▸ Column · Galactic Civil War era, Rebel Alliance base posting (Original Trilogy period)
LEIA ORGANA replies.
Replied to by Leia Organa, with a rebuttal from Han Solo.
The letter
I'm stationed at the same Rebel base as a fellow operative — I'll call him Dominic — and for the past four months we've been sharing mess together alone at least twice a rotation, he sends me a comm ping every single morning without fail, and last month he requisitioned a shuttle and flew an hour through a restricted patrol window just to bring me bacta and broth when I was down with Corellian flu. The moment I tried to actually talk about what this means between us, he said he "doesn't really go in for definitions" and pivoted to some holoserials he'd been watching. I'm not a cadet. I'm a senior field operative with four years of missions on my record, and I genuinely cannot tell if this man is quietly in love with me or just an unusually devoted colleague who enjoys my company and hasn't thought further. The complicating factor: our posts are literally adjacent, so if this ends badly it will be uncomfortable for a very long time. I want to give him a clear window to say what this is or let me move on — but my bunkmate says that's "sending an ultimatum" and will make him bolt. Is she right, or am I being maneuvered into accepting all the weight of a real bond with none of the honesty?
Leia Organa replies
A shuttle requisitioned through a patrol blackout to bring bacta to a sick operative — that is not what a colleague does. That is a man who has already made his decision. The thing you're actually contending with isn't his uncertainty. It's that he wants everything he already has without the accountability of naming it out loud. Those are very different problems, and your bunkmate has them confused.
The risk isn't stating what you need. The risk is that you keep framing this as a question only he gets to answer, on whatever timeline suits him, while you wait and analyze and give him cover to keep things comfortable. You're not a cadet. State your position. Not a deadline with a clock, not a quiz he passes or fails — just the plain thing: you're not interested in continuing this without honesty about what it is. That's not cruelty. That's the minimum anyone who respects herself is owed.
I know a man who would fly into any danger and still couldn't say the direct thing until it nearly cost us everything. The behavior was always real — I never doubted that. So was the cowardice in the undemanding moments, the ones where all he had to do was say one true sentence and he changed the subject instead. Your Dominic has passed the hard test. The patrol blackout tells you something. Now you find out whether he can pass the easy one.
— Leia Organa
Han Solo weighs in
Look, I'll say the thing Her Highness didn't quite land on: the man flew through a patrol blackout to bring you bacta. He's already gone. I've been that guy. The behavior is not the mystery.
But here's what she missed — so are you. A "clear window to define things" isn't clarity. That's what you do when you want to be the one who didn't flinch first, so if this falls apart you get to say he failed your test. That's not the same thing as getting what you want, kid.
Stop making him prove something. Tell him what you actually want — not "what are we," which is a quiz, but the real sentence, the one you've been not saying for four months. He flew back through a restricted patrol window. He can handle one true sentence from you.
— Han Solo