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Luke offers her the title of Empress on Endor with a shrug and an awkward smile. It is so painfully Luke Leia would almost have to laugh if she weren’t stunned.

“But,” she stammers. “But I would kriff it up.”

Luke’s smile gentles. “Leia,” he says seriously. “I have never known anyone else with such a strong sense of right and wrong. You’ll be amazing.”

In the end, she takes the offer.

In time, Luke will come to regret ever leading her to it.

Han and Leia sleep in the Falcon the first night after they’re back from Endor. When they are lying together, Leia tells him the truth of her bloodline, and waits for him to disentangle himself from her, to stop stroking her hair. He doesn’t do either of those things.

“Well,” he says, slowly and thoughtfully. “That’s a tough break.”

Leia snorts. “Very much so.”

And, because Han knows her better than anyone living, maybe even anyone dead, he speaks again.

“I ain’t leaving you, Princess,” he tells her. “Who else would I fight with?”

Leia smiles, her shoulders feeling lighter, and burrows further into Han.

She had worried what the people would think, having another Emperor in charge. But Leia Organa is beloved across the galaxy, and she is embraced. The people have an overwhelming amount of faith in her.

Their first order of business is to decide where to hold the offices of the New Republic. They decide to stay on Coruscant. Leia hates it, hates how artificial the air is and how there is no greenery, but it’s the smart thing to do. Too many of the politicians live here already, and it would be a shame to uproot all of them.

The second order is to create a new Galactic Senate. Leia is adamant that she is only overseeing the New Republic. She is a ruler without ruling. The Senate will remain, and democracy will flourish.

She and Han wander through the Imperial Palace (now the New Republic Palace) hand in hand. They are taking down the portraits of the Emperor, removing some of the opulent and extravagant items Leia has no interest in.

“Fancy digs,” Han observes.

“Indeed,” Leia agrees.

“Not sure I’m gonna like this. I’m a smuggler. I’m not used to everything being so… clean.”

“I know.” Leia grins. “I’ve seen your ship.”

He bumps his shoulder into hers and she laughs. She sobers pretty quickly.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she tells him quietly. “I would understand.”

Han shakes his head. “I’m always gonna be here, sweetheart,” he says. “If there’s anything I’m not ever going to do, it’s leave.”

Leia leans her head into his shoulder with a smile.

This is a lie, even if neither of them know it yet.

Luke is awed by the Palace, something that reminds Leia that Luke did not grow up in the luxury she did, that he isn’t accustomed to seeing things like this. She loves him all the more for it.

“You all have so many things none of you appreciate properly,” Luke tells her one night, when they are out on a balcony gazing up at the stars. “You have water. Plenty of water. No moisture farms. It’s incredible.”

“What else do we have that you don’t?”

Luke considers it. “Freedom,” he says finally. “I was born free, but you had to be careful, especially in Hutt territory. Hutts didn’t care if you were born free. They’d enslave you all the same.” Luke pauses. “Our grandmother was a slave. So was our father.”

Leia doesn’t care to hear stories about her lineage. Her father was Bail Organa. Her mother was Breha Organa. But she knows it’s important to Luke to know these things, know he spent his whole life pining for a family he didn’t have all of. So she takes his hand and squeezes it to try and erase the grief on his face. His hand is still callused. When they first met years ago, they were callused from the work he did on Tatooine. Now she assumes they are callused due to the work he still does to keep his physical form in shape. Her tactic seems to work, because the lines in his forehead smooth out.

There is no official coronation ceremony. They broadcast a speech she gives about unity and peace among the worlds. She wears a simple white dress and braids. She has no patience for opulence.

That same night, she, Han, Luke, and Chewie get drunk in the Falcon, their getaway from the world even though it’s parked in a Coruscant lot near the palace. Luke somehow finds a spare panel of metal that Han assures in a slurring tone he can use, and he uses the Force to bend it into a makeshift crown. He clumsily places it on Leia’s head.

“There,” he hiccups. “Now you’re an Empress.”

Leia giggles, seeing the crown through the lens of the embarrassingly funny that occurs to the drunk.

The press has taken to calling Han the Empress’s Consort. He takes it surprisingly well.

“Princess,” he says when Leia finally asks him about it. “They could call me a son of a bitch and I wouldn’t care. Ain’t gonna make me leave.”

(it is true: that is not what makes him leave)

He never stops calling Leia Princess. Sometimes she scowls when he says it, but secretly it makes her happy. It’s their joke. She never stops calling him Scoundrel.

It is nine weeks after the battle of Endor when something flickers at the back of her mind. It feels like a spark, like life. Leia reaches out, expecting perhaps a new kind of communication from her brother. She is startled to discover that the life comes from within her.

She goes to the med-droids anyway to confirm what she knows. They tell her she is pregnant. She nods briskly, goes back to her room, and has a panic attack. She is glad Han is on a mission for the New Republic so he doesn’t witness it.

Han returns, hair windswept and grin wide and excitable in the way it gets after his missions turn into adventures.

“Sweetheart,” he says. “You would not believe the week I’ve had.”

“Mine trumps yours,” she answers.

Han scoffs. “I got chased by bounty hunters and pirates and navigated an asteroid field. Top that.”

“I’m pregnant.”

The blood drains from Han’s face, then returns alarmingly quickly.

