"General?"

General Leia Organa looked back over her shoulder at one of her lieutenants charged with monitoring communications from the Millennium Falcon. She attempted to wipe the weary expression from her face, though everyone in every corner of the base knew that it had been days since she had slept a proper night's sleep. Six days. Six days since the legendary Han Solo had died at the hands of his own son. Their son. No begrudged their devoted General a period of mourning, but there were some instances where the solitude which she often imposed upon herself simply needed to be interrupted. Such was the fate, she conceded, of the leader of the resistance. Her time for her own mourning would not take precedent over the needs of the people.

"They're bringing Luke Skywalker back to the base and are requesting cover for transport once they enter our system."

"Understandable," she nodded wearily. "I'm sure there'd be more than one headhunter that would like to see their safe passage to D'Qar intercepted -"

"Master Skywalker has someone else from the island he's bringing with them," the Lieutenant interrupted carefully. "A girl. He says that he can't leave her on the island, that it would not be right to abandon her there."

"Did she have a name?"

"The called her Yasha," the Lieutenant supplied, and General Organa's eyes drifted shut - she drew in a long, slow breath through her nostrils. It was a name she wasn't sure she wanted to hear again. That girl, after all - though through no fault of her own - had played such a large part in Ben's desertion to the Dark Side. But once, Yasha Faygill had been dear to her too. And she was alive.

"General?"

"Yes, I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head gently to refocus her thoughts - to plan their next move before succumbing to such emotions. "Send Poe Dameron and his squadron to meet them when they enter the system."

"Yes, General Organa."

Finally alone again, Leia gently covered her face with her hands, willing away the false sense of hope that arose when she learned that Yasha Faygill was alive - alive and safely hidden with Luke Skywalker, no less. It meant that Ben had spared her - and if he had spared her, it meant that even when he had slaughtered all of the other young Jedi in training, he'd still had a heart then. Leia no longer wanted to hope that her son had a heart - not right now, anyway. Not after what he had done to his father.

Leia Organa had never truly believed that her family was separated forever - not until now. And hope was painful when it was crushed. She didn't want to risk having more hope to destroy, but Yasha's return would bring about precisely that.

Rey struggled with the fact that the two new passengers they had picked up on this strange planet simply didn't speak much at all. Granted, it may have been new to them. They'd been on a mostly uninhabited island for a good amount of time now and had no one but one another to speak with.

Or perhaps, Rey mused inwardly, they didn't speak at all. Maybe that was what Jedi did, simply sat around all day reading one another's minds. It wasn't as if she truly knew anything about any of this. About a week ago, it had all been the stuff of myth and legend that she had better things to do than believe true.

Shaking her head to regain her focus, she began to set coordinates back to D'Qar, her hands swift and adept in managing the controls of the Millennium Falcon. She flinched slightly from the noise in the co-pilot seat, coming from her newly gained co-pilot.

"I'm not excited, Chewie."

Another set of roars and groan-like laughter.

"What do you mean, not even about Finn?" Rey asked in a low voice, her brow furrowing and her face flushing as she returned her focus to the controls. "You're being ridiculous, Chewie."

The Wookie gave a blaring sound of laughter at the younger woman's response, to which she responded with a dull smack on his shoulder.

"Shut up."

The arrival back on D'Qar was quiet - perhaps Rey had been naive to think it would have been more joyful an event that she was bringing back the last Jedi master to his sister. There was, after all, an air of too little too late by now. As they disembarked from the Millennium Falcon, no one was there to greet them. By now, everyone had returned to their posts and their duties; life in the Resistance had, it appeared, resumed normalcy. They had been met, as ordered, by Poe Dameron's entire crew who had seen to their safe passage; now, they walked over the practically empty grounds.

Still, when the entire party headed by Rey entered the inner threshold of the Resistance headquarters to meet with General Organa, she at least rose to greet them, approaching her brother first and embracing him with tears in her eyes.

Luke, on his part, seemed strangely disconnected despite his sister's obvious affection towards him. Rey looked at the weathered old man in Jedi robes and gently narrowed her eyes in confusion. She knew that Jedi were trained in the art of detachment, of complete balance and peace - but were they not still human? If they were not, she began to wonder if a Jedi was indeed still something that a person might actually aspire to be if they were deprived of such basic human experiences.

And Yasha, the woman who lurked a few steps behind Master Skywalker at all times, who still regarded him with reverence despite no longer being his formal pupil - General Leia Organa's gaze drifted to the woman. Rey was surprised to see recognition on both of their faces as they shared a long glance.

