot princess. She rubbed her head.
"Captain Solo," Leia said, her tone rich with disdain. Lucy wondered if she'd had to learn to do that, or if it just came naturally. "What do you want?"
"Nice to see you too," drawled Han, his grin wide and humourless. "Don't worry, your Wonderfulness, I'm not here to bother you."
"Then you've already failed," Leia said. "Amazing, even for you."
"Look, Princess, I didn't -"
Lucy yawned, and they both turned to look at her.
"Sorry," she said. "Keep going, it's terribly interesting. Isn't it, Chewie?"
The Wookiee grumbled.
"Oh, all right," said Leia. "You're here to see Lucy, aren't you? Fine, come in. Just keep that thing from shedding on my carpet."
Lucy winced, sitting on the foot of the bed, and Leia threw herself back in her chair.
"Nice digs," Han observed, leaning against the doorframe. "Really makes a man feel welcome."
Leia rolled her eyes. "So you came to tell me that my personal quarters don't meet your highly erudite standards of interior decorating? I'm devastated."
"Hey, don't look at me," said Han. "Chewie's the one who insisted. Wanted to make sure Lucy hadn't fallen into a well or something."
"I don't think there are any wells here," Lucy told him, then smiled at the Wookiee. "But thanks, Chewie. See, I'm all right. Leia's just been helping me settle in."
Han folded his arms. "Settle into what?" he demanded. "Giving rousing speeches? They've got her for that." He jerked his head at the princess.
"Excuse me?" said Leia, her voice freezing still further. Lucy hadn't known it was possible.
"What are you talking about?" she asked Han.
"You found your glorious Rebellion and turned over your plans and everything's going to be just fine, right? Is that what you think? Because -"
"There's a battle station with unlimited firepower headed straight for us," said Lucy, "so that'd be a no."
Han ignored this. "I've been taking a look around," he said. Leia's eyes narrowed. "Oh, don't worry, Highness. I'm not a rat. I just figured I should see what kind of mess Lucy's got herself into."
"How selfless," said Leia. "I'd never have thought it of you."
"I can take care of myself, Han," Lucy added crossly. She rubbed her throbbing head.
Han's slow, mocking smile was considerably more genuine this time. " 'Course you can. The two of you'd never rush into anything dangerous without thinking."
"You're hardly one to talk!" Lucy cried. "You're the one that just went around blasting everything in sight. We had to come up with all the plans!"
Chewbacca's roar contained a distinct note of amusement.
"Hey," Han snapped at his friend, "I was in a hurry. I didn't have time to come up with anything else." He turned back to Lucy. "Look, Lucy, the point is that I've been knocking around the galaxy as long as you've been alive. I get myself into trouble, I can get myself out again. I don't end up in cells waiting to be executed. And I didn't pick up my ideas about people from watching the damn HoloNet."
"We didn't get the HoloNet on the farm, actually," said Lucy. "I had to go all the way to Anchorhead just to hear the news."
Han's jaw twitched. Leia grinned.
"Well, that's just great. Forget everything I said! Who needs experience when you can learn everything you need to know from seventeen years cooped up on a moisture farm?"
"I wasn't -" Lucy began, then bit her lip. She tried again. "Han, you can call me little girl all you want, but that won't make it true. I'm not a child and you're not my father. You don't need to protect me."
Han sputtered. "To protect - I wasn't - I don't - your what? Believe me, Lucy, I don't . . . no. Just, no. I had some extra time, figured I'd see what you were getting yourself into. Friends do that kind of thing, okay? Watch each others' backs. Doesn't mean I'm some kind of white knight."
Lucy's face softened; even Leia's did, a little.
"Oh. Well, I -"
"And let me tell you," he went on, "you're right. These are nice people. Crazy, of course, but real, real nice. Not the kind of people who'd stick a girl behind the controls of an X-Wing and hope for the best, you know?"
Lucy's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"
"Yes, Captain Solo," said Leia, her fingers tight on the arms of her chair. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm a simple man," Han replied. "Haven't got much to say to the brass, but I went around, talked to the pilots. More my type - nice guys, but at least they talk like normal people." He looked over at Leia. "You don't need to worry, Princess. They're as suicidal as the rest of you. Just wish they ever saw any women. Apart from you, of course."
"Don't be ridiculous," said Leia impatiently. "Of course there are other women."
"At the computers? Pilots don't see them. It's a big day when they get to hear one over the intercom."
"Wait," Lucy said. "You mean, there aren't any women pilots? Any at all?"
Han shrugged. "See for yourself. I've got a reward to collect," he said, and nodded at them. "I'll see you around, Lucy. Princess."
As soon as he'd slouched out, trailed by the omnipresent Chewbacca, Leia turned to Lucy. "Don't worry," she said. "We'll find some use for your skills."
Lucy's eyes were still wide. "I don't have other skills," she said. "Unless you want vaporators repaired. Maybe if Ben had lived, it'd be different, but I hardly know anything about being a Jedi. Flying is what I do. I can't just waste my most useful ability because -"
Leia, for the first time since Lucy had met her, looked torn. She walked to the window on the other side of the room, hands clasped behind her back.