“You’re- you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Leia has been terrified of Han’s reaction. They’ve never discussed children. Neither of them looked too far into the future during the Rebelliion because they weren’t sure they’d have one, and the past nine weeks have been so busy that there’s been no reason to talk about it. She waits for speech to return to Han in agonizing silence.

He strides towards her quickly and picks her up in a hug. Leia takes it as good and hugs him back just as fiercely.

“I’m gonna be a dad,” he whispers. He pulls back and grins. “I’m gonna be the best dad in the whole galaxy.”

Leia knows very little of Han’s childhood, knows he grew up without parents. She grins back at him. “I believe you.”

There is a bill to end slavery in the Outer Rim that the Senate is having a hard time passing. There are senators who are arguing that the Outer Rim is too uncivilized and not their problem. Leia thinks of the look on Luke’s face when he discussed slaves that one night, and overrules the Senate to allow it to pass. It feels astoundingly good, like she’s doing something right, a shock to her system. It frightens her as much as it thrills her.

When they’re lying in their bed in the Republic Palace, Leia whispers to Han, not even knowing if he’s conscious.

“I don’t want to end up like Vader.”

Han rolls over and pulls her close. “You won’t,” he murmurs. “You know right from wrong.”

Leia nods, trying to reassure herself. “I know right from wrong,” she whispers, and carrying that in her heart eases her concern.

It is that conviction, in the end, that will be her mantra, her downfall.

Leia’s guilt is completely gone when Luke hugs her, beaming, after the bill is law.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

“There’s nothing to thank me for. It should have been done long ago.”

He pulls back. “I might go to Tatooine for a while. Help the transition and fight the masters who are going to have a hard time letting go of their slaves.”

“Taking a sabbatical from your Jedi business?”

Luke has gone to the old Jedi Temple multiple times, salvaging what he could from their archives. He nods.

“They’re going to need help,” he says firmly. “I can give it to them.”

Leia smiles at her brother. His conviction of right vs. wrong is a little murkier than hers, a little more uncertain, but his moral compass is there and strong.

“I’m glad you’re my brother,” she tells him. He takes her hand.

“I’m glad you’re my sister.”

Leia can sense the child within her. She can tell the gender (a boy, she tells Han, whose eyes light up. He tells her that he wouldn’t care either way, but it’s still nice to know) and she can feel how blazingly brilliant he shines in the Force, how vibrant and alive he is.

It troubles her.

Her stomach swells but she does not give up her work. She still conducts broadcasts to the people, speaks to members of the Senate, studies new regulations and rules aides bring to her. They often genuflect or go to one knee when they see the Empress Organa. It is a habit she is trying to rid them of.

One late night Han comes to the office section of the Palace to see Leia hunched over a new bill she is perusing.

“You’ve got to sleep, Leia,” he tells her gently. He doesn’t often use her name. She looks up at him wearily.

“I have to work,” she answers. “I need work to keep going.”

He pulls up a chair and sets next to her. “Then I’ll sit with you.”

She rubs at her eyes. “Han?”

“Yeah?”

“What if the Vader in our child is strong?”

Han looks contemplative. “Then we’ll work on teaching him discipline of it, I guess,” he says slowly. “What else are we gonna do?”

Leia puts a hand on her belly. “I love him so much already,” she whispers. “I don’t want my bloodline to hurt him.”

Han wraps an arm around her shoulders. “He’s gonna have two parents who love and support him,” he tells her. “Not to mention an uncle who can help him put a damper on those thoughts. He’s going to be fine.”

Leia nods. “Is it bad I miss the Rebellion?” she whispers. “I knew I was helping then. Now I’m not so sure.”

“It’s not bad at all.” He kisses the top of her head. “You need to keep moving. There’s no shame in that.”

She looks up at the face of the man who is her rock, and comes to a decision.

“Do you want to get married?” she asks. Han looks startled.

“Didn’t think you were the marrying type, sweetheart.”

She shrugs. Marriage was a big deal on Alderaan. Proposals were formal, and the weddings were lavish if you could afford to do so. But she is no longer on Alderaan, and there is very rarely a big deal with her and Han. They simply are.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll marry you.” He gives her that mercenary grin, like he doesn’t care for anything, but she can see the shine in his eyes. “Wouldn’t want our kid to be a bastard.”

They call Luke, who is still on Tatooine. Leia asks him to officiate and Han asks Chewbacca to be his best man. It is a quiet ceremony, just Han, Luke, Chewbacca, and Leia. She wears a simple white gown that hugs her stomach, her hair in the matrimonial braids she remembers from Alderaan, from seeing in holos of her mother and father marrying.

When Han kisses her, it is the happiest she has ever been.

The Senate is deliberating on whether or not to pass a bill that would deliver benefits to those who survived the Rebellion. Leia is furious. It should be an easy decision, and yet they do nothing.

She knows right from wrong.

She overrides them once more to pass the bill. She feels the same thrill as before, and none of the guilt.

In her life since the Death Star, Leia never thought any pain could be worse than that of the torture droid she’d been subjected to by Vader. She was wrong. Childbirth is much worse.

“You’re doing fine, sweetheart,” Han tells her as she grips his hand so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter. “You’re doing just fine.”

“Tell me that again,” she says through gritted teeth. “ And I will kill you and throw your body in the gutter.”