"You must be tired," Leia said, drawing her head higher and looking to face her brother, who now looked in every way to be a wise and battle-weary Jedi Knight - the Luke of legends and not of Leia Organa's memories. "I'm sure we have much to talk about, but I don't think it's the time - we have spare quarters. They're not much, but they're enough."

"Thank you," Luke spoke finally - the sound of his voice seemed almost to startle Leia, as it had been years since she had heard it at all. Finally, the brother and sister managed a small, weak smile for one another before he bowed reverently and started towards the guest quarters. The entire party began filing out, though as always, the younger woman who had accompanied Luke stood behind, allowing herself to go last. She turned to leave when she heard a voice speak her name - the voice of the only other person in the room, the General herself.

"Yasha."

The younger woman froze in her tracks, halted from retreating to the humble guest quarters of the base. Slowly, Yasha turned to face the fearless leader of the Resistance. "General," she said with a respectful incline of her head. "I would like to thank you again for your -"

"We can skip the niceties, we know each other. I would not have had you left out there," Leia interrupted. "You know about Ben by now, then. You know what he's done."

The pallor that overtook Yasha's face gave Leia her answer, in case of the event that the younger woman could not supply one. However, with a quaver in her voice, she managed somehow to speak. "None of this was what I wanted. All I wanted was to be a good Jedi. I was a child, I couldn't have taken responsibility for -"

"I know," Leia interrupted again, her eyes briefly drifting shut. "I know that you've done nothing that you need to atone for. That's not why I wanted to speak with you."

Now, it was Yasha's turn to close her eyes, her shoulders sagging in relief. When she opened them again, there was a warmth to them as though something in her had thawed out - Leia, for the first time in years, saw the girl she had known years ago, who had brought out the best in her son when he had still been called Ben Solo. "You were one of the best," Leia said plainly. "You trained with my brother too, and now we need you. The Resistance needs you."

"Master Skywalker didn't finish," Yasha protested weakly. "On me or on Ben. I don't think I can help you -"

"You and Ben were so much alike," Leia said, her voice now weary and strangely pleading. "You knew him, Yasha."

To this, Yasha Faygill had no retort. She looked down at her shoes and reverted to what she did best - diversion.

"The girl. Rey," she began slowly, still unable to look up at the older woman before her. "She doesn't remember who it was that brought her to Jakku, does she?"

"She's waiting for someone," Leia said, explaining as best she could. "She..."

But upon seeing the strange expression on Yasha's face - the mix of both apprehension and warmth - something stirred in Leia. And she knew. She had known when she had looked into Rey's eyes the first time that the girl was no stranger, but there was more to her. Yasha gave a short, knowing nod.

"There were whispers for many months," Yasha began vaguely. "Whispers that someone among us in the Jedi Temple would soon betray us. Master Skywalker said nothing to you, but he could feel it coming from Ben. He could already see that... that he'd been entranced by Snoke's schemes. So I accompanied him to Jakku, to leave his child for safekeeping..."

So many truths coming to the surface at once left Leia feeling as though she had to gasp for air. Rey was Luke's child. And they had known about Ben months before his betrayal. Everything had been slowly coming together even then, culminating in all that had transpired in the recent weeks. Yasha hung her head in shame, and Leia could feel the heaviness of the burden the young woman bore when the conversation drifted to the topic of a certain Ben Solo.

"I wonder it too," she admitted so quietly that Leia thought perhaps she had imagined the young woman's voice. "I wonder if perhaps I could have stopped him, if I had stopped trying to be a good Jedi and been... and been a good person. I wonder if perhaps it was my mistake..."

Yasha's hand reached absently to the back of her own neck and began to fiddle with a small braided strand that began near the nape of her neck, ornamented with a pair of copper beads and wrapped at the end with piece of crimson string. Leia remembered the first day that she had seen her son wearing a similar ornament, seen the distant, elated look on his face of which, for a young man like him, a young woman would always be the cause.

"You were ready. You were a good student," Leia said gently. "You didn't need to be so afraid of failing."

At this, General Leia Organa gave a short nod and took her leave of the girl, leaving Yasha to her own thoughts.

The General was, in Yasha Faygill's mind, very wrong. She had every reason to fear failing. She had already been failing, and failing terribly, even if no one had known. A Jedi was meant not to harbor such troublesome emotions, such burdensome attachments - and surely, being in love was the most burdensome of all.

A/N's

New story, just playing with a new idea after having seen TFA. This first chapter is still me gaining my bearings in the fandom, but I have some ideas that I'm playing around with. Chapter 2 to be posted within the next few days. Until next time, cheers! (And for those following my other stories, worry not! I just needed to take a time out due to some writer's block!)