Chapter 310: Edges of the World by glompcat (Star Wars)
Latest Update: November 24th, 2018
Summary: Leia Organa finds herself stuck in a strange alternate/parallel universe where the Empire never came to exist. Meanwhile, trying to navigate a galaxy ruled by the Sith weren't exactly the Jedi Trials Leia Skywalker had expected.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821039/chapters/24009828
Word count:234k
Chapters:56
Chapter 1:
There are many different universes out there.
There are universes where you could meet your counterpart and find their life is fully identical to your own, the divergence between your universes having happened in the life of a person you have never met and who had no impact on you. Then there are the universes where your closest counterpart is your diametric opposite or even those where you may find you never existed at all. For every possibility a life could take, there is a world where those choices played out, where different narratives took hold, and all the would-haves, could-haves and should-haves are been-theres and done-thats.
There is a universe where Leia Solo neé Organa became the Chief of State for the New Republic. Her youngest child, a boy named Anakin, died when the fighter he was piloting exploded. Her daughter Jaina carries a heavy destiny and the even heavier memory of striking down her twin brother Jacen after he joined the Sith.
There is also a universe where Leia Organa's election to the position of First Senator in the New Republic failed. She was shoved out of politics outright in the scandal surrounding the revelation of her biological parentage, and to deal with the mounting tensions and the coming danger of the First Order she formed an organization known as the Resistance.
She too had a son who fell, but where Jacen Solo became a Sith in the true sense, Ben Solo was not a Sith - instead, he joined the Knights of Ren. In the strange way of ripples and echoes that thread through the universes, Ben, like Jacen, tortured a young Force-sensitive who could have used his guidance, and where Jacen murdered his aunt, Ben murdered his father.
There are universes where a thousand different things took place. Worlds where Jyn Erso made it off that beach on Scarif and was there in Hana City on the day Mon Mothma signed the Galactic Concordance; worlds where Sinjir Rath Velus never drank alcohol; where Greer Sonnel lived a long life in perfect health and took the racing world by storm; where Ciena Ree defected and Thane Kyrell remained an Imperial; where Doctor Chelli Aphra was a law-abiding academic who respected the field of archaeology too much to steal and make a profit off of artifacts; where Ezra Bridger never became an orphan.
Which is why it stands to reason that there are even worlds out there, countless worlds, where Anakin Skywalker did not fall.
Worlds where Padmé Amidala's life was not drained by Palpatine to fuel Vader's recovery, where she got to live to a merry old age in a democracy she believed in and had always been ready to fight for.
Worlds where Palpatine's evil was stopped before he could establish the full horror of his Imperial regime.
Worlds which, from the perspective of those who lived through the Empire's terror, would appear to be nothing less than realizations of their most treasured and unhoped-for dreams.
The thing about this wealth of possible worlds is, of course, that they are supposed to remain separate. You are never supposed to meet that other you, the you who made different choices, or had different circumstances thrust upon them. Nobody is ever supposed to learn the answer to the age-old question of 'What if this had happened instead?'.
Yet in the Force all things are possible.
Leia Organa was turning twenty years old. It had been a full two decades since her Name Day, but rather than any joy one might expect that fact to inspire, she felt nothing but an engulfing sense of pain and loneliness.
Twenty should have felt like an incredibly young age to be.
Leia did not feel young.
Less than a year earlier she had stood on Yavin IV with her father as he told her where to find General Kenobi on Tatooine. Less than one year earlier her ship, in need of minor repairs, had docked with the Profundity, which was to be their escort to the backwater Outer Rim world Kenobi had chosen as his hiding place. Less than one year ago they had been diverted to Scarif, to the battle and then to that frantic rush to escape.
She had held the Death Star plans, acquired at such a steep cost, in her hand with a steadfast grip. With all the naivety of a child unused to combat - she hadn't been seeing it for the first time, no, but it had still been relatively novel and different from her duties as a spy in the Senate - she had truly believed the worst of the Empire's destruction would be behind them. Against all odds, they had prevailed and retrieved the plans from Scarif, and she was going to get General Kenobi, the real Obi-Wan Kenobi, to return to Yavin IV with her, and surely then nothing could stand between them and restoring Democracy at long last!
Then came the explosion, that horrible feeling unlike any she'd ever felt before, almost as if she could somehow sense each and every Alderaanian cry out all at once before being silenced. The explosion that she still saw anew whenever she closed her eyes. And through it all, the memory of the hand holding her still. The heavy gloved hand belonging to the Emperor's dog clamped tight on her shoulder, making sure she could never turn away, never find any peace or solace from the unthinkable destruction the Death Star had wrought.