“Then I’ll shut up. It’s a deal.”

After twenty-four standard hours, the baby is brought into the galaxy. He comes kicking and screaming. Leia knows logically that all babies do that when they are born, but she can’t help her pride; her baby fought against leaving her body. He will be tough and he will be strong.

They name him Ben for the man who brought Luke and Leia and Han together, who brought the two great joys into Leia’s life. She knows Han feels the same. They give him the middle name of Prestor, after the middle name of Leia’s father. Leia had asked Han if there were any middle names he wanted to give their child, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t left out of the naming.

“You already shot down Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca,” he says blithely. “I’m out of ideas after that.”

Little Ben Prestor Organa-Solo is the most beautiful child she’s ever seen. She refuses to acknowledge that she may be biased.

Luke comes back to visit once Ben is born (he sensed Leia’s pain through the Force once she went into labor and the shining star of Ben’s connection with the Force as soon as he entered the galaxy), a beautiful redheaded woman by his side. She radiates her Force abilities, and Leia knows instantly she’s one of the strongest people she’s ever met, but she seems vaguely uncertain.

“This is Mara,” Luke says brightly when he arrives, after hugging Leia and Han. “She tried to kill me twice but we’re past that.”

Leia appraises the woman, who is appraising her right back.

“If Luke trusts you,” she says finally. “I trust you.” She holds out a hand, which Mara shakes.

“Likewise, Madam Empress.” Her voice is melodious. Leia wonders if it’s one of the reasons Luke is looking at her so adoringly.

“Leia is fine.” She gestures towards their home. “Come and meet Ben.”

Ben spits up all over Luke. Mara laughs and that lightens Luke’s mood. Leia wonders when they’ll get out of their own way.

Leia is regularly overriding bills in the Senate now, at least three times a standard month. They take too much time, don’t care for the common person. She knows she is making a difference. She doesn’t care what they think.

The nice thing about being Empress, Leia reflects, is that there is no boss to report to when she takes time off.

Every time she takes a day off it is for Ben. She loves to watch him, loves to watch Han with him. She adores her little family. She would do anything in the world to keep them safe.

She takes Ben with her sometimes to Senate meetings, when she is required to be at one. She gets some disapproving comments masked as concern, which she shoots down with an icy look.

She is an Empress now. They would do well to remember it.

Luke establishes a new Jedi Temple on Yavin IV with Mara. Ben, Leia, and Han visit as often as possible. Sometimes Chewbacca will come with them, and Ben will ride atop his shoulders, giggling at his newfound height.

“Maybe someday you’ll go here, Ben,” Luke says to him, playing X-Wing by whooshing him around with the Force. “We’ll teach you.”

`Ben is too young to properly understand, but he burbles in happiness nonetheless.

Leia visits the poorer parts of Coruscant sometimes. They thank her profusely for what she has done for them. She tells them it was nothing, but inside she glows.

She knows the difference between right and wrong.

Leia punches a Senator in the face when he sneeringly refers to her “true parentage”.

“You can’t go around punching Senators, Leia,” Han tells her that night as she washes off her knuckles. “There’ll be repercussions.”

“He brought up Vader.” She dries her hands. “Besides, what repercussions? There’s nothing they can do to me.”

Han says nothing but watches, troubled.

Leia meets sometimes with the Alderaanian Remnants. They picked the name for themselves, out of a desire to never forget what happened. Leia understands and then again she doesn’t. She would wipe all memory of Alderaan if she could, destroy any visions of the destruction of her planet. But some days Alderaan is what keeps her going. A reminder, of what happens when you lose sight of the Right and the Wrong.

The Alderaanian Remnants don’t trust her. They chafe under the guidance of an Empress, are uncertain about someone ruling over the whole galaxy. She doesn’t understand it. The Senate has more power than she does. And anyway, how is it different than being ruled by a queen?

Ben grows up hearing the stories of his hero family. Around when he is five, he asks after their grandparents constantly. One day while Leia is studying briefs of what occurred in the Senate that day, he asks again and she snaps “We don’t talk about your grandfather, so quit asking.”

Ben is so startled that he bursts into tears. Leia immediately feels guilty and hoists him into her lap. He’s gotten a little heavier than he used to when Leia did it, but she’s still strong.

“Oh, baby boy, I didn’t mean to do that, I’m so sorry.” She brushes her hand through his curls. (“he gets that from me,” Han told her one night. “When I was his age, my hair was the curliest you’d even seen.”

“Holograms or it didn’t happen,” Leia had said seriously. He’d thrown a pillow at her)

“Why don’t you want to talk about Grandfather?”

Leia sighs. “Your grandfather,” she says slowly, picking his words. “Was a very bad man. And I don’t like to talk about him because he did some things to hurt me and your father, and it makes me sad to think about.”

Ben frowns. The idea of his parents being sad or hurt seems to be appalling to him.

“I won’t ask anymore.”

“Good.” She kisses his forehead. “Some day I’ll tell you the whole truth.”

The crime rate is rising in Coruscant. She allows the police extra powers so they can crack down harder on the criminals. The crimes they commit are Wrong, and must be stopped by any means necessary.

It doesn’t seem to work, and Leia longs for a further deterrent.

“You could always try execution,” an advisor whose name Leia can’t remember suggests. “That could be a powerful deterrent. Fear is one of the best weapons.”

