"Some nights we open up the flood
And some nights we are lost
And some nights we're choking on the words
But some we light on fire

If you're out there in the cold
I'll cover you in moonlight
If you're a stranger to your soul
I'll bring you to your birthright
I want the storm inside you awoken now
I want your warm bright eyes
To never look away
Don't you ever look away"

Never Look Away, Vienna Teng

Note: This fic contains mature themes which explore the effects of PTSD, depression, and more. My hope is that it is as encouraging and healing to others as writing it has been for me, but I also acknowledge that some content may be triggering. I will post trigger warnings before chapters when applicable, but please be aware that these themes are woven into the whole fic.

Trigger Warning for Chapter 1: There's an instance of self-harm towards the end of this chapter. It is mild, non-graphic, and not what some may traditionally think of as self-harm, but it may be triggering for some.

Chapter 1

In the end, she'd rather they both left. She'd rather know that they existed out there, somewhere away in the void, even if that meant away from her: Luke hunting for clues on his quest to become a Jedi, Han plying his illegal trade, paying off his debts and roaming the galaxy freely with Chewie. Maybe they'd be happy. It would at least give her comfort to know that they were out there, somewhere, instead of here on this frozen hellhole, dead in the snow.

Because of me. Leia stopped pacing and closed her eyes, leaning into the familiar knife's edge, her mantra. My fault. In the end, it all boiled down to her: her mistakes aboard the Tantive IV; the reason her friends got caught up in all this in the first place. Her convincing them to stay (didn't she coax and plead?). Her having the audacity to open up her heart and let them in, even though she knew they deserved so much more than to be pulled into her black hole of guilt and pain. Yes, she'd told herself she was just trying to retain some of the Rebellion's greatest assets, and while that was true on some level, Han was absolutely right—this was so much more. She did need them, both of them, in ways she didn't quite understand and couldn't fully admit to herself.

The three of them had been through so much together. They were a spectacular team; their exploits for the Rebellion were already legendary. They knew how to read each other so well now that they hardly had to communicate in the heat of battle. And they had saved each others' lives multiple times, both on and off the battlefield.

Once, as she lay in the medical bay in the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin, she had found herself teetering on the edge of a cliff, looking out over a dark, roiling ocean that seethed with grief and despair. The Alliance leaders had saved her from falling, then, with their offer of a new home and purpose, and she had thrown herself completely into the fight for justice she had believed and worked for her whole life. This had, for the most part, kept the storm-tossed swell at bay. But still, there were times when duty and purpose were no longer enough; when her hope for the galaxy's redemption was eclipsed by the immensity of its pain. Han and Luke had always been there to ward off the waves, each in his own way.

Now she was faced with losing them both in one cruel, needless stroke, and she felt the floods rising again.

Leia leaned back against the support of an X-wing, arms wrapped around her against the chill. The hangar door was wide open to the swirling snow and the swift-falling night. The temperatures were plunging along with her hope. Artoo and Threepio, those two faithful droids, were at the door, searching the gloom. Chewie stood nearby, now still, now pacing; a mirror image of her own turmoil. Neither of them said a word, as if some moment's lack of vigil would doom the ones they waited for.

Any moment, Leia thought, any moment now, they'll come through the door. She seized on that image in an effort to shut out the unwanted ones. Han would probably shake his head to fling off the snow and make some quip about the cold and the danger. Luke would grin, and then he'd come over to reassure her that everything was okay.

If he could be found. If he wasn't severely injured, or…. Despite her best efforts, the scenarios slipped their way into her mind, a parade of horrific images that she couldn't shut out: Luke and Han, lying broken at the bottom of a crevasse. The two of them lost, slowly freezing to death in a whiteout. Their bodies torn to pieces by those horrible wampa creatures. Or… could bounty hunters have somehow finally caught up with them? The Empire, even?

Leia fought against the rising waves, tried to will the images out of her head. They had to come back. They had to. They were hardy, resourceful. They'd been through so much already, and they still had so much life to live. This couldn't be the end. Any moment now, she repeated to herself.

Her sense of dread grew.

