╔════ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐄𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

'𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞' ═══════╝

━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━

. . . RESISTANCE BASE, AJAN KLOSS

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄 and the sky had filled with rain.

Even in their short walk to the command area, Poe and Lyra were drenched and Bee was complaining about the water flooding his processor. Evenven after an hour of sitting in the confines of Eleni's workspace, they were still barely dry. Eleni herself was nowhere in sight; Reeve had commandeered the workspace with her current project.

"I think you should just leave him as he is," Jess was telling her as she hooked up Threepio's metal head to the memory backup housed in R2's systems. The little droid beeped once in protest, but Jess continued. "It's so much funnier that he has no clue what's going on, ever."

"That's cruel, Jess," Reeve chastised, but the corner of her mouth still lifted into a smile. "He asked me if I knew what planet we were on."

"We're too hard on him," Poe said suddenly, and all three of them turned to stare at him.

"Are you feeling okay?" Jess asked, genuinely concerned.

He rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me like that. I'm a very big fan of droid culture. Watch this."

Poe whistled twice and made a beeping sound. Bee rolled back from where he was at Poe's feet, looking slightly scandalized.

"Did you–did you just try to talk to him in binary?" Lyra asked, turning her head so she could face him.

Poe whistled once. "Yes I did. And I'm getting so good at it–"

No you aren't, Bee interrupted with a snippy little chirp. You just said your name is shoe.

Lyra started to laugh. "Shoe Dameron. That's a good one, Shoe."

"Give me a break," Poe groaned, letting himself flop backwards onto the crate so that he was now staring at the ceiling. "I'm trying."

It's a good try, Bee relented. Just don't do it ever again.

A voice crested over the dull sounds of the command room. "Dameron!" someone shouted.

Poe sucked in a sharp breath, still laying on his back. "Something's on fire."

"Someone crashed a ship," Reeve put in.

"Someone got into a fight?" Jess supplied.

"Finn has something to tell you," Lyra said, ending their guessing game as Finn came into view. Rey was running right behind them, and the little green droid from Ochi's ship rolled in between.

"Finn, Rey," Poe said, sitting up. "What's wrong?"

"What's right for once," Rey said excitedly. "Come on, Luke and Leia are waiting for us. I already called a meeting."

"Ah yes, the Exegol Committee," Jess nodded, folding her arms over her chest. Finn and Rey were already off and heading for the meeting room.

"Is that what they're calling it?" Poe asked.

"Yeah, I heard one of those Phantom Squadron guys bitching yesterday about the secret meetings of the Exegol Committee that Leia started to, and I quote, hide things from the rest of us common folk," Jess laughed.

Lyra huffed. "It was probably that same guy that started calling me Saint Skywalker behind my back."

"He's lucky he never met Commander Endellion. You would have made sure he didn't sleep easy for a week," Reeve said. One look from Lyra and Reeve's expression fell. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Lyra said, pressing an innocent hand to her chest. She brushed her hair over her shoulder. "Ellis, on the other hand, might have changed the programming on an astromech to be particularly fond of quoting ancient religious texts when idle."

"Saint Skywalker indeed," Jess grinned.

"Saints are not supposed to terrorize people," Reeve admonished.

"Then good thing I'm not actually a saint," Lyra said.

"Let's go," Poe told her, dragging her by the arm. "I don't think being late for a meeting looks good on the record of a new saint."

Poe didn't miss these small war council meetings. On D'Qar, it was always with some diplomat or member of the Senate, or maybe a member or two of a squadron stationed off-base. The room felt cramped and claustrophobic, just like it had back then. They stood around a smaller version of the big command module that was housed in the main area of their communications. Rey had her arms crossed, already frowning at the prospect of what lay ahead; all excitement had been dashed from her. Finn and Chewie sat on the benches along the wall, and Lyra stood next to her aunt.

A map was displayed on the holo screen in front of them. It was a tactical layout of a Star Destroyer, but one unlike anything Poe had seen before. The diagram highlight things that it shouldn't even be capable of.

"How did you come across this?" Poe asked Rey.

"The droid's systems," she answered.

"What, cone face?"

The little droid remained in the room, still hooked up to the computer. "I am D-O."

"Sorry, D-O."

"He was going to Exegol with Ochi of Bestoon," Finn said excitedly. So far, Poe had never heard anyone say the word Exegol with an ounce of joy. It sounded strange.

"Why was Ochi going there?"

"To bring the little girl he was supposed to take from Jakku to the Emperor. He wanted me alive," Rey shuddered.