Leia shakes her head. “I’m not comfortable with execution,” she says firmly. “We won’t do it.”

When they attend Luke and Mara’s wedding, Ben is the best man at seven years old. He takes the duty very seriously. Leia recognizes the happiness in her brother’s face as her own seven years ago, and is delighted for him.

Not long after the wedding, Luke and Mara teach Leia how to build her own lightsaber. “I know you’re not a Jedi,” Luke tells her when she opens her mouth to protest. “But it’s good for you to have a weapon like this. Please.”

She picks the crystal that sings to her out of all the ones that Mara offers. She constructs the lightsaber with precision. When she turns it on after a week of work, the blade glows a brilliant red.

Luke and Mara look stunned. Leia frowns at the blade. Luke had always described Vader’s as bright red.

“Is this bad?”

Luke hesitates too long before he says “I’m sure it’s not.”

Mara says nothing, watching Leia warily.

When Ben is eight, he comes to his mother and father crying one afternoon and buries his face in his father’s chest.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?” Han asks, running his hand through his son’s straightening hair. Han is extraordinarily good with Ben, him and Chewbacca teaching him how to pilot the Falcon.

“I’m bad,” Ben wails. Leia reaches over and starts rubbing Ben’s back in little circles.

“Who said that to you, Ben?” Leia vows to hunt down whoever called her son bad. He has enough problems with his lineage. He doesn’t need someone else to reinforce it.

“The Voice,” Ben whispers, voice hitching through sobs. “The Voice told me I’m bad and I need to ack- acknowl-“

“Acknowledge it?” Han asks gently.

“Yeah.”

Leia frowns. “Is this Voice from a nightmare?”

“No. He talks to me all the time. He keeps telling me I’m bad.” He looks up at his father. “Papa, am I bad?”

“Not a chance in a million of it.” Han kisses the top of his head. “You’re as good a kid as it gets.”

Leia says nothing, turning this Voice over in her head. Luke has told her that Ben’s Force presence is strong. Strong enough to be noticeable. To tempt the wrong people.

She kneels in front of where Ben and Han are sitting and she takes Ben’s hands in hers.

“Ben,” she says very seriously. “I’m going to ask you to let me do something. You don’t have to say yes. Do you understand?”

Ben nods, somehow grasping the solemnity of what she’s about to ask. She’s not entirely surprised. Their bond through the Force is strong, and he grabs onto her emotions fairly quickly.

“I want to go inside your head and find the source of The Voice. Is that all right?”

Ben blinks. “Of course, Mama,” he answers. “I trust you.”

“Leia-“ Han says, tone full of warning. She looks up at him and meets his eyes.

“Trust me,” she tells him. “I can do this.”

He purses his lips, but says nothing. Leia puts her fingers gently on Ben’s temple. “Are you ready?”

Ben nods. “Yes, Mama.”

Leia closes her eyes and concentrates, and then she’s in Ben’s mind.

There are various memories that appear before her; Ben calling for his Aunt Mara to pick him up, Chewbacca showing him what he’s doing to repair the hyperdrive, Ben playing Empire and Rebels with his friend Poe on Yavin IV. She searches for what she’s looking for.

Here, Mama. She feels almost like Ben has taken her hand and is leading her to the memory.

The Voice is there, a snakelike whisper, promises of glory, reassurances that Ben belongs to the Dark Side, declarations of true power. She seizes onto The Voice, follows the channel it’s left in her son’s brain, and finds who it belongs to.

Leia pulls out of Ben’s mind. Ben shakes his head a little but doesn’t seem to be any worse for the wear. She looks up at Han.

“I found him,” she says, feeling a little breathless. “I found who it is.”

Han evaluates her for a moment. “Ben, go and play with your Uncle Chewie for a little bit.”

Ben clambers off Han’s lap and closes the door behind him. Han fixes Leia with a gaze made of stone, a look she’s not sure she’s ever seen on him.

“You could have damaged him, Leia.”

“No, I couldn’t have.” She has total confidence in her abilities. Luke and Mara have trained her. She knows what she’s doing. “Ben was just fine in my hands.”

He changes the subject. “Who is it?”

“Snoke.” Leia stands and sits next to Han once more. “He’s in the Senate. I’ve never trusted him. He’s too oily.” She sighs. “I should have removed him a long time ago.”

Han frowns. “You can’t remove people from the Senate, Leia.”

She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she considers telling him as much. But when she says things like that, his brow creases and shadows are cast over his face. She hates to make him unhappy, so she doesn’t. Instead she says “I know where to find him.”

“What are you going to do once you find him?”

“I’m going to kill him, of course.”

“No trial?”

Leia snorts. “On what charges? Of messing around in my son’s head? It’s a weak case, not easily proven. And all the while that he’s alive, Han, he’s going to keep talking to Ben. No good can come of that.”

Han makes a humming noise but doesn’t disagree. She is satisfied. If there is any common ground that the two of them share, it’s the safety of their child.

Snoke had attempted to get off-world, evidently having sensed Leia’s presence when she tracked him down. Her police catch him before that and drag him before the Empress. He is on his knees and she stands before him, regal.

“Leave us,” she tells the police who brought him in. They exit.