There was movement on the hangar floor. Her head snapped up. "Sir, all the patrols are in. Still no sign of—" the deck lieutenant was hushed by a motion from his commanding officer. It didn't matter; Leia knew what they were saying, anyway.

She stood still, willing herself not to feel, to be strong against the panic beginning to claw at her chest. She vaguely acknowledged Threepio's approach and his confirmation that Artoo's sensors hadn't picked up anything. The officer, Bren Derlin—a good man, who had been on a mission with Luke a few years ago—and the deck lieutenant, a newer recruit, were walking towards her. She knew what was coming, and she was powerless to stop it.

"Your Highness," Major Derlin said gently, "There's nothing more that we can do tonight. The shield doors must be closed."

No. Please. Not now, not yet. Leia felt half-crazed. She wanted to scream, wanted to order them to keep it open all night, regulations be damned, even if it cost them valuable supplies and froze all of the fuel and them, too. She found herself nodding instead.

Duty. The Rebellion had to come before personal interests. She knew that, believed it; she'd had a lifetime of training for it. She'd ordered men and women she cared about into battle, knowing that they might not make it out alive (many hadn't). She'd been ready to give up her own life, too, time and time again. Anyone involved in the Rebellion knew the risks. But that didn't make the cost any easier for her to bear, nor did it make this moment feel like anything less than a knife to her chest.

The doors began to creak and groan. Leia stood frozen, watching their slow progress as they shut out the icy night gales and the two people she loved most in the galaxy. As they shuddered closer and closer, she suddenly had a strange feeling that she was watching them close not only on her friends' lives, but on her own, too. Her future dwindled down to just a sliver, then disappeared with a clang: sudden, inevitable, and horribly final. She stood still for a moment, numb, then turned and walked blindly back to her room.

The door swished shut behind her, and Leia collapsed onto her cot. She lay there unmoving, staring blankly at the ceiling, the waves buffeting her full-force now. She had shut out Luke and Han, left them to die out in the night's storms. They might still survive, of course, but, as Threepio had so helpfully indicated, the chances were very slim.

She was going to lose them, too.

In a blink she was back on the bridge of the Death Star, held fast by an iron hand clamped on her shoulder, watching as her planet erupted into flame and dust. She couldn't breathe. She felt the explosion mounting inside her once more, the panic finally tearing its way free. She was shaking, gasping for air; all things faded but the images of her home's annihilation and Han and Luke, frozen in the snow. She sat up and swallowed down bile, fighting the waves of nausea, and tried to steady her breathing.

She would not think of them dead. Leia choked back a sob as she put her head in her hands, still shivering despite her efforts at control. She remembered Luke's face as he came to retrieve her from her cell on the Death Star, all hope and youthful exuberance, the first friendly face she'd seen in what felt like a lifetime. How they had shared some of their grief with each other on the trip back to Yavin IV, taking comfort in each other's understanding and presence in a way she was still surprised at. While Luke could sometimes be a little naive, impatient, and caught up in his own world, they'd had countless moments like that since—finding strength and solace in their shared loss and common purpose. She felt such a strong connection to him, so much so that it sometimes unnerved her; there was a familiarity there, as if she had known him all her life. She relished the much-needed consistency of his friendship. He was a rock of pure goodness; a beacon of hope in the midst of the swirling uncertainties and the darkness of their time.

Han, on the other hand, had irritated her to the core with his continuous threatened inconstancy. But despite his words, he had stayed with them for the better part of three years, and she had come to rely on his presence in her life, too. Underneath the aura he gave off of devil-may-care rogue, she had discovered a depth of sensitivity and caring that few might suspect (and which she occasionally questioned herself, when he was being particularly difficult). Whenever she or Luke were having a hard time, Han would always be there to help however he could, whether through humor, fun, a comforting hand on the shoulder, encouraging words, or offers for them to dig themselves deep into his treasured stash of Corellian ale (the latter she had mostly refused—aside from the questionable propriety of a princess in wartime getting drunk, she feared losing control, particularly in his presence, however tempting it might be to escape everything for awhile). Swashbuckling scoundrel Han might be, but he had a heart of gold, and he had proven that time and time again with his actions, always coming through when they needed him.

