Princess Leia Organa joins the Alliance to Restore the Republic - her parents had helped found it, but now she wants to go on real missions - and finds herself in over her head. She’s intelligent and already pretty good with a blaster, but still only fourteen; raised in a palace to wield the spoken and written word rather than illegally acquired firearms, out of place in the grimy barracks. She has too much passion and too little experience to realize her potential.
The adults are more patient, if sometimes condescending, but several of the recruits in her age bracket are absolutely insufferable. They call her spoiled. They mock her posh Core World accent and ladylike habits, and she pretends it doesn’t sting while the pressure builds... somewhere. A place that isn’t a place, inside her and everywhere else all at once. Leia doesn’t think much about it, some days she forgets it’s there altogether. It’s a distraction. But she’ll grant the bullies this: it’s clear she needs a mentor if she wants to survive this war.
And then one day she rushes into something too difficult and important for her, again (this time she stows away on a reconnaissance ship entering enemy territory), and ends up meeting the Rebel legend known as Fulcrum.
Ahsoka Tano looks down into Leia’s stormy brown eyes and sees her big brother. Anakin’s righteous anger, his need for justice, his ambition, drive, power to lead. And Padmé, in her poise, calculating gaze and platinum tongue. Oh, Force. Of course. Of course they had to go and have a kriffing child. A daughter they never got to know and she can already tell would’ve loved. And she sees herself, a too-young girl diving headlong into a terrible war.
The Force is strong with this girl. Just like her father. But it’s wild and unrefined. Ahsoka needed a master back then, and so does Leia now. So she takes Leia’s hand and tries to hide the pain in her smile.
“You’re reckless, little one. You would never make it on your own. But you might make it as my pupil.”
She trains her apprentice in the ways of spying and subterfuge, the Force (not quite the Jedi code, her own philosophy of balance; because to a lingering, lonely vestige inside her the thought still feels like betrayal but there are parts of the Order she’s glad are dead) and lightsaber combat after Leia constructs her own. The blade is searing as her glare, intense flame blue, though the elegant hilt could be mistaken for a royal heirloom. For the first time since she signed up, Leia truly feels like part of the Rebellion and not just a lost little princess. Ahsoka seems to know exactly what to say and do, how to hold her, how quiet to speak, or close to stand when Leia returns from a battle shaken. They spend restless nights awake, swapping stories. Leia listens rapt to the daring adventures of her biological father, Anakin Skywalker: Jedi Knight, general, pilot, protector, friend, husband, brother, hero, fallen in the Clone Wars. No. Not merely fallen. Died, killed by a rising Sith Lord. The merciful half-truth is as legitimate as Leia needs it to be. Ahsoka almost forgets it isn’t true. Padmé, Obi-Wan, Plo Koon, Rex and Fives and Jesse... so many names and stories Ahsoka never thought she’d get to share. Never realized she needed to share so badly. And although Bail and Breha will always be Leia’s truest parents in both their eyes, Ahsoka sees that she holds her breath when Anakin flirts with disaster and her face lights up with a silent cheer when Padmé changes the galaxy for the better.
Some scoff at Ashoka’s choice of protégé at the beginning, but soon Leia’s on the fast track to widespread renown as a war hero. Just like Anakin. She takes her father’s place in the Imperial Senate. Ahsoka is so tremendously proud of her. Over the years she continues to bite her tongue and swallow down the worry that rises up like vomit whenever the young agent gets too close to being exposed for comfort.
This worry is why she insists on accompanying her to retrieve the physical copy of the plans to a space station that never should’ve existed. A planet killer; what has the galaxy come to? While Bail gives his daughter his blessing to undertake her riskiest mission yet, Ahsoka knows he would be broken beyond repair if anything happened to her. Leia will not share either of her parents’ fate, she swears to the Force. But her worst fears start coming true when her Leia is captured by... that’s not Anakin. It isn’t, don’t even think it. By him. She and her old droid companions R2D2 and C-3PO barely escape with the plans; her narrowly deflecting the missile with the Force is the only reason they aren’t blown to pieces.
They land on Tatooine, a desolate planet that looks about as hopeless as Ahsoka feels. A place Anakin once told her about in a voice tight with sorrow. But the Force guides her through the desert to a small, unassuming hut... and to a boy named Luke.
Luke Skywalker.
She looks down into Luke’s earnest blue eyes and sees her friend. Padmé’s compassion, undying faith in the good in everyone, her calm, fortitude, reasonable mercy. And Anakin, in the casual ease with which he flies his ship and tinkers with machinery. He chats to her and R2D2 so trustingly they could’ve been his old friends. The Force flows in and out of his every cell like oxygen. His presence glows with it, a beacon of new hope for her and the galaxy. Luke has big dreams and a big heart. The galaxy will break it, she knows. But she will be there to put it back together if no one else is.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Dear @starwarsforthegays,
The opening of this story was what I envisioned in response to your prompt of “Han meets Leia’s parents,” but then I started elsewhere, and that turned into a different story where this scene wouldn’t happen...or...wouldn’t happen this way. So yesterday, I tried doing it THIS way to see if the scene would work, and, lo, with feedback from @oldtoadwoman, @notophelia, and @organanation and their beta-reading, suggestions, reassurances, and nudges to make things make more sense, here is the story I meant for you (I’ll still be expanding the one I gave you a bit of).
I hope this works for you and that you enjoy it as, like, an extra treat for @hanleiasecretsanta!
