Chapter Text
Leia watched as Luke jumped, hurtling through the air as a scream echoed in the clearing. Leia saw his mop of blond hair disappear over the edge, and then the undeniable splash as he hit the water.
Even from all the way up here, they could feel the spray of water from the wave after his jump. Breaths were held for one second, two seconds, three seconds…
Then Luke’s head reappeared at the surface. He slung it to the side to get his hair out of his face and let out a cheer, their friends behind them on the bridge and on the shore echoing it.
Someone else jumped, landing only about 5 feet from where Luke was paddling back to shore. The wind was whistling through her hair up here, causing the loose strands to float away from her face in the breeze. She gripped the metal bars behind her, the small ledge of concrete they were standing on threatened to dump her over the 20 foot drop below.
It was the first summer she was able to wear a two-piece in years. She’d always been hiding injuries and scars from Luke… but that was over now. The man who’d caused them was in prison, where he’d be for years, and Leia was free to wear a bikini with her scars and jump off a bridge if she so dared.
And she supposed that she did.
Lando jumped, tucking his knees in and making a splash big enough to shoot over the length of the bridge. Han cheered from next to her, releasing his grip on the bars as he raised his arms into the air.
It only took the tiniest, babiest push with her knee against the back of his, and he went sprawling out into the air after Lando, landing a few feet away, thankfully. By the time he surfaced to give her an incredulous look, she was already doubled over laughing on the top of the bridge. She said a muffled ‘look out!’ as she plugged her nose and leapt.
She hurdled through the air a second more than she thought she would, landing feet first as she cleaved through the water, her speed dragging her down at least ten feet below the surface. She kicked, using her arms to pull the water away as she surfaced with a big breath.
Only to find a huge splash of water coming for her. She scoffed, spitting some of it out as she turned to see her foe, which of course, happened to be the one she was currently dating.
“Unfair sportsmanship, princess.” He grinned as he managed to swipe her into his arms. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s not kind to push people off bridges?”
She laughed, squirming to get loose, sending her own splash to him so his arms would release. They did, as he needed them to shield his face. There was another hoop and holler and another body slammed into the water next to them, reminding the pair they were still indeed in the jump zone.
The lake was only about a 20 minute drive from campus, but in the opposite direction of the apartment. It was the summer hangout for everyone at the school, as well as everyone who lived in the small towns surrounding it. Luckily, it was big, so it almost always felt like they had the place to themselves. The bridge they were leaping off of had been known as the ‘jumping bridge’ for decades. Every couple of years they try to close it or reinforce the barrier to keep people from jumping off into the water below, but it never worked. No matter what, almost every single day of summer, people were here using it as a launching pad.
Leia had gone before in highschool, but not since Padme died. Luke she knew had been a couple of times, it was a popular spot for his group of friends he had their first year of college. He doesn’t talk to them much anymore, so he hadn’t been in a while. When Leia had suggested the outing, it surprised both him and Han, but both agreed enthusiastically.
Han was always trying to find a way for her to cut loose, to relax, or whatever other menagerie of words he used to tell her that she was too uptight. It was one of their most consistent fights. So, he really wasn’t about to say no when Leia suggested something that could be deemed reckless.
Threepio took a lot of convincing from their other friends at the top, but she eventually saw him (well, heard the screams more than she saw) tumble belly-first into the water. The smack echoed across the clearing while the boys around her laughed. He surfaced with a half-relieved, half-angry look on his face. He started ranting and raving about the safety of the structure and how they all could have died. Artoo followed soon afterwards, cutting off Threepio’s rant with a yell and a splash.
Leia and Han began paddling back to the shore, where Luke was already ripping into the cooler she’d packed. His drinking had cut back significantly since Anakin was arrested, but he still partook in social situations. In the back of her head, she wondered what would happen when the trial began, but that was a concern for another time, another day. She wasn’t about to be accused of being a wet blanket when she’d been the one with this idea anyways. She noticed him pull two beers out, but by the time she and Han had dragged themselves out of the water, he’d found the sandwich he was searching for and tore the paper off.
