Chapter Text
Leia watches them comfort him. In the hallway beyond the cockpit. She doesn’t know what they’re consoling him about, but it isn’t a stretch to assume he’s lost someone: a family member or a friend. Most people in the rebellion had lost someone. Most rebels had lost someone to the Empire. It’s often the reason for their resistance.
She watches him drift down the hallway, eyes downcast and shoulders set high, looking for all the stars so very young. Too young to be in this fight. Then again, they were the same age. And the Empire shows no mercy no matter how young you are.
“Is he alright?” she asks the approaching Jedi Knight.
“He’s okay,” Kanan Jarrus replies, “He just lost some people close to him.”
He says the words lightly, but she can sense his sorrow for the boy, can see the way his eyes follow him even after the door seals itself shut again.
“It's a challenge,” he continues slowly, regarding her with a knowing expression, “being his age with so much responsibility.”
“I know that feeling.” And yet, does she really? She’s spent her life dedicated to the rebellion. She was born with this weight on her shoulders. And though she knew loss, she imagines she can’t begin to understand the brand of grief Ezra Bridger is experiencing.
Still, Kanan Jarrus suggests he might like some company, and she finds herself below the cockpit a few moments later.
What do you say to someone who’s grieving? All the speeches Leia knows how to give are sharp political critiques or crisp formal discourses. But he knows she’s here now, and Leia has never been one for silence, so she barrels on regardless of tact.
“I know who you are. You’re Ezra Bridger. I heard your transmission.”
Her words are brief and undemanding. A simple acknowledgment of him and his deeds.
He responds, though.
“Yeah? My parents heard it, too. But they’re gone now.”
The way he says those words. As if that is the reason his parents are gone. Not a totalitarian Empire and unforgiving laser bolts. Not the injustice and cruelness of the world they lived in. His hope, his words, his message. As if their deaths are his fault.
Her forwardness driven to a halt, she finds she can only summon an empty apology. A flimsy bandage against an angry, open wound.