“When exactly did you intend to grab my power, Snoke?” she asks, voice cold. “After you turned my son to the Dark Side? Or in a moment when I could be perceived as politically weak?”

Snoke bares his teeth.. “Ideally, both.”

“And you think you could be better at this than I?”

“Obviously.”

“I am a good ruler. I am doing what’s Right.”

Snoke snorts. “What’s right? You don’t know what’s right. The Senate is terrified of you. We know we’re puppets. Even if you don’t admit it to yourself, the Senate is right back to what it was during the days of the Empire. Perhaps it never was anything better.” His teeth-baring becomes a grin. “I wasn’t trying to make your son follow in my footsteps, Empress Organa. I was trying to make him follow in his mother’s.”

Leia calmly draws her lightsaber from her belt and removes Snoke’s head from his shoulders. She calls her guards to come in and clean him up.

“Snoke won’t bother Ben anymore,” she tells Han when she sees him that evening. He says nothing.

Ben is happier and lighter. Leia is grateful for it.

When Ben is thirteen years old, he goes to Luke and Mara’s Jedi Temple. He hugs his parents tightly before he is escorted to his room. Han ruffles his hair and Leia kisses both his cheeks. She doesn’t cry.

The crime rate amongst the planets gets increasingly worse. Leia watches the statistics rise with frustration.

The next meeting of her advisors, she authorizes them to commit executions. None in public, which is her mercy; the families of the trespassers will not have to watch. It’s only Right.

Thirteen years and six months after their victory at Endor, Han comes into their bedroom. His face is grim and she knows what he’s going to say before he says it. He does anyway.

“I’m leaving,” he says. “And I’m not coming back.”

She can feel how eerie her calm is. It doesn’t trouble her. “Why?”

Han sighs. “Because you’re not the woman I fell in love with, Leia,” he tells her. “You’ve turned into something far crueler and far darker than she was. And I can’t stand by you and pretend that it’s okay anymore.”

“I’m just wiser. You’re wrong.”

“No. No, I’ve never been more right about anything in my life.”

Leia purses her lips. “I could make you stay.”

He grins, devoid of any joy or love. “I know. That’s part of the problem.”

She is silent.

“Chewie and I are gonna take off from here. And you’re never gonna see either one of us again.”

“Where are you going to go?” It sounds almost plaintive. She hates herself for it.

“Can’t tell you that. I don’t need you sending ships after me.”

She understands, she supposes. She takes a deep breath.

“Take care of yourself, Han,” she says. He nods and leaves the room, and just like that he is gone.

For the next four days Leia lies in bed, staring at nothing. It has been so long since she didn’t have Han, almost twenty years, that she’s not quite sure how to accommodate for a life without him.

In the end, she gets back up, because she is Leia Organa, and that is what she does. She gets back up.

If Han cannot see that she knows what she’s doing, that is his problem, not hers.

She knows the difference between right and wrong.

The people begin bowing and curtsying to her again. She doesn’t bother to correct them anymore.

Leia gets in touch with Ben. His hair is still shaggy- Luke had told her once that Padawans used to cut all their hair off but for a single braid, but he hadn’t incorporated it into his teachings- but it is straightening. His face is growing sharper, his body growing into itself. He makes her smile whenever she looks at him.

They talk about lots of things. They talk about his training, and how Poe’s learning to fly like his mom, and how the cocofruit tastes like the sweetest thing Ben has ever experienced. Towards the end of the holocall, he hesitates.

“Are you okay, Mom?” he asks tentatively and Leia realizes.

“Han contacted you.”

“Of course he did. He’s my dad.”

“I’m fine, Ben. I should have seen it coming.”

“I’m not gonna stop talking to him.” Ben’s chin is lifted defiantly and she sees it then, the old Skywalker rebelliousness in him. “He’s still my dad.”

Despite the betrayal Han has committed, she smiles gently at her son.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else,” she answers, and it is mostly the truth.

Luke comes to see her. When he enters her room, she panics for a moment.

“Is this about Ben? Is he all right?”

Luke holds up a hand. He has the beginnings of a beard on his face. His hair is graying. How long has it been since Leia’s seen him? They’ve talked on occasion, but it’s been quite some time since Leia saw him in the flesh. “Ben’s fine, Leia. He’s thriving.”

Leia’s shoulders slump in relief. “Thank the stars.” She smiles. “Is this a personal call?”

Luke stays unsmiling. “Word has reached Yavin IV of new punishments you’re enacting. Executions.”

Leia sighs. “Nothing else worked. I tried everything I could.”

“And the talk of your military kidnapping children from their homes to raise them as soldiers?”

She waves that aside. “Merely rumors,” she answers dismissively. In truth, she does not know if these are rumors or not. She leaves the military to their own devices for the most part, so long as they are loyal to her. She suspects Luke knows this, from the flicker in his eyes.

“Leia. You can’t execute people for what they’ve done. It’s not right.”

“Why not?” she counters. “We took lives during the Rebellion. We didn’t think twice.”

“That was war. This is supposed to be peacetime. The galaxy cannot live in fear of retribution.”

“The bulk of the galaxy has nothing to fear. Only transgressors.”

“And transgressors are who you say are transgressors?”

“That’s correct.”

“It’s not right, Leia.”

“Don’t tell me what’s right,” she snaps. “I know what’s right. How is this any different from the Rebellion? You destroyed the Death Star and all the lives on it. Some of them were no doubt largely innocent. I’m not punishing the innocent.”