"I'm quite a good pilot myself, you know," she said, her voice oddly distant. "Almost as good as you and Han. Flying always came easily to me, but I didn't have many chances to practice. My father didn't like it, and there were so many more important things I had to learn. Not that it matters. I couldn't be risked in battle anyway - especially not now. But even if I were no one in particular, it wouldn't make any difference."
"I didn't know you could fly," said Lucy awkwardly.
"It's not a vocation," Leia said. "Just a skill I've never much honed. I have other things to do, important things. More important than anything I could do in an X-Wing."
"I don't," said Lucy, and felt almost as if she were falling back into her own life, caged in while restlessness ate at her. All the old furious resentment seemed to be sliding back into her veins.
No, I'm not - I won't live like that again, she thought, and looked at Leia a little wistfully. It didn't seem to matter that they'd only known each other for a few hours. From that first glimpse of the hologram, she'd felt a . . . a connection, a sense that their destinies were tied together, or should be. She wanted to stay, to be her friend.
It just wasn't enough.
"I know you don't," Leia was saying. "I can't endure mundane tedium, myself, or sitting around aimlessly. I need more than tasks delivered from on high. I need to have a purpose, to see that what I'm doing is important. You're like that too, I can tell." She took a deep breath, then released it. "It's funny, I hardly know you, but it seems - never mind. Just, I'd rather you stayed. But I understand if you can't."
"I have to think," said Lucy, distracted. "But you have your meeting with all the . . . everyone, don't you?"
"Yes. You can accompany me, if you'd like. General Dodonna is explaining our strategy to all the pilots."
"Sure," she said.
Afterwards, as the fighter pilots prepared for the attack, Lucy wandered over to a small isolated area, where Han and Chewbacca were loading boxes onto a speeder. She scowled.
"So . . . you got your reward and you're just leaving them?" she demanded.
"That's right," said Han, his air of insouciance almost as impenetrable as when they'd first met. "I got some old debts I've got to pay off with this stuff. Even if I didn't, you don't think I'd be fool enough to stick around here?"
"I guess not," she said, eyes narrowing. "You're not like me. I talked to them and - but you could do something. You're a great pilot and you could fly against the Death Star. You're just -"
"Sane? Yeah, I guess so." He dusted his hands off and turned to look at her, something odd in his expression. He seemed almost nervous. "Look, this place is doomed. You know that, I know that. Hell, even the princess knows that. They'll never survive and there's no place for you here anyway."
"Thanks," said Lucy. "That makes everything better."
"I didn't mean -" He cleared his throat. "Lucy, I . . . why don't you come with me?"
Lucy's mouth dropped open. Chewbacca, carrying one of the heavier boxes, dropped it on his foot. He howled in agony.
By the time he'd recovered enough that Lucy's soft voice would even be audible, she'd turned a deep red. She didn't seem able to meet his eyes.
"Han, I -" Her faltering voice sharpened. "Wait. Is that why you were going on about how there's no women in the Rebellion? You were just . . ." She gestured.
"Huh?" said Han brilliantly.
Chewbacca laughed.
"No!" he said. "I didn't mean - that is, I wasn't - unless - no, just, I wasn't - I'm not propositioning you! Hell, no."
He flinched as soon as the words left his mouth.
"Lucy, I don't - "
"If I am that repulsive," she said, in a tone which would have done Leia proud, "what exactly were you asking?"
"You're not -" Han rubbed his forehead, while Chewie snickered behind him. "You're very - you know, I'm not even going there. Just. It's not that you're repulsive, Lucy. It's that you're seventeen."
Her flush receded, though she seemed barely mollified. "Leia's seventeen," she said sulkily.
"Really?"
She gave him an impatient look. "Yes. Really. And I still have no idea what you were talking about."
"Well." Han stepped back, folding his arms. "You're pretty good in a fight, Lucy, and I trust you. I - we could use you. I'll teach you a few tricks of the trade, pay you a fair share of what we, ah, earn, the works."
Lucy watched wistfully as the pilots rushing back and forth, droids beeping and engines rumbling. Then she gazed up at him.
"Would I get to fly?"
Han laughed. "Sure. But you damage the Falcon and it comes out of your pay."
She looked back at Leia, small and proud. Lucy didn't like leaving her. But she wasn't going to hide behind her skirts either.
Leia seemed to understand what was happening. She waved her hand in a clear gesture of farewell.
Lucy blinked back tears.
"All right," she said, and held out her hand. "When do we leave?"
Han shook the hand, then slung his arm companionably about her shoulders. "As soon as we can. We'll deliver the load to Jabba, and then . . ."
Their voices trailed off as they walked away.
Princess Leia watched them leave, her heart thudding against her ribs, fierce and painful. Her limbs ached and her gut burned and her throat almost closed. It wasn't sentiment. Not mostly. She'd only felt this a few times in her life, but she knew exactly what it was.
Foreboding.
The End
(yes, there will be a sequel)