"All the information you need for an airstrike on Exegol," Finn hummed, pointing to the monitor. "You have everything we need to prepare your troops."

"Yeah, except how to get there," Poe grumbled. "It's like a damned jigsaw puzzle and we're missing the middle piece."

Lyra sighed. "The Emperor's wayfinder is in the Imperial Vault. From the Southern Shore, in the remnants of war. Only this blade tells." She brushed her fingers over the hilt of the dagger that sat on the table in the middle. "So we have part of our answer right here. We just don't know where to take it."

Luke picked up the dagger and examined it in the light. "I always wonder how many credits an artifact like this would fetch at a salvage yard," he mused.

Rey perked up immediately. "At least enough to feed a person for a week, I'd wager."

"Can we focus, please?" Leia said, but there wasn't half the usual conviction in her tone. Poe couldn't be the only one that noticed how her hands were slightly shaking. The General looked exhausted.

They had been having this meeting intermittently for the past week. It went like this: Lyra would read the riddle again, someone would throw in a suggestion, and they would make a list of possible places that the Sith Wayfinder might be. Then, they would cross reference it in the Resistance database for any possible leads. So far, they were sitting on a big fat zero.

"Maybe, maybe we aren't thinking poetically enough," Finn said suddenly.

Poe frowned. "Since when are you into poetry? Did Saint Lyra do this to you?"

Lyra narrowed her eyes, and in the dim light they flashed gold. "Watch it."

Finn waved him off as he began to scroll through the computer. "The remnants of war line, I think we've been looking too broad. There's really only one remnant that mattered at the end of the day."

On the holo screen in front of them, a green planet spun.

"Endor," Luke said in immediate recognition. "The place where it all ended. Very poetic indeed."

"The actual wreckage site of the Death Star is on Kef Bir, which is the ocean moon of Endor," Finn said. "We would be going in blind to a place that might not even have enough terra to land on it, but it's our best shot."

"Can the Falcon swim?" Poe mused.

Chewie gave him a low, menacing growl, and at the same time Luke told him, "He says no."

"Yeah, got that," Poe muttered.

Finn waited to receive an answer. Poe met Lyra's eyes from where they stood across from each other. He could see what she was thinking, and he knew she didn't like the risk. Poe tilted his head to the side, and Lyra bit the inside of her cheek. Then, Poe made a vague gesture and Lyra finally nodded her head.

"I hate when you guys do that," Finn muttered.

"It would take a miracle for this to all line up, but luckily, we have no other option. So a miracle is better than no hope at all," Poe concluded, ever the optimist. If they were all going to get cooked by the First Order in the end, they might as well die trying. This was their best shot.

"That's a good bright side," Leia grinned at him. Her eyes had taken on a far-off look, almost as if she were looking straight through him and on to something else. "I have faith in you."

And with that, General Leia Organa swayed. It was a graceful fall as the light left her eyes and her head lolled back. Lyra caught her as it happened, bracing Leia with her arms.

"Leia?" Luke said, but she didn't stir. More forcefully now. "Leia!"

"Get Kalonia," Lyra commanded, her voice hard as steel. Panicked, they all just stared at her until she barked, "Dameron, go get Kalonia, now!"

He took off, jostled out of his stupor. The image of Leia's ashen face burned in his mind as he shoved past people and towards the med bay, chest heaving and heart beating out of his ribcage. He was yelling, everything was echoing, and it seemed like nothing could move fast enough. Like nothing could save them from this.

I have faith in you.

-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-

"𝐒𝐇𝐄 wants to see you."

Lyra didn't turn at the sound of his voice. She continued to stare blankly at the white-washed wall in front of her. The Ajan Kloss medbay looked nearly identical to the old one on D'Qar. So much so that Lyra thought back to the time when everything wasn't teetering on the edge of the abyss, back when Georgie was still alive and the worst thing that had happened that day was Aliyah falling off a tool cart.

A warm hand on her shoulder drew her out of her thoughts. "C'mon, LJ. You know she doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Lyra sighed and stood up, following her father back to the room that Leia was resting in. She had seen the General unconscious and wrapped in white before, and she had vowed it would never happen again. But there she was, weak but still fighting. When Lyra entered the room the General's eyes seemed to light up the slightest bit and that was the only consolation Lyra recieved. Kalonia sat nearby, diligently monitoring her vitals.

Upon seeing them, she sighed with resignation. "I'll give you three the room," the doctor smiled, already heading for the door.

"Sorry about falling on top of you, kid," Leia said once the three of them were alone.