Luke rears back a little. “The sister I knew,” he says quietly. “Would never have brought that up specifically to hurt me.”

“The sister you knew had to learn how to rule.”

“I never should have asked you to be Empress.”

“You did the right thing, Luke. I’m doing good.” And she is. She’s provided for the poor, given the galaxy a Senate, had laid down the law with those who disobey. The galaxy is a better place for her. She knows this. She doesn’t understand why Luke can’t see this, why Han couldn’t.

“I can’t condone what you’re doing here, Leia,” he whispers. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Leia arches an eyebrow, feeling that strange calm once more. “So you’re to leave me too?”

Luke looks at her with nothing but sorrow. “I have to do what I believe in, my sister.”

Leia takes a deep breath.

“You can continue your work at the Temple,” she tells him. “I won’t interfere.” It is her final gift to him, the promise that he can keep what he holds so dear. “My regards to Mara.”

She turns away to dismiss him. There is silence for a moment, and then a rustling of robes and the closing of a door, and he too is gone.

The air in Coruscant no longer tastes like filtration to her. The lack of anything growing no longer bothers her.

Years pass. The Senate means less and less to her. They never could truly see what was Right and what was Wrong, could never view things so clearly as she did. She can overrule them if she needs to. She lets them continue to feel like they’re in power. It’s best for appearances.

When Ben is eighteen, he graduates from Luke’s Temple. Leia doesn’t go to the ceremony and is certain Ben knows why. He can’t have failed to notice that Luke and Leia have ceased communication.

He comes to her in his Jedi robes. It’s the first time they’ve stood together in the flesh since she and Han dropped him off five years ago at the Temple. She hugs him and doesn’t fail to notice how much taller than her he is.

“You got so big.” She smiles at him. “We can throw a party in your honor.” The people like parties. They remind them of the splendor of their galaxy, how good they have it now.

Ben shakes his head.

“I don’t want a party, Mom. I want everything to be quiet. Please?”

She smiles and puts a hand on his cheek. “All right, sweetheart. Whatever you want.”

He smiles at her. He looks tired, and she sends him to get his rest. It’s always a long journey from Yavin IV to Coruscant.

She realizes for the first time that their bond is muted. She dismisses any thought of concern. No doubt the product of him honing his training and learning what to keep open and what to keep silent. She wouldn’t want someone in her head all the time either, especially not after Ben’s experiences with Snoke.

Leia offers him a position in the military. He refuses it. She then offers him a position as one of her advisors. He turns that down too.

“I’m a Jedi, Mom,” he tells her each time. “My place is within the Order, not within the government.”

She nods. “So long as you understand that someday this place in the galaxy will be yours, and you will be Emperor,” she tells him. “I just want you adequately prepared for the role.”

This doesn’t seem to comfort him any. She accepts that. Responsibility can be a heavy burden to bear.

Roughly six standard months after Ben arrives on Coruscant, he seems angrier. Bristlier. More restless. Leia calls him to her one night.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” she asks. Ben scuffs his shoes on the floor and it so reminds her of his youth that she has to swallow down a smile.

“I don’t belong here,” he mumbles. Her desire to smile disappears.

“Of course you belong here, Ben. Coruscant is your home.”

“But it isn’t, Mom. It hasn’t been my home since I was a kid.”

She narrows her eyes. She may not have direct access to their bond anymore, but he is still her son, and she can still read him. “There’s something else.”

Ben takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to be Emperor, Mom.”

She gazes at him. Then rises from where she was sitting on her bed and motions with him to follow her to the balcony. He does. She puts her hands on the railing and looks out at the glittering lights of her world.

“These people need help, Ben,” she says to him. “They need help being guided. To the Right and the Wrong. You have my blood within you. You would understand most clearly what I’m talking about. I don’t want to pick an heir. I want you to be an heir, my only born son.”

Ben is watching her oddly. The strange expression disappears from his face, smoothed out.

“I understand now, Mom.” He leans down and kisses her very gently on the top of the head. It is a gesture she would allow from no one else. “Thank you for explaining it to me.”

Leia smiles. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

The next day, Ben is gone.

She has people scouring the planet, and then the galaxy. Nobody can seem to find him. Finally, her head of military, a very young man named General Hux, approaches her and firmly informs her that they’re wasting resources with all her forces out looking for her wayward son. She gives him her coolest stare. He doesn’t flinch. He never seems to be afraid of her. It is both worth of grudging respect and annoying.

He is of course right. That’s why he’s the head of military. She pulls their forces back.

She does keep one squad searching, however. Just in case.

The galaxy goes on.

In time, an organization called the Resistance forms against her. Leia would be infuriated, if she weren’t so amused. The Resistance? What are they resisting against?

Mostly children, she is sure. Those who never had to live through the Empire’s reign, who don’t know what true suffering is.

Their leader is known as Kylo Ren. He is said to be exceptionally strong in the Force. Intrigued, Leia sweeps out for him, but feels nothing out of the ordinary.

Ren is strong, fast, smart. A talented fighter, a practical tactician. They say he has a lightsaber. She assumes he came out of Luke’s Temple.

She sets the bounty extremely high for him, but she makes sure the orders state she wants him alive. She thinks he might be interesting to talk to.