“We’ve been here for like, ten minutes.” Leia commented, reaching for her striped towel.
“And I’m hungry.” Her brother said, already with a mouthful of ham, cheese, and bread. He picked up one of the beers and raised an eyebrow at Leia, who opened her hands to catch it. He did the same to Han, but he waved him off while he went in search of his own towel and bag. Luke shrugged, turning to see Lando who was on his phone in the shade. Luke tossed the beer in the air and Lando caught it without even looking up, cracking it open and taking a deep swig without his eyes ever leaving his phone screen.
Leia sat down on a large, warm rock, cracking open the beer and watching the foam dribble out over her fingers. It was Luke’s favorite, which is about all she drank anyways. It tasted like today, sunny and light and it always reminded her of summer. Han reappeared between Luke and Leia, holding something small and rolled in his fingers.
He raised his brows at the twins in the same way Luke had with the beer, but now it was Luke’s turn to wave him off. With a shrug, Han deposited himself next to Leia on her rock, sticking the joint in his mouth while he cupped a hand around it, attempting to block the wind to light it. After several tries and a few curses from the man next to her, she held her palms out and made a gimme motion with her fingers. He deposited it without question, though with a grumble, and handed the lighter over once the joint was securely in her mouth.
She lit it in one attempt, taking a full drag before passing it back to Han with a sly grin.
“Show off.” He murmured, but took the joint and a hit anyways.
And so they passed it back and forth while they sat on the rock, watching their friends continue to launch themselves from the bridge into the water. Luke started calling out scores, giving Artoo a eight for his next jump and Threepio only a four, which then prompted some unholy jumping competition between the two. They both managed three more by the time the joint burned down to a roach, which Han stubbed out on the rock and deposited in an old cigarette case.
The pair of jumpers trudged back to shore, Artoo laughing and Threepio looking thoroughly defeated (Luke never gave him a score above five). They waded out of the water and she saw Threepio immediately go for his bag, rifling around with vigor. Suddenly, a stream of ‘no, no, no’ was coming from him as he dumped the bag upside down, pilfering through the contents.
“What did you lose?” Han asked with boredom. He was never Threepio’s biggest fan. He said he was just as uptight as Leia but not nearly as fun, which prompted a full conversation of how exactly she was uptight. Han and Luke came up with far too many examples for her liking.
“My phone.” Threepio said in a worried tone, which, to be fair, was his usual tone. “I need it, there’s stuff on there I can’t lose. Did I —” He patted his pockets and then the color drained from his face. He looked out over the lake.
Han let out a low whistle. “Tough luck.” He murmured, reaching over and taking a sip out of Leia’s beer.
That was when Threepio started to panic. He went down the list of all the irreplaceable things that were on his phone, and how he bought the waterproof one in case something like this happened, but waterproof was no good if it was stuck at the bottom of a lake.
Leia felt bad for him, which is probably why she offered.
“What?” Both Luke and Han said at the same time as she stood up, already slinging her hair behind her and weaving it into a braid.
“I swam in high school.” She countered, though failed to mention she stopped after the first year, when Padme got sick. Luke’s lips thinned, of course he knew. But, both of them respected her too much to insist she didn’t. Besides, they’d all been jumping off the bridge. Jumping off and swimming to the bottom wasn’t that much more of a risk, especially with it only being about 25 feet deep. Her jump would propel her halfway there, she’d just have to get to the bottom, see if she saw it, and swim back up.
Threepio thanked her profusely as she started climbing the trail to get back to the bridge. It was a tricky pit of scaling to get from the bank to the ledge, but she’d done it enough time to know where to put her feet and hands to keep herself upright. Eventually she made it back to the top of the bridge, spying where her group below was watching.
“Give us a ten!” Han shouted between cupped hands.
“Do a flip!” Her brother’s voice rang.