Lyra had to laugh. "Don't you dare apologize."

Leia smiled now. "We knew this would happen eventually."

When Lyra had first returned the three of them had all sat down to discuss the matter of Wynnetka Adairi and the cost Lyra would bear to close the gap on the other side of the World Between Worlds. Now that they knew Exegol was the connection point in the galaxy, Lyra's end felt clear and more defined. Easier to digest, she supposed. But there was one matter still left unresolved, still hanging in the balance. The matter of Rey's dyad with Ben Solo, a man who was still out of their reach.

"I will see him turn to the light," Leia had vowed. "It may be the last thing I do, but that is a sacrifice I would make a thousand times over. To make things right, to save my son."

And the time, it seemed, had come. After so many years of standing in awe of Leia's strength, it was almost too much to bear to see her fading away.

"But now?" Lyra said softly, her voice as quiet as a stray breeze. "Not now."

"Not quite yet," Leia conceded. Her breathing was becoming uneven, short rasps in between sentences. She was barely holding on. "I still have one more job to see through, my time as a mother is not over yet. But my time as a General is done, Lyra."

All Lyra could do was nod. The words were caught in her throat. This life is never really the end.

"Tell Han I say hello when you see him." Luke leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his sister's forehead. "And tell Cora I miss her dearly."

Tears burned behind her eyes, and when Lyra blinked the scene blurred. The memories from her childhood still came and went as they pleased. There were some days she found that she remembered things clearly, and others where she worried that she might forget everything all over again. The constant through all of the noise was Leia. I might be your General, but I'm still your aunt first. Always.

"You've carried everything for all of us for so long," Lyra said quietly. Leia's eyes were closed now, but Lyra knew that she was still listening, just as she always had. "It's your turn to rest."

Her steady heart rate faltered, dropped, and then disappeared like the stars in the morning sky. A quiet death, then. Peace for the woman who had never truly found her rest.

-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-

𝐓𝐇𝐄 biggest lie that any of them had ever been told was that there would always be more time. Eventually, the rope would run out of length, and there would simply be nothing left to reach for. That was the way of things, and still it remained that nothing hurt worse than this.

Leia's body was covered in white. It was a solemn funeral, a sudden one. No one quite understood what was going on until it was all over and then Poe was alone with a new terrifying reality.

"It was always her request that you be named acting General after she passed," Larma D'Acy had told him after the funeral. "It will take a while for it to filter completely through command, and there isn't much time now, but we're all here for you, General Dameron."

General Dameron.

It was like stumbling drunk. The entirety of the Resistance would now follow his lead, his order, his resolve. He was wracked by grief and still he had to pretend he was unphased for the sake of so many others. How had Leia done this all for so long?

"I gotta tell you. I really don't know how to do this," he kept his hands folded in front of him, eyes wet with fresh tears. Everyone was gone now, and it was him alone who sat in front of the General's body. "What you did–I'm not ready."

"You are," Lyra said from behind him.

He turned and almost jumped. "How long have you been standing there?"

She shook her head, and her short hair brushed against her shoulders. Lyra was already dressed for travel, utility belt and saber clipped to her waist. "Not long. But you are ready, Poe. She knew what she was doing."

"She always did, didn't she?" he muttered. Lyra sat down next to him, and the comfort of her being there with him made it all significantly easier to bear. "I sometimes wonder if there was a reason she was so hell-bent on us getting along."

"Are you saying she was playing matchmaker?"

He laughed. "I'm saying she knew we were better together than we could have been apart."

"I'd say," Lyra said quietly. After a beat of silence, she told him, "You aren't alone in this, Poe. All of the people who stood by your side for so long are still going to be there. Leia's greatest trick was always knowing how to work well with others. She was never alone."

"History repeats," he sighed. "And now a Jedi and a General are in charge of saving the galaxy again."

Lyra laughed, and the sound brought him comfort. "I'm no Jedi."

"And I'm no General. But here we are," he pressed a kiss to her forehead, one of the gentle ones that always felt like a promise. I will never stop loving you.

-ˋˏ★ˎˊ-

. . . KEF BIR, ENDOR SYSTEM

𝐓𝐇𝐄 Falcon carried their small crew through hyperspace. Reeve was with them after Lyra had used her considerable influence to convince the General that the Major needed to tag along with them as their designated mechanic. It was a selfish move, but Lyra couldn't bear to say goodbye to her best friend just yet.