Leia studies the footage from skirmishes. He wears robes of white that stand out against his black mask. Whoever Ren is, he does not want to be recognized.

She frequently watches the holos from battles. She wants to understand how the Resistance thinks. It will make it easier to quash them.

She is sitting in her room scrutinizing the footage of Ren fighting an Officer. The Officer manages to wrest his helmet off. Leia’s heart stops and she pauses the footage.

He is eight years older than the last time she saw him. But it is undoubtedly Ben.

I understand now, Mom. Thanks for explaining it to me.

She sends out a call to Luke. He picks up surprisingly quickly.

“Did you know about Ben?” she asks, no preamble.

He visibly hesitates. It’s all the answers she needs.

“Goodbye, Luke.”

She cuts the transmission.

Leia sends the troops out to shut down the Jedi Temple, but they report back that the Temple is empty. She wonders idly where Luke and Mara must have spirited their charges away to. Surely with the Resistance, with her son.

She triples the bounty on Ren’s head. She maintains the orders to keep him alive.

She wants him brought back in chains, wants to know why. This is more important than any silly revolution.

He has to truly understand. Has to see the Right and the Wrong.

They capture a Resistance pilot. She orders him brought before them.

It is Poe Dameron they drag before her in her throne room. He refuses to bow his head, eyes sparkling defiantly. He may have grown since she last saw him, climbing trees with Ben, but he’s retained his curly head of hair and, it seems, his rebellious spirit.

She approaches him. “Shara,” she observes calmly. “Would not be proud of you.”

Dameron’s face darkens at the mention of his mother. “My mother fought tyranny in her time,” he spits at her. “She would have approved of me doing so in mine.”

The true danger, Leia reflects, lies in those who truly believe they are doing Right. She bends down slightly, lifts Dameron’s chin so he can look directly into her eyes.

“Where,” she says clearly. “Is my son?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps.

“You were one of Ben’s closest friends. He is your leader. You know where he is.” Her tone remains dispassionate. “If you don’t tell me where he is, I will find out through methods that will displease you.”

Dameron grins. There’s blood on his teeth. One of the officers must have hit him. She can’t bring herself to care. “Torture, huh? Ben was right about you. Your ideals really are Palpatine’s.”

Leia holds back her instinctive flinch from the idea of her son saying such a thing about her. “Your last chance, Dameron, out of respect for your family. Tell me where my son is.”

Because finding out where the Resistance is based, that’s secondary. They are nothing to fear, only a bunch of traitors to execute for crimes against the New Republic once they were captured.

“Not a chance, Organa.”

Leia sighs softly at his impudence to address her sans title. She touches her fingers to his temple like she did with a young boy so many years ago to find Snoke, and prepares to enter his mind.

She is deflected. She frowns and tries again. Once more.

She withdraws from her attempts. “Ben’s protecting you.”

Dameron’s grin widens, a little malicious. “It’s what Jedi are good at.”

Leia straightens. “You’re of no use to me. You are part of the Resistance and a traitor.” She motions to the officers. “Take him away.”

They do so. His grin doesn’t falter. She approaches her desk and pulls up Dameron’s file. She calmly labels him for termination and returns to other matters at hand.

An officer defects to rescue Dameron, and Leia is furious. She does not lose her temper. She has not lost her temper in over twenty years.

General Hux hands her a report. “This is everything we have on the traitor in the ranks,” he tells her. “FN-2187.”

She raises her eyebrows at General Hux. “When did we start numbering our officers?”

Hux is unruffled. “For quite some time, Empress.”

“Hm.” She’s not sure she approves of that. It recalls too much of slavery to her, something she has held true to in all her years in power. She remembers too well the feeling of chains holding her down. But it is something to be dealt with later. Right is patience. Right can wait.

Hux shows her his plans for a great battle station to be known as Starkiller Base.

Leia thinks of a planet turning into so much stardust, and an ironclad grip on her shoulder preventing her from lashing out, forcing her to watch.

“No,” she says.

Hux opens his mouth to protest.

“I said no, General.”

His mouth closes.

It is several months later. Leia is in her throne room, going through some of Hux’s reports on recent battles when something ripples through her, someone all too familiar. She wonders how he got the doors open without her noticing.

The Force, she thinks, is an extremely powerful cloaking tool when it must be.

“It’s been quite a while, brother,” she says, putting her reports down and rising from her throne. “I doubt you came just to say hello.”

Her brother steps out of the shadows, Mara by his side. Her red hair has turned entirely silver, as has Luke’s beard. He seems wearier.

“Hello, Leia.”

“We never found you, when we went to the Temple,” she observes mildly. “How did you know?”

He smiles tightly, but Mara is the one to answer.

“We knew there would be retribution, after you found out we knew about Ben,” she tells Leia, voice cold. “We took our Padawans and ran.”

“I see.” She takes a long deep breath. “And you ran to join him. Advisors, I assume?”

“He doesn’t call on Luke very much. I have more tactical experience.”

Leia feels her lips twist into a mocking smile. “And did you fancy himself like a mother to him? Did you think yourself comparable to such a figure?”

“No,” Mara answers levelly. “But I wish I had. Maybe then he wouldn’t hurt so much.”

Leia opens her mouth to retort, but a single word stops her.

“Mom.”