She merely gave them a rude gesture before she placed her hands together over her head. Taking a deep breath, she leaped off the bridge, dipping her head and hands down first so she’d dive into the water.
She didn’t hear whatever score they gave her, the water rushed in and filled her ears as she sliced through, easily dropping the ten feet she had earlier. With a couple of kicks and paddles, she could see the murky floor of the lake below her. It was silty, cold, and covered in heaps of decaying tree branches and other lake muck. It was a bit eerie all the way down here, in the silence at the bottom of the lake.
It was a lake, so visibility was negligible. Once she felt her fingertips graze the bottom, she started feeling blindly around, swirling up silt. She used a free hand to grab onto a tree branch to keep her from floating back up. All she felt were rocks and twigs and other slimy things. The phone could have floated anywhere, it would be a crapshoot if she just happened to — wait.
There. She spied something rectangular with curved edges, far too symmetrical not to be man-made. She kicked her legs, propelling her closer and feeling the branches scratch her face and down her body.
Her lungs were starting to burn at this point. She’d probably been down here for about 30 seconds, which was about half as long as she could hold her breath. She kicked again, deeper into the cage of branches and saw the edge of Threepio’s phone sticking out of the silt. She managed to stretch her fingers out and just barely grab it.
She wrapped one of her hands tightly around it, her feet finding the bottom and pushing to kick off.
Except, something pulled her back down.
Her lungs were screaming now, and she probably would have too if she wouldn’t have lost that precious breath. One of the branches she’d swum through was wrapped tightly around her bikini top. She tried to push off again only to be stopped, the branch wedged underneath a fallen tree, not going anywhere.
Panic was making her vision start to blacken in the corners. She couldn’t think straight when her brain was begging her to breathe, to get some oxygen in her system so she could figure out how to get out of here.
Must have been close to a minute now, she was close to her diaphragm involuntarily contracting. She flailed, some animal instinct in her brain prompting it. Nothing worked, she was stuck.
Above her she could see something that looked like someone swimming over, but they were too far, even if they could get down to her, it would be too late.
She tried again, and then the answer hit her like a freight train. She blamed the lack of oxygen for not coming up with it sooner.
She reached behind her with her free hand and pulled on the strings of her top. It immediately fell from her chest and her body started to float upwards, freed of its constraints. She managed to find the bottom again and push up off the floor, using the last bit of the air left in her lungs to kick, kick, kick until the surface was only ten feet away. Five feet away. A foot away.
She broke the surface with a huge intake of breath, catching a bunch of lakewater too. Her brain was reeling with the lack, and then the sudden intake of it. She coughed, barely managing to tread water and keep her head above the surface. She heaved in as much air as she could between her body expelling the water, not even realizing someone was nearby until hands went under her arms to support her.
She opened her eyes, seeing Han’s face lined with concern.
“Got it.” She managed between coughs. With Han treading water for the both of them, she was able to reach the hand clutching the phone into the air, and she heard some cheers from shore. She saw someone else paddling towards them, and Luke’s mop of hair came into view.
“You were down there for almost two minutes.” Her brother said, finally getting to the pair and flipping his hair out of his eyes. Leia would have blanched if she had the energy. That was the longest she’d ever held her breath.
“You should have come up.” Han said briskly, while Leia coughed the last bit of water from her lungs.
“I got stuck, a tree branch.” She coughed again. “It was wrapped around my top, I had to shed it to make it back up.” She said, wrapping her arms around her exposed chest underneath the surface.
“Luke, go get my —” Han started, eyes not leaving Leia.
“On it.” He interrupted, her brother’s face having gone scarlett the moment she revealed her lack of attire. He turned and immediately started swimming back to the shore.
Once she regained her breath and no longer felt like her lungs were burning, she bat Han’s hands off of her.
“I’m fine.” She said, before he started with his nonsense. He let go, but kept close to her as they slowly started to swim to shore. About ten feet away Han held up a hand for her to wait, and he went and grabbed his t-shirt from Luke, then waded back out to her in the water.
