Chapter Text
The first thing she sees is rafters. Someone hung herbs from them, and they’re well past dried, Brown and crumbling and covered in cobwebs. She pulls herself up on a thick, lumpy mattress and a sharp pain makes her grasp her side.
There’s a new scar there, she can feel it burning through her clothing. The rest of her is aching and tender and when she raises a hand to her face, she knows that she almost died. The scar that traces down her cheek and under her jaw line stops perilously close to her jugular vein.
But she is alive.
Her bed belongs to a house, brown and crumbling like the herbs in the rafters. There’s a broom in the corner, and the floor has been swept clean. Someone has been trying to make it better.
Is this home?
She can’t remember home.
The shirt she’s wearing is too big for her, but it seems to be her only clothing. It barely covers her thighs when she tries to stand. Her legs are trembling, her injuries are no more than a few weeks old. There’s medical equipment stacked neatly beside the bed. Someone has been taking care of her.
That’s reassuring when she opens the front door and sees dry, dusty plains all the way to the horizon. It’s a farm. Or at least, it was once.
Some movement catches the corner of her eye and she turns. A man is approaching the house, a bucket hanging from each hand. He’s wearing a simple sleeveless undershirt and pants and the muscles in his arms are pulled taunt from the weight of the buckets. His hair is dark and curly and his skin is tan. His eyes are on the ground in front of him, he doesn’t see her immediately.
When he does, brown eyes widen in shock. The buckets drop, and his right hand goes for the blaster holstered at his hip.
Adrenaline spikes through her veins with a single directive. Run.
So she does...or tries to.
She doesn’t know how many wobbly steps she takes, barefoot on the rough ground. Enough that he shouts for her to stop. And then a few steps later he catches her arm, she trips over him and they both fall.
“Fierfek,” he groans. He’s on his back in the dirt and she’s sprawled out on top of him. She doesn’t recognize the language. She doesn’t recognize his face. “Where the hell were you going?” He asks, and she’s so relieved to hear Basic that she doesn’t mind his anger.
“I don’t know. You startled me.”
“You startled me,” he replies, his chest heaving beneath her. “You’ve been unconscious for weeks. I wasn’t expecting you to run for it.”
“What happened to me?”
“You don’t remember?” He lifts his head up off the ground. His brown eyes have a golden tint in the sunlight. They fix sharply on her face. She shakes her head.
She presses a hand to the wound in her side. Blood is seeping through her shirt and it burns like fire. “Did...someone stab me?”
His head drops back down. “It was an animal. You killed it.” His eyes close briefly. “Do you remember falling into the pit?”
“No.”
“What about before that? Do you remember the palace?”
For some reason she looks around. As if there might be a palace in the middle of the field and she could laugh and say “oh that palace.”
“On Tatooine.”
“Tatooine.” Images flash through her mind. Sand. Heat. Streets full of aliens and humans. “This isn’t Tatooine.”
“No. This is Concord Dawn and we’re pretty far from anything so please-” He sits up as he speaks “-don’t do that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be when I have to wash out your wound with antiseptic.” He lifts her easily into his arms and turns back toward the house. He’s done this before, this and so much more. It’s humiliating to think of the things he must have done to keep her sanitary and safe while she was unconscious.
Maybe that’s why she can’t bring herself to admit that she has no idea who he is.
“I’ll cuff you to the bed if I have to,” he warns. Is it a joke? Is it a clue?
There’s only one bed, she notices.
But when night comes he falls asleep in the stuffed rocking chair beside the hearth, a blaster rifle resting on his knees.
This isn’t his house. That’s a piece of information he drops while he’s cleaning out the ancient stone hearth. It was his grandfather’s house once. No one has lived here in decades. “Lots of people are looking for you,” he says, wiping his brow on his shirtsleeve. “And not just your friends. I’m surprised you’re not curious.”
“About what?” She’s sitting up on the bed, eating a thick portion of redi-bread soaked in broth.
“About what happened to Solo, for one.”
Solo. Another name that isn’t hers. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember,” he repeats, as if he’s not sure he believes her. “Nothing about the palace. You don’t remember sneaking in to steal from Jabba?”
“No.”
“Or getting caught.”
“No.”
“Or anything about the rancor.”
“Rancor?” Her hand drops to the freshly bandaged wound at her side. “I killed a rancor?”
“You did. Pretty fekking impressive. But it was close.”
“You were there?”
“Who do you think convinced Bib Fortuna that you were a goner and smuggled you out? Not Solo.” He says the name with distaste. With disapproval. Maybe that explains the tension that hovers around his words. Apparently she’s a thief and he doesn’t approve of her activities or her collaborators. “I have to go get some supplies tomorrow,” he continues. “You remember what I said? You’re a long way from civilization. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll be fine,” she retorts.
She passes the time with the broom, sweeping dust out of neglected corners, moving slowly and carefully. She stands on the bed and pulls down the crumbling herbs, bringing down dust and a faint whiff of spices. It’s a familiar scent.
“Elderain,” her father tells her, showing her the green leaves in his palm. They’re in a garden, surrounded by life. “It can be used to add nutrients to soups and stews. It’s a hardy plant, thrives in a variety of climates. People have taken it to hundreds of worlds.”
The memory comes to her so suddenly she falls to her knees on the bed. Her father. Her mother. Breathing the sharp clean air near the snow-capped mountains. The palace gardens, the sunlit halls. Alderaan.
“Remember this plant, Leia, and you’ll always be able to find food.”
Leia. That’s her name.
How she went from a princess to a thief is still a mystery, but it’s a precious bit of knowledge just the same.
The source of the Elderain isn’t hard to find. There was a garden here too, long ago. Leia bundles it the way it was tied to the rafters and lays it out on the table.
“Elderain,” she tells him when he returns. “You can eat it cooked or raw.”
“Show me,” he says. He’s always watching her. Like he’s waiting for her to do something, or say something. Why can’t she remember his name?
She takes a few of the leaves and puts them in her mouth. He seems satisfied by that. “Good prisoners get rewards.” He tosses her a packet of fine blue powder.
“Bacta?”
“There’s a tub on one of the sheds. I’ll bring it in.”
He also brought back fuel for the burner in the hearth. It feels luxurious to soak in the soothing bacta and feel heat on her face and arms.
“Do you have a mirror?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering what I look like.”
His eyes move to the scar on her cheek, and his gaze softens a little. “You look like you won.”
She laughs. It makes her side hurt. “You have a way with words."
His normally sober expression breaks, just for a moment. The corner of his mouth turns up. “Can't say I've heard that before.” There’s warmth in his eyes. But like her laughter, it doesn’t last long. While she soaks in the tub he searches every inch of the house. Runs his hands under the mattress. Climbs up on a chair to search the cobweb-free rafters.
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything that might have been hidden.”
He seems to have opted to let her put the pieces together on her own, maybe to avoid startling her again. It might well be an act of kindness. Something in her life went terribly wrong, and now she’s here.