"You weren't at the big meeting after Leia's funeral, were you?" Reeve asked. They sat across from each other in the Falcon's commonspace. Finn, Rey, and Poe were off in the cockpit, and Bee was rolling back and forth between the two groups.

She shook her head. "No, I missed that one."

In truth, she had been talking to her dad. No one would miss them at the meeting, or at least she had assumed. Reeve had noticed.

Reeve laughed. "The entire Resistance was there, everyone shoved into the command space."

"I was tying up some loose ends," Lyra said simply.

Reeve reached out and put her hand on Lyra's arm. "I'm not going to fault you for skipping out. No one would, not after what happened."

Lyra gave her a grateful smile. "I knew what the meeting was going to be about, anyway. We decided on that plan before Leia was gone."

It was the final stage. After their team located the Wayfinder, an instantaneous set of actions would occur. The Resistance would mobilize their troops on Ajan Kloss and draw in their reserves in the Outer Rim. They had deduced that the Exegol fleet of destroyers relied on a signal from a navigation tower. An air team strike would find the tower and destroy it in tandem with a ground team mission. It would be the final rally. If all went according to plan, when the Falcon rendezvoused with the Resistance Navy it would be the spark to end all darkness.

"You weren't there to hear Poe's big speech as the new General. He gave the whole plan a name," Reeve said, the corner of her lips quirking slightly. "Operation Phoenix."

Even after all this time, Lyra still blushed.

"Careful there Lyra, I think the General might have a crush on you," Reeve told her, brown eyes alight. Just like so long ago when they were on D'Qar getting ready for Snap and Karé's wedding. Before everything had changed.

"You might be onto something," Lyra sighed, leaning forward and burying her face in her arms. "I was beginning to wonder why he was flirting with me so much."

A flurry of alarms began to sound with a shrill squeal.

A shout rose from the direction of the cockpit. "Reeve!"

Immediately, the two of them scrambled. Reeve almost fell trying to get up from her seat so fast. Lyra tripped over Bee in her haste and almost ended up sprawled on the ground, but he caught the edge of the chair at the last second. By the time she got to the cockpit, Reeve and Rey were already knee-deep in an argument.

"Is there a reason why the landing gear is faulty?" Rey seethed, pulling back on the controls and guiding the Falcon out of its landing sequence. Poe sat in the co-pilot chair, frantically trying to diagnose the problem.

"I wasn't in charge of the final checks!"

"Then who was?"

"Eleni," Poe said, slamming a fist down in front of him. "I thought she said it was fine!"

"Eleni's definition of fine is closer to fine enough. You should know that by now," Reeve chastised.

"Well that doesn't change the fact that we have to land the Falcon now," Rey said. Her face was set in determination. "You might want to hold on to something."

"This is gonna be Starkiller all over again," Finn said, and his eyes were shut tight in preparation.

They hit the ground hard. Finn was thrown to the floor and Bee hit the side of the wall behind them. Reeve let out a huff of frustration at the situation as the Falcon settled on the edge of a grassy hill.

"This is gonna be hell to get off the ground again," Reeve told them.

Poe helped her up off the ground. "That's why we brought you along, Major Tailor. Stay with the ship and assess the damage, we'll scout ahead and see what we can find, and then we can help you start the repairs."

"Yes, General," she said without thinking. Her face screwed up as if she had tasted something sour. "Still sounds weird."

"Tell me about it," Poe said under his breath.

Finn stayed behind with Reeve, and Rey, Lyra and Poe set out into the winds of Kef Bir. As they crested over the ridge, it finally came into view. Shrouded in mist, the remnants of the second Death Star loomed like a mechanical crescent moon. Slate gray waves rolled to the height of the cliffs.

"You know," Poe said, almost shouting to be heard over the wind. "These are perfect surfing conditions!"

It would take them years to search the wreckage. Her mind shook with vertigo just looking at where it rose like mechanical mountains along the horizon.

Rey withdrew the dagger and thumbed the hilt where a thin sliver of metal was concealed. The crescent moon was a viewfinder of sorts. Whoever had fashioned it created it to be used for one very specific purpose. She held it at arm's length and scanned the horizon.

"What if we aren't standing in the right spot?" Poe asked.

"We are," Rey said sharply. She pointed out across the waves. "There. The Emperor's vault."

A chill brushed against Lyra's spine. In the wreckage, her father had fought Palpatine and saved Anakin Skywalker. History always repeats.

