Chapter Text
The galaxy had settled.
Not entirely, of course, because the tumultuous changes that had been wrought.
A Republic had fallen, an Empire had risen, and a Galactic Civil War had torn down everything.
Rebuilding that would take time.
But the war, at very least, was over.
The Battle of Jakku had been won, the Galactic Concordance - the so-called Coruscant Accords - had been signed, and the New Republic restored to the Core Worlds.
Leia Organa Solo knew, however, the hardest work was to begin. It was twilight on Chandrila, the planet which currently hosted the New Republic Chancellor. Hanna City presided over a beautiful sea that merely sparkled in the night stars, providing a soothing context to what was yet another late-night feed. Leia found it a good time to be reflective, but her mind slid towards politics more often than not. Leia still had to keep herself calm, mind you, as Ben was as Force sensitive as any of her other children.
Other children.
There was a slight pang there. Leia hadn't seen Jacen, Jaina and Anakin for nearly a year. Kept safe on Anoth, protected by Winter and the Noghri, it had given Leia time to focus on her pregnancy and whatever crisis of the week during the war. Now the war was over, they would likely bring the children together, but at the same time, Leia knew how dangerous that was. In all likelihood, they would very rarely bring the four children together. At least until they were sure the Empire was firmly done.
Chancellor Mon Mothma - Chief of State to some, President to others - was sure. Coruscant had been handed over to the New Republic, and the Imperial Navy had withdrawn to eight sectors in the Core and Inner Rim. The rest was being slowly but surely annexed by the New Republic Defense Force. But Mon was so confident, she had already put in orders for 90% of the NRDF to be scrapped, which alarmed Leia to her very soul.
Ben whimpered as he fed, and Leia applied a Jedi calming technique for the moment.
Ackbar was confident he could build a solid military core from the elite units and most modern craft available, and the Senate, itself based on Nakadia, had ratified the construction of various new warships. The Mon Calamari MC90, Rendilli Republic-class Star Destroyer, Loronar Belarus-class medium cruiser, Kuati Corona-class frigate and the latest Corellian Gunships would shortly be disbursed throughout the Navy, besides former Mon Calamari merchant vessels, bespoke Assault Frigates and captured Imperial Star Destroyers.
But the majority would go to scrap.
Leia took another breath.
A mere two years ago the New Republic had consisted of hundreds of thousands of worlds, but then Thrawn, the reborn Emperor, and the warlords had come, and now barely ten thousand systems were committed to the cause. They were among the most affluent and influential worlds of the galaxy - Coruscant, Kuat, Fondor, Corellia, Hosnian Prime, Chandrila, Mon Calamari, to name a few - but the Empire's former territory covered a third of the galaxy, and much of it was ruled by warlords who didn't care for the Accords.
Han had pointed out that most of the remaining fifteen or so warlords couldn't even beat a tenth of the Navy combined, but Leia would have preferred to keep the military as it was for now. Luke disagreed, saying that the disarmament of the galaxy was key to continued peace, to which Leia had rebutted that the Republic didn't have ten thousand Jedi to step up, to which he had promptly affirmed his intention to restore the Jedi Order.
It hadn't been the most civilized discussion.
Leia winced at that, and found herself examining her emotions.
The Jedi Order, or, as Luke liked to call it, the New Jedi Order, had been between Luke, Leia and the children for the most part for years. Occasionally they encountered a Force user, but ordinarily some Dark Jedi or wannabe Sith seizing a portion of the Empire and attempting their own scheme; Lumiya, Jerec, Shadowspawn and C'Boath came to mind immediately, but there had been others. Apart from Mara Jade, and more recently Kam Solusar, there had been very few that could be considered Jedi. Even the SpecForce officers, Kyle Katarn, Erling Tredway, and Corwin Shelvay, they had merely drifted across their path.
It was Luke and Leia who had, around her pregnancies, on Endor, Coruscant, and more recently Ajan Kloss, trained. She was his first student. Yes, Leia's path led to politics, and she had handed her own lightsaber back to him, but, it was just them two against the galaxy.
Her mind turned to her old lightsaber, ignoring Han's snorting and Ben's nuzzling. She still had given up the lightsaber that Luke had helped her build all those years ago. That weapon had felt like more than a tool, it had been an extension of herself. It was that dividing line between Jedi and not, and she had decided not to take that route.
Because of what the Force had shown her about Ben.
That he would be a darkness.
Leia remembered, on Tatooine, shortly after Zsinj died, where she had read her grandmothers journal and agonized over whether to have children, whether she would birth mini-Darth Vaders. By reinterpreting the Killik Twilight painting, Han had convinced her, but the old fears existed. The sheer malevolence of the reborn Emperor could not be easily forgotten.
But an Order.
That would take away from her their shared Jedi heritage.
Luke would become a Master of students, and Leia, still the politician, but mother to children, who, too, would become Jedi.
The Jedi would no longer be a family matter. One day, she might not even know all the Jedi in the Order... Leia couldn't shake her disquiet with that idea. That she would lose her brother to this world that she was fundamentally too scared to fully embrace.
Ben suddenly burst into tears.
Leia immediately drew him close and soothed him in the Force, lest he wake Han.
Or Chewbacca, sleeping at the door as he was want to do in the absence of the Noghri.
When they changed over, and Jacen and Jaina came home - wherever home ended up, as it looked likely the government would move back to Coruscant if only to have a more direct hold of the rebuilding of the former capital - Anakin would remain at Anoth with Winter, and Ben, for his protection, would end up somewhere else. The Noghri would move back in, and Leia reckoned Chewbacca would still insist on sleeping by the door to the apartment.
That was comforting, and Leia took that comfort and wrapped Ben in it.
He silenced, and settled into sleep, clearly done feeding too.
Carefully placing Ben in his cot, Leia accepted what she had just thought.
That she was too scared to be a Jedi.
It felt right, in the heat of the moment, but it wasn't true. Leia knew she could become one of the foremost Jedi in the galaxy, no matter the size of the Order. As a diplomat, she would be able to do more than anyone save for Luke for some time. She could become the face of the Jedi. But Leia didn't want that, fundamentally. She wanted to support the New Republic directly, to be there for Mon, to maybe one day become Chief of State in her own right.
Leia wasn't just the daughter of Anakin Skywalker.
She was the daughter of Breha and Bail Organa too.
And what little knew of their mother, Padme Naberrie, she too was a Senator, and once a Queen of Naboo.
It wasn't turning away from being a Jedi, it was her turning towards being a Senator, and a Minister, and a politician. Luke had his Sith, and Dark Jedi, but Leia had her Borsk Fey'lya's to contend with, let alone whatever ragtag Imperial turned up. Rae Sloane was still unaccounted for, and the likes of Harrsk, Teradoc, Gideon and others would not simply abide by a treaty. A strong New Republic and a strong Jedi Order were needed.
As such, she would do what Luke couldn't do, and build the government - and, for now, a family.
A family of Jedi.
That would be her contribution to the New Jedi Order.
And the galaxy.
And the future.
Finally settled, Leia slept.
Until Ben woke again, that is.
But it would be Han's turn, so she would simply kick him out of bed.
Force kick, maybe.