She took it gratefully, shoving it over her head as fast as she could. She was ready to be out of the water, on dry land. Han tried to help guide her and she batted off his helping hands again, cutting through the water with a little less ease than usual to pull herself onto the shore.
She wasn’t proud of how she collapsed on the bank, still with an iron grip on the wet brick that was Threepio’s phone. She managed to flip to her back, relishing in a state of stillness while her chest still heaved. Threepio made some noise of joy as when he saw his phone in her hands. She held the drowned device out.
Threepio swiped it, immediately going to try to turn the stupid thing on.
It took only a minute or two to realize that the waterproofing must have really just been water resistant, and his phone was completely dead.
“You had her go out there and do all of that for a phone that didn’t even make it?” She heard Han’s voice call, and he didn’t not sound one bit happy.
“Go easy on him.” She said, pulling herself to an upright position. The wind hit her wet body and sopping t-shirt then, causing goosebumps to pop up all along her skin. “He didn’t know it would be broken.”
“Never seen an idiot who values a phone more than someone’s life.” Han continued to seeth. She stuck out a hand to stop his approach to Threepio, who was looking at the man with unbridled fear on his face.
“Last time I checked I was alive and breathing, alright?” She said, though not with the tone of a question. Luke used to call it her ‘teacher voice’, but Leia preferred to think of it as her ‘take-no-shit’ voice.
It was usually Han who diffused the tension in a room, deflating it like a balloon with some well timed comment or laugh. But this time it was Luke, seeing that Han was not in a playful mood. Luke approached Threepio and clapped him on the back, startling the other man.
“Sorry about your phone, dude.” Threepio nodded, glad to have the attention off whether or not Han was going to beat him into a pulp. Said man walked around Leia to her previous spot on the sunny rock. The wind caused her to shiver, just as her towel was dumped on her shoulders. She wrapped it around herself, moving to stand.
“I think I’m going to go home and take a hot shower.” Or twelve. She still tasted the lake water in the back of her throat, and thinking about all the sludge at the bottom made her stomach churn.
“I’ll take her.” Han said.
“I’ll go.” Luke said at the same time. Han furrowed his brows at him.
“These are your friends, Luke.” Leia said, before either one of them could continue. Though, her voice came out strained as she was now making an effort to keep her teeth from chattering. “Han will take me, it’s fine.”
Luke gave her one of his classic are you sure? looks before she nodded, and he seemed to accept it.
Leia and Han shoved into their dry clothes and marched off to the truck that was parked next to the bridge. Han held up the broken end of a chain link fence they’d had to cross for her. She slid through no problem.
“You really shouldn’t be so hard on Threepio.” She said, losing the battle of keeping her teeth from chattering together. Han crawled through and approached her next to the truck, opening the passenger door for her. Once he was sure all appendages were inside, he closed it and walked around.
“Yeah, well.” He continued once his door was open, climbing into the driver’s seat. “If he wasn’t so annoying I wouldn’t be so hard on him.”
“I seem to recall you saying that I was also annoying, once.” She teased, hoping to see some light back in his features.
The corners of his mouth quirked up while the engine roared to life. “You are annoying. A different kind of annoying.” Still, as annoying as she may be, he turned the heat on max and flipped the vents towards her, rolling down his own window so he wouldn’t cook.
“Well that’s great to hear.” She said, feigning her own annoyance. Han grinned, having shed his anger at Threepio now that they were turning away from the lake. He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted when his cellphone rang.
Frowning at the number on the screen, Han answered and brought the phone to his ear.
“Yeah?”
Leia couldn’t hear who was on the other end, or what they were saying, but she knew the way his brows creased and how his hands tightened on the wheel. The person on the other end talked for a while until Han said “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be there.” He hung up, tossing the phone onto the dash.
“We have a stop on the way.” He said in a tight voice.
She knew what that meant. And it wasn’t good.
Jabba.