Lyra's idle thoughts drifted to Luke. He was not alone. Mione and Lando were with him still, and though she knew it wasn't the same, it still eased the bite of the grief. She was so tired of saying goodbye, but right before they had left she still sought out her dad. He was leaving too; he, Chewie, and Lando had been tasked with traveling to the Core Worlds to rally support for the cause of the Resistance.

"We're Skywalkers. We've long mastered the art of existing within the in-betweens. No one can ever get rid of us, hard as they try," Luke had told her with a soft sigh. "So I won't tell you goodbye. There are no goodbyes for a Jedi," he leaned in and whispered, "–or a phoenix."

She hugged him tightly. "Keep an eye on him for me when I'm gone."

"The General?" Luke said with a wry grin. "Don't worry, I'll keep him in check."

Lyra looked at him now. Poe looked the part, but that had always been true. In the harsh wind, he looked like some rugged hero from an Old Naboo fairytale come to life.

Suddenly, the sound of hoofbeats crested over the hill and they all whipped around. The thought crossed her mind that they shouldn't have split up so soon. Lyra's heart hammered in her throat as a throng of riders came into view. Poe kept his hand on his blaster, but it remained in the holster. They were strangers here, and it would do them no good to threaten these people.

"Rough landing," the rider in front said.

"I've had worse," Poe told her.

"Are you Resistance?" the rider in front asked. Her dark hair drifted in the wind, held back only by a pair of refashioned macrobinoculars. Her cape, too, was made from a survival tarpaulin. A hunter gatherer, but the looks of it.

"That depends," Poe answered. All of the riders were heavily armed.

"We're trying to get to that wreck," Rey explained. "There's something inside there that we need."

"I can take you there by water."

"Have you seen the water?" Poe asked, incredulous.

She didn't laugh. "Not now. Too dangerous. We can go tomorrow at low tide."

"We don't have the time to wait," Rey argued.

Poe glanced at her. "We don't have a choice, Rey. This will give us time to get the ship fixed." To Jannah, he said, "Do you have any spare parts?"

"Some. I'll send some of my riders back to our camp, it isn't far. We'll go with you to your ship. I'm Jannah."

"Poe."

Fluffy pieces of milkweed pods floated in the breeze as they made their way back up the hill. Rey kept glancing back at the ocean as if considering how to cross it herself.

"What has you so worried?" Lyra asked her.

Rey looked at her like she might be insane. "How can you be so calm? We're running out of time, we can't afford to waste another night. I can't waste another night."

"It's like a hunger, isn't it?" Lyra said suddenly. "The ache in your chest that you just can't end, so you keep pressing forward and clawing your way to the future?"

Rey stopped dead in her tracks. "That's exactly what it is."

"The Darkside," Lyra nodded. "I've felt it too, but you know something? There are some feelings that are just that; we don't need to give them the importance of becoming actions."

She shook her head. "Even if that's true, the Resistance is running out of time–"

"The galaxy has waited long enough," Lyra interrupted. "It can wait another day."

"You sound like your dad. I think I liked you better before you went all wise Jedi," Rey muttered. "Impulsive Commander Lyra was more fun."

"I was never impulsive. Just reckless when I shouldn't have been."

"Those are nearly the same."

"Fine line, but a big difference," Lyra argued. "Poe was always the impulsive one."

"He changed after you left, you know. It was bad for a while, and I'm still surprised he didn't get demoted. It was like he didn't care about anything anymore, just winning," Rey told her.

Lyra didn't regret what she had done. For a time, she had let her guilt eat away at her, but now that they were here and so close to the end, she knew that running away was a necessary evil. Still, as she watched Poe ahead of her talking with Jannah, she did regret how little time they had together.

She couldn't afford to dwell, but for a moment it got the best of her and the tide dragged her back down. The worries were old ones, but they still rang steadily true: soon, there would be nothing left of them but the tragic story of a fighter and a pilot who had failed to defy fate.

━━ -ˋˏ★ˎˊ- ━━

a/n I genuinely have never cried more when writing than I did writing Leia's death.

As painful as it is to focus so much on it, I wanted to make the transition to Poe's leadership more concrete than in the films (instead of a half-assed 'Leia's gone'). Just like with Han's death I toyed around with keeping Leia alive, but I will admit that those are two things the sequel trilogy got right: both of their deaths serve a greater purpose in the story.

ANYWAY! More sadness to come!  and an excited revelation that I don't think you guys will see coming!!  I finished writing the rest of the story and I'm a very weepy mess. It's gonna be cool, it's gonna be sad, and I hope you guys like it!

double update weekend btw.  see you lads soon ;)
--nat