A part of Leia had died with Alderaan. The part of her that had somehow made it intact through the hours of torture, overseen by Darth Vader and the two guards who never spoke as she writhed on the floor before them. The part she had retained even as she'd prepared for her execution, content in the knowledge that, whatever happened to her, R2 would ensure the plans reached General Kenobi. The destruction of her home had destroyed her faith, her surety that when they won the day everything could ever be normal again. Or what she had fantasized 'normal' could be in a Democracy - she'd never exactly had the privilege of living in one.
Had it really only been last year that she had celebrated turning nineteen?
She had been granted a short leave from her duties in the Senate for the occasion and had met with her parents at their home. When she did not have royal rituals to fulfill on her Name Day's anniversary, her family would gather together on the balcony off of her father's study, gazing together at Alderaan's incredible snow-capped mountains. There her mother would tell her the familiar tale of how her father had brought Leia home to her, the best surprise he had ever given her, how she had held her for the first time right there in that very spot.
They celebrated Leia's birthday on that day, the anniversary of the day her mother had carried her into her throne room and declared Leia her daughter, rather than the far less meaningful day she'd been born. Each year she delighted anew that she had been given a gift so wonderful as to be the daughter of Breha and Bail Organa.
But now there were no more mountains.
No more Aldera City.
There was no more balcony to gather on.
No Royal Palace of Alderaan.
No more parents to hug close to, to hear thoroughly familiar yet always thoroughly delightful stories from, to talk to and confide in and seek advice from and and and-
Her whole world was, quite literally, gone.
She refused to allow her thoughts to dwell on it any further.
Leia Organa was twenty years old, and she was at war. She needed her wits about her. The Rebellion needed her to have her wits about her. She had to be as cool as a dead star and as calm as the vacuum. There really was no time for her to indulge in any sort of self-pity. She would shove her pain aside until she had time for it: after the war was won, or never at all.
Instead of watching the mountains from her favorite spot on the balcony and listening to the soft murmur of her mother's voice, Leia was on some backwater in the Outer Rim, once more setting up a temporary base of operations until a better-hidden and more permanent place could be found. They needed bases like these to ensure as few Rebels as possible got ailments such as Bloodburn, or worse.
She already missed the Harbinger, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer she had hijacked and been based on for a while. Sure, the thing had been falling apart and Han had insisted on challenging her position of being in charge of the ship, but at least it had been mobile and hadn't required them to constantly be packing up and moving from planet to planet.
"Leia! Leia, there's a call coming in for you!" Luke shouted, interrupting her reverie - how long had she been daydreaming, anyway? The Rebellion could hardly afford her to lose herself like that. He was running up to her from the cave where they'd stashed their communication equipment, a grin on his face. "It's from the Alderaan Flotilla? You didn't mention it was your birthday!"
Oh. Of course they'd want to speak with her today, and she should have been the one to call them, really, how had she let herself get so derelict in her duties to what was left of her people?
Luke was still talking, staying by her side as she walked back towards the communication array. "Last week was my birthday, too, two days after Empire Day. I had no idea ours were so close together! I just turned twenty, how about you?"
She and Luke were so close in age? She'd always assumed he was at least a year or two younger than her. "Coincidentally, I'm also twenty."
He seemed inordinately pleased by that revelation. "Oh! Some of the others wanted to throw me a party, you know, since last week we were so involved with getting this place set up that celebrating was kind of impossible. I can't guarantee that it'll be a truly wizard party, but it should be better than nothing. You wanna join us?"
She smiled back, almost in spite of herself. It was no intimate family gathering, but it would get her out of her head for a bit. Besides, she liked Luke, in a way she'd rarely liked her peers growing up. There was something about him that drew her to him, and his company never failed to put her in a good mood. She'd always had trouble making friends, but with Luke everything felt so strangely easy. As if she had somehow always known him, and they were falling back into comfortable patterns rather than establishing new ones.
"Yes, I do think I'd like that, Luke. After this call, of course."
His answering smile was dazzling. "I'll let Sana and the guys know you're joining us. And that it's your birthday, too!" And with that, he dashed off.
When Leia reached the well-hidden part of their temporary shelter that housed the communication equipment, the holo was already switched on. Evaan waited there, her features washed over with the pale blue of the holorecorder.
"Your Royal Highness, on behalf of the Alderaanian people I would like to wish you a happy Name Day." She even gave Leia a formal bow with the exact right amount of flourish needed for a proper birthday greeting to a royal. Honestly, Evaan was so much better at the nonsense Elder House protocol than Leia herself could have ever hoped to be - especially considering those were the lessons she'd always found a way to escape.
