And, he decides, it's all Norra's fault.

- "He's mad at me," Norra says. She takes out her thermal carafe and pops the two disks out of the lid-disks that with a flick of her finger become two small telescoping cups. She and Wedge retired to a small table around the back of the shuttle hangar-a place where some of the pilots, techs, and mechs eat meals on the job. She pours him a cup of chava chava: a hot brew from the root of the same name. It's no jaqhad leaf-chew, but it'll do.

Wedge sighs. "I got that feeling."

"We're not really talking much now."

"Why? Is it you and Brentin?"

"Me and Brentin are fine. We're fine. Everything's fine." She hears the stiffness in her voice. It's like she's got this cough in her chest and she's trying not to let it out but it tickles and scratches and hurts and-"Oh, damnit, it's not fine! It's not fine at all. Temmin's right to be mad at me. His father comes home and he's not present, like, in his eyes? He's not there with us all the time. He's somewhere else even when he's sitting right across from me."

"Most of the captives are like that a little bit. I heard they were anesthetized, but...they had nightmares."

"That's right. Brentin probably underwent years of nightmares. And so the way he's acting is normal. It's more than normal. I...I...it's not his fault, and yet I can't get close. It's like he's just not Brentin anymore." And you're just not Norra anymore, either. "I blame myself. He'll get there. I have to be patient. I have to be nice and smile and just shut my fool mouth because he'll get there."

Wedge's hand finds her own. Their fingers enmesh.

It's warm and it's comforting and- She yanks it away.

"I'm married."

"I know. I know! I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't, I just mean-"

"Of course."

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize," she says. It felt good and I want you to take my hand again and she grits her teeth while working to banish that thought. "Just-tell me what's wrong with my son."

"Nothing's wrong. He's actually scheduled to be on reserve for Liberation Day..."

"But?"

"But he's missed too much training."

She pinches her brow. "Which means he can't actually be on deck."

"Right."

"He's having a hard go of it right now. His father coming home has been all he's ever wanted, but the reality of that is far less than the magic we all expected." She takes a long pull of the chava. "I'll tell him. About Liberation Day."

"You're sure? I can tell him."

"He's already mad at me. I might as well."

"Thanks."

They sit there for a while, each wreathed in steam from the cups. She says, finally, "Any word from Kashyyyk?"

"None."

"It's been a month, Wedge."

"I know."

"Leia must be losing her mind."

"She is. Trust me, she is."

- The Eleutherian Plaza outside the Senate Building is abuzz with activity-all of it conducted by the masterful hand of Chancellor Mon Mothma and her advisers. She wields people like instruments, creating harmony and rhythm out of sheer noise. It is a thing to watch.

Unless, of course, you are one of her discarded instruments.

That is how Leia feels. But even if she is no longer contributing to the song...she can still bring noise, can't she?

She strides up through the center of the plaza. She's showing now. No way to hide it. No way to avoid the whispers, either-rumors of the child born of a smuggler and a princess, a smuggler who fled, a princess who stayed. Leia does not care about those whispers. She cannot.

As Mon directs Senate Guards, telling them where to stand-simultaneously fielding questions about the illuminations display that will fill the night sky after Liberation Day with an unparalleled show of lights and fire-Leia walks right up to stand in front of her. Forget protocol. Decorum is a thing of the past, a thing that Leia has buried deeply. Besides: Mon is a friend. Isn't she?

"Leia," Mon says. In that voice, Leia detects the competing emotions of warmth and irritation. The chancellor is pleased to see her while annoyed by her interruption. "As you can see, I'm a bit busy-"

"Yes, I'm busy, too. Busy worrying about my husband and his team and the entire world of Wookiees slowly being ground to dust in the crushing fist of the still-existent Empire. Mon, please."

Leia has been driven ceaselessly to find a solution to this crisis ever since that day the Millennium Falcon landed here in Chandrila-and her husband failed to meet her. Norra and the others rescued prisoners, but Han stayed behind. Something he had to do, Norra said.

Her jaw clenches at that.

Leia tried marshaling the votes needed to send aid and troops to Kashyyyk, but of course the Senate is full of representatives whose own worlds need that aid and, sometimes, the military presence, too. The vote was close, but not close enough-the measure will not return until the next cycle, and by then it will be far too late.

After that, she tried interfacing with Admiral Ackbar directly-Ackbar agreed that it was time to do something about Kashyyyk, and together they pondered the options. He considered sending a small SpecForces team to the surface in order to help locate and assist Han's team...

Mon Mothma blocked that effort. Like slamming down a giant wall of ice between Leia and her goal.

At the time, Mon said it would be "inexcusable" to stir mud into the water after Sloane came to them with the offer of peace talks. The galaxy, she said, was momentarily at peace-a tense, unpleasant peace, perhaps, but one where all was quiet on the galactic front. It was a much-needed respite from the weariness of war, and to make any formal, official incursion against Kashyyyk at this point could reawaken those troubles.

That, the chancellor made clear, was not an option.

And the Senate backed her up.

"Leia, please. If you give me a few hours-"

"Mon. Stop. Listen to me. I won't negotiate on this."

Mon leans in and whispers: "I understand you're upset-"

"Understand this," Leia says, her voice louder than a whisper. "You need me. I'm still the face of this Republic. Don't make me walk away from that."

Mon stiffens. "You'd really do that? You'd injure the New Republic over this?"

"I would burn down the whole galaxy if I thought it was right."

Mon sighs and forces a smile. "I do know that." The chancellor nods to everyone gathered. "Take a short break. I'll be back."