But there was more. Han saw her, the real her. Leia blinked back fresh tears at the thought of it. While others tended to hold her at a distance due to her title, and even Luke put her on a pedestal, Han had dispensed with the formalities from the start and treated her as an equal, a peer. This was shocking, occasionally annoying, and overall incredibly comforting. She'd had very few people in her life outside of her family who had looked beyond the royal title to see just her, the real Leia, and this was like a breath of fresh mountain air. Han saw her, and by now he knew her better than anyone else still alive—although Luke was a close second.

Then came the undercover mission to Ord Mantell, and everything had changed. She still remembered how close Han had been that night at the resort in the mountains—had it only been a few weeks ago? His eyes were soft and open as they talked over dinner, and afterwards, on the veranda, his arm was around her waist, and his other hand was reaching up to brush a strand of her hair aside, slipping around the back of her neck, drawing her closer, closer—then came the commotion, and the sudden agony in her arm; the bounty hunter had missed Han and shot her instead. They had escaped (barely), and her arm had since healed, but that was the turning point. Han's walls had come up again (she supposed hers had too—it wasn't like they needed much prodding), and he had been insufferable ever since. She felt like he was playing some sort of game. There were times when he softened again, just for a moment, and a version of the man she had come to rely on (love) before would show himself, but those times were growing less and less frequent. More often he'd make some inappropriate comment or try another one of his ridiculous attempts at flirting, only to lash out at her the next moment. Their fights had become epic; she knew they were the gossip of everyone on base, and yet he set her off in ways she couldn't seem to control. She was losing him; she was sure of it—he had always talked of leaving, had even once followed through for a short time, but now it looked as if he were really going to leave for good.

She thought about their last fight, just that afternoon, in the south passage. He had abruptly told her goodbye and then stormed off, and she had followed, heart sinking, repeating her same old pleas for him to stay. He wanted more from her than that, though, more she wasn't sure she had left to give, especially if he was eventually just going to turn around and leave. The last thing she had said to him was "I'd just as soon kiss a Wookiee," and that was a lie, and oh how she wished she could have left him with something else, something that might keep him here. But no, she was too broken, and too aware of it. She was a center from which suffering radiated outward. People died because of her, and really, she was already dead, too. She had no future beyond the Rebellion. Why would she—how could she—possibly convince anyone to stay for her own sake?

The Rebellion. Her drive for justice had kept her going, kept the ocean of grief at bay, kept the fissures of despair from opening up and swallowing her whole. She still believed in the cause of the Rebellion as much as ever, was just as committed to the fight, but time had chipped away at the floodgates and revealed the fault lines, and lately they had been harder and harder to control.

Now the fissures cracked wide open, and the dark ocean was frothing at her feet, and there was Alderaan again, engulfed in flame, and she was being tortured, writhing on the floor of her cell, and Han and Luke were pale and stiff, eyes glazed over and frosted, and her breath was coming ragged again, and there wasn't any other way out, and what hope did they really have anyway? Everything inside her was screaming, and she was furious at the galaxy, furious at the Empire, furious at the gods (if they ever existed), furious at the Force, furious at herself.

Turning towards the wall beside her, she reached out and touched it, acknowledging its smooth, icy contours. Then she pounded her fist into it, hard. She winced with pain, but she punched it again, first one fist, then the other, until her knuckles were red and bruised and she fell back onto her bed, spent. After a breath, she rolled back over to the frozen surface and pressed the backs of her hands into it, letting the ice send its sharp tendrils of pain into her skin; pain which soon turned to comforting numbness. She breathed in and out slowly, trying to regain control. The familiar locks clicked back into place in her chest, taming the panic, stowing away her anger and grief. She hid her dreaded visions of Han and Luke beside the image of Alderaan's demise and tucked them back into a far corner of her mind, where they'd be harder to reach again for the present. Wiping her face clean of tears, she sat up slowly and grabbed her datapad. She felt emptied out. There was nothing left to feel now, and there was nothing left to do but work, and wait, in the darkness.