Well, it was her Name Day and the Elder Houses' formal customs could shove it.
"Hey, Evaan. How's the life of an elected leader treating you? Missing combat yet?"
For a long moment Evaan was silent, with the only acknowledgment of Leia's statement a slight flicker of the corner of her mouth. For an Alliance fighter pilot, the woman was absurdly strict about her Royalist views. Leia thought she had broken her of those habits during their time in space together, but obviously, she was going to have to find new ways to get Evaan to treat her like a person and not some larger-than-life symbol.
Finally, Evaan's posture relaxed. "Sorry, Leia, Astane was in the room. Thankfully she no longer is."
"Oh? What could have possibly drawn Preserver of Alderaan Jora Astane away from the opportunity to engage in a formal Alderaanian custom?" Leia couldn't keep the scorn out of her voice. She almost felt bad about it - Astane had pledged herself to the House of Organa and was one of Leia's people, but the woman was a bigot. Evaan gave Leia a conspiratorial look as she talked about Astane, and Leia was once more reminded that while she had been able to walk away from dealing with the xenophobic woman, Evaan was now stuck living on a ship in addition to working closely with her.
"We're having some ship issues. Nothing too major - the fleet is doing fine, really, but living on these sorts of starships full-time does put a strain on them." Evaan tried to act as if it was normal for so many to live on ships such as those for so long. She did not quite manage to sell the idea.
"Here's hoping one day we can find somewhere more permanent to set the fleet down."
Evaan nodded, just as eager as Leia for the surviving Alderaanians to find a new home.
"Oh! That reminds me: some of the members of one of the artist colonies were talking, and - get this - they are thinking of building something we can live in out of the remains of the Death Star."
"Why would they want anything to do with that horrible thing?" Leia tried and failed to keep the disgust out of her voice.
"They are proposing that if we built a station out of it, and lived and thrived there, it'd be the ultimate kriff you to the Empire. Actually, the idea is starting to grow on me."
If it had been anyone other than a fellow Alderaanian telling her about such a plan, and one who had fought in both the Battle of Scarif and the Battle of Yavin at that, Leia would have snapped at them. As it was, she merely shook her head at what seemed to be a terrible idea.
"Well, I leave it in your capable hands." Leia fondly regarded the former Y-wing jockey "You are my elected leader, after all."
"Your elected leader?"
"Yes, Evaan, technically I am one of the citizens under your command now. I may have left the fleet before the election, but I very much am a citizen of Alderaan, thanks."
"Princess, please don't even joke about being under my command. You outrank me in every conceivable way." The hologram of the tall woman shifted a bit, suddenly looking eager for information. "Have they reformed Gold Squadron? What are the new members like? They better not have let rookies take over the Rebellion's best Y-Wing squad!"
Delighted by the opportunity to talk about the Rebellion with a close and trusted friend, Leia let herself enjoy their conversation, talking with her about everything from their shared hopes for the Alderaanian people's future to ways the Rebellion could improve some of its flight tactics. Then, when she could put it off no longer, Evaan asked her to give a brief formal address for her Name Day. After all, hearing from the only remaining member of House Organa would mean a great deal to her fellow survivors.
A surprising amount of hours had passed by the time Leia shut off the holocaster - hours mostly spent in pleasant conversation with someone she could call a friend, a rare remnant of home - not entirely pragmatic and practical of her, perhaps, but, well. It was her birthday.
She let herself ponder self-indulgence some more as she made her way down the poorly lit corridors and to the party, where she immediately came face to face with a hastily scrawled banner proclaiming "And Princess Leia", pinned under a far better prepared one that read "Happy Birthday Luke"
Han handed her a drink, and as a birthday gift seemed to be determined to be strangely pleasant to her for a change. No sarcastic or cutting remarks, no insults against her or the Rebellion, no reminders that all he really wanted to do was leave. Leave and never come back.
She knew that somewhere in that man was a brilliant military leader.
She saw how he was with Luke, the way he took the time and care to really show the kid (and again she found herself marveling at the fact they were the same age) how to take care of a ship. Of course, his own ship was a pile of trash that seemed to be held together by pure luck, but she supposed the very fact he could get that heap of junk to fly proved that he knew his way around machines.
He smirked at her over his drink, and leaned down, invading her personal space far more than she would have liked.
"Having a good time, Your Worshipfulness?"
Strangely, she actually was.
Today was Leia's twentieth birthday.
It was her first birthday without her family.
Her first birthday without her home.
She was not alone.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821039/chapters/24009828
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