The chancellor secures Leia's elbow and the two of them walk to the far side of the plaza. Nearby, a trio of whiskered vole-kites scurry about, searching for crumbs with scrabbling paws. Startled, the little animals take flight in a flurry of furry feathers.

"You have my attention," Mon says. "I wish you'd found a nicer way to secure it, but here we are."

"We are friends. Aren't we?"

"I expect and hope we still are. I know this is about Kashyyyk and-believe me when I tell you, my hands here are tied. Things are different now. In the days of the Alliance, we did what we could-and sometimes that meant individuals making snap decisions for the whole. But this is no longer an insurgency. We aren't in hiding. We don't operate in cells or in ragtag bases strewn across the galaxy. All eyes are on us, all hands are joined. We are united, and in that unity we are beholden to the whole, to the machine of government, which is slow, yes, but effective-"

"Effective at what, exactly? Indolence? Concession?"

"Compromise."

"Such cold logic and all while worlds die. What is our compromise on Kashyyyk? Because it seems to me there that no such compromise has manifested, not a compromise that the Wookiees would understand-"

Mon takes her hand and clasps it tight. "Kashyyyk is one world among the thousands we are trying to reach-and thousands more beyond that to come. Please see beyond your entanglements with Han and see that this is more than just one man."

"Yes, you're right. It is! It is about millions of Wookiees-many of whom are already dead because nobody came to help them. Chewbacca is a friend and a protector. He is family. And I owe him just as Han owes him." Awareness blooms inside her, fierce as a plume of fire. She understands why Han is out there. He's not running away from her or from the child. He's running toward something. That's what Norra meant-he has something left to do. Something that can't remain undone before he starts his own family.

"I've been thinking," Mon says, "and what Han is doing may be the right way to go about it. On worlds where the Empire still holds sway-or where criminal syndicates fill that void-individual resistance movements may rise up and serve as small rebellions all their own. Just like what happened on Akiva. We cannot officially support them but we may be able to find ways through back channels to offer aid."

Leia scoffs. "Back channels? That's what we've earned?"

"As I told you before, I will also put this on the table with Admiral Sloane during our peace talks. I will ask that the liberation of Kashyyyk be a condition of peace-"

"You want to negotiate something that is non-negotiable," Leia hisses. She holds up two hands, palms flat up. "Over here is the right thing, the good thing. On the other side is the wrong path. The evil path. We have long fought to be good. To be heroes! But now? You want to negotiate in this middle space. You want to dither about in the gray."

"It's not as simple as good and evil, Leia."

"It is to me!-" Leia turns toward the door. "I'm not getting anywhere. I...have to go, Mon. I thought I could try, but I can see it's futile."

"Wait. Liberation Day is almost here. I need you by my side-the face of solidarity. Unity, as I said."

"We have no unity on this. You will go at this alone."

"It's not me who's alone, Leia."

A twist of the blade. Leia attacks right back: "I'd rather be alone than with you, Chancellor."

With that, she storms off, certain now what she must do.

- Norra finds her son standing alone in the kitchen. He's eating a pakarna bowl-a kind of noodle concoction. A Chandrilan dish. Herbaceous and spicy. He twirls noodles onto a fork and shoves them unceremoniously into his mouth, sauce dribbling on his chin as Bones stares, rapt.

The boy barely acknowledges her as she comes in the door.

"Hi," she says.

He doesn't respond. Just a mopey nod is all she gets.

"Where's your father?"

"What do you care?"

"Okay. I probably deserve that."

Temmin shrugs. "Yeah. Well. He's out. Again. On one of his walks."

"He just needs to clear his head, honey."

"What he needs is to get away from you."

That raises her hackles. She doesn't want it to. Norra wants to lean into this, to take her licks if they're earned-but fast, too fast, she's biting back at him: "Watch the attitude, Tem. We're all going through something. This is going to get tougher before it gets easier. Your father has been away a long time-"

"Because he was captured. What was your excuse?"

"I was-"

"Trying to find him? How'd that work out for you?"

She ignores that. Or tries to. "Your father's been a little strange because of what they did to him on that ship."

"He's been strange because you've been strange with him."

He's right. She has. They eat dinner mostly in silence. The first week they slept in the same bed, but since then he's been falling asleep on the settee in the family room. They barely talk now. What should they talk about? The state of the galaxy? The upcoming peace talks with the people who put him in prison, the ones he fought against for years? Would they speak of his nightmares? Her time with the Alliance? She's tried, in private moments, to probe at the edges of that, to tease out what he thinks of her following in his footsteps, but mostly he just seems distracted. It's something she's seen with other pilots and soldiers in the war-they've been trauma-blasted to oblivion. Ripped asunder, until they're just tattered scraps of who they once were.

Is that Brentin, now? Just tattered scraps?

Can he be stitched back together? Can their marriage?

Temmin flings his noodle bowl into the sink, half eaten. Bones cranes his neck and looks down at it.

"I WILL CLEAN THAT UP," the droid chimes.

"No," Temmin says, hooking a finger around one of the robot's newly forged ribs. "Let's go somewhere else."

She catches his arm. "Wedge spoke to me. You've been missing training."

"So?"

"So, it means you can't participate in Liberation Day patrols."

He shrugs like it doesn't matter, even though the shrug is so aggressive, it has to matter. "Whatever. Great. Liberation Day is dumb anyway. Peace talks with that monster, Sloane? We freed some prisoners. Whoopee. They're not even giving us medals."