Leia, mired in the post-war cleanup, stumbles onto Bail’s private encrypted files on the
cloudholonet. Most of them are mundane—receipts from the last 20 years of the rebellion, memos to himself, a couple private holographs from Breha that Leia desperately wishes she could unsee—but there are others that aren’t mundane at all.
Bail’s living will signed and dated a month before the destruction of Alderaan.
Documents with account access codes to banks that no long exist; the deeds to property that is so much ash on the geomagnetic wind. A handful of holos—Leia, Breha, and Bail at the annual Quakale ball; Leia in Bail’s lap, young, her mouth and hands bright purple from berry-picking; Breha with Leia swaddled in her arms, the day they brought her home. And one. a hologram file named LEIA_2153.gram
It has been five years since she heard her father’s voice.
If she were hoping for some explanation—why didn’t you tell me I had a brother why didn’t you say who vader was did you really think lying would protect me it didn’t protect you—none is offered. Instead, it’s just her father, younger than she last remembers him, in what looks like the cockpit of his personal ship.
Leia, he says. My daughter.
And then he smiles, and says that he hopes she hasn’t managed to get in any fights with her mother yet, he only left three days ago. It turns out the message isn’t anything Big or Portentous, it’s clearly just….a drafted message he mean to send a few years ago, when he was away on Rebellion business. He asks about her lessons, talks about his most recent negotiations; reminds her to keep up with her translation work. The hologram ends too abruptly, with him stammering Iloveyou(soproudofyou)seeyousoon when someone off-screen says he can disembark, they’re ready for him now.
(Han is in the nursery, walking up and down and humming an old Corellian drinking song, trying to lure their colicky infant son to sleep. He stops when he sees her, and she wonders if it’s so obvious she’s been crying.
Ben is quiet as she pushes the soft fringe of dark hair from his eyes, fusses with his blanket. She can feel Han’s eyes on her, but it takes a moment to find the courage to meet them. hey sweetheart, Han murmurs. In the dark, his mouth is a soft thing.
my father—she whispers, her voice breaking. My father—)