She turns from Luke and Mara to see her son in his white robes, sans mask, standing in front of a small group. He has gained a scar across his face.

She recognizes Dameron, of course. The other man is the defected officer, now going by the name of Finn, if the reports are to be believed. That leaves the girl, who the same reports would identify her as Rey. Now that Ben is no longer disguising them, she can feel Rey as a beacon in the Force, shining brightly. She wonders briefly if she is Luke and Mara’s child. Her parentage, she decides, is no matter. She will be dead soon enough.

Luke, Mara, and Ben will be spared to spend the rest of their life in a prison. She will not kill her family when she knows they are her family.

Leia returns her attention to Luke. “Tell me, brother,” she asks acidly. “Do you intend to bring any other family members that you have poisoned against me?”

“I never talked about you to Ben when he was at the Temple. He came to his own conclusions. And to answer your question,” he adds. “Han refused to come.”

She is surprised to find a small measure of comfort in that. That her husband could not come for some strike team designed to take her down. She supposes that in her heart of hearts, she will never lose her love for Han Solo.

“And what is the purpose of this little stealth mission?” she asks. “To kill me?”

“We’re not going to kill you,” Finn answers. “We’re going to give you a fair trial. That should be the way the New Republic works.”

Leia scoffs. “You know nothing of the Senate.”

“But I do.” Ben steps forwards. “And they need to be given a chance to do their job.”

“I am their job,” she snaps. “They don’t understand. I know the difference between Right and Wrong.”

Ben’s eyes are sad. “No, Mom. I don’t think you do anymore.”

“You’ve become what you’ve feared,” Luke murmurs. “You’ve become our father.”

Rage rises in her before she can tamp it down and she shoves Luke back powerfully with the Force. He flies back and slams into the wall.

“I AM NOT VADER,” she roars.

Luke lies prone on the ground as Mara kneels by him to check on him, unhearing.

She hasn’t killed him. She would know, if she had.

It is the first outburst of temper she has had in near twenty five years.

She turns on Ben, Dameron, Finn, and Rey, anger still seething within her.

“You’re traitors, all of you,” she snarls. “And you will be put down like traitors.”

She shoves them backwards and draws her lightsaber. She comes to Rey first. She is too powerful in the Force. She must be stopped first.

“Don’t do this,” Finn pleads desperately. “Please, take me instead.”

“Your time is coming soon, traitor.”

“Don’t,” Dameron whispers. She ignores him.

“Mom,” Ben says. “Mom, please.”

She ignores him too.

Leia brings the saber down, only to have it blocked by Mara. Leia steps back and Mara twirls her purple saber.

“Don’t make me fight you, Mara,” Leia warns her. “I don’t want to kill family, but I will if I have to.”

Mara says nothing, just waits.

Their sabers clash. Mara is a skilled opponent. In her concentration on the fight, her attention will waver from holding Rey, Finn, Poe, and Ben in their place. This will be a mistake on her part. Ben, Finn, and Poe rush to Luke’s side. Rey hovers.

Leia wrests Mara’s saber away from her and summons it into her hand. She delivers a sharp kick to Mara, who goes down. Leia advances on her.

“Taking arms against the Empress is an offense punishable by death,” she informs the woman, who gazes defiantly up at her, bold to the last. Leia raises her blade.

Luke awakens in time to see Rey drive her lightsaber through his sister to spare his wife. Leia is frozen on the blade, shock on her face. Rey pulls her saber back, looking shaken as Ben and Luke rush to Leia, who has fallen to the ground.

“Leia,” Luke says desperately. “Leia, there’s still time. You can still turn to the light. Please.”

Leia blinks hazily up at her brother. “I’ve done… nothing wrong… there’s nothing to renounce…”

“Mom, please.” Ben is crying and she hates that. “Mom, please, please just do it, don’t do this, don’t do this to us.”

“I know the difference,” she whispers. “Between Right and Wrong.”

The war will end here. Luke and Mara will stay long enough to help rebuild the New Republic, to guide the Senators into positions of actual power once more, and then they will vanish. Only those closest to them will know where they have gone.

Ben will become the leader of the Jedi Temple. Some do not trust him due to his lineage. Most know he was Kylo Ren, leader of the Resistance, will admire his courage for standing up to his mother, and will have no doubts. He will drop the Organa from his name, so quietly it would almost seem like it had never been there.

Finn will work hard in Med wings, helping those with trauma from Empress Organa’s reign recover, step by step, soldier or simply the oppressed. He will be quite good at it, and he will like his work.

Poe will head up the New Republic’s flight devision. Ben will visit him sometimes in the hangars, where he is carefully fixing any ill that may have befallen his ship.

Rey will become a mechanic on Yavin IV, enticed by the greenery. Ben will offer her a position at the Temple, but she will refuse. She has had enough of the Force and enough of being a Jedi. She will remain close with her Resistance friends all her life.

Hux will be imprisoned for war crimes.

The New Republic Palace will be torn down.

Somewhere out in the stars, not too long after the present, an old man and his Wookiee companion will hear tell of the joyous celebrations and learn their cause. Despite himself, he will grieve.

This is not those times yet, however. In any event, once a Princess, then an Empress Leia Organa Solo will never know of them, when her eyes still and glass over as she lies on the floor of her throne room, her brother and son sobbing over her lifeless form.