He had waited an eternity for her.

Not that time had any real meaning here. Hell, there was no "here," not really. There had been pain, and then not…and then this. No body. No time. Just being. And waiting.

One gossamer thread alone kept him anchored to one bright point in the world that was, a point that shone bold and brilliant – one that filled him with pride and love and longing. Though thin, it was strong. Like her. Sometimes he thought he could hear her call his name, resonating and shimmering along that filament. There were no literal words or sounds in this place, but that's how his mind as it now was made sense of it. Foolish as it seemed, he always answered back. Did she hear him, too? Did she know the things he'd left unsaid, that every time he left her, it was the worst thing he'd ever done? That if he could take it back, he would? He liked to think so. Throughout their lives, their paths always led back to each other. This would be no different.

That filament still held him to her, but many twined together, tethering her to that world. And that world needed her, he knew, far more than it ever needed him. He never knew what she saw in him anyway, not really. He wasn't a good person when he met her. He couldn't even say he was a good person when he arrived here, either, yet somehow he knew that such things were inconsequential in this reality. In her, though, he'd found the inspiration to be a better man than he was. He'd lost that for a while, but she'd reminded him when he found her again.

Through it all, she never lost her courage, her strength to get things done in the face of adversity, her hope. She never ran, never gave up, even when he wanted to. Her passion for life and her sense of duty, no matter how difficult either one could be, and her incessant hope for something better kept her anchored there.

When he'd left that world, he thought he heard her promise to find her way back to him. So he waited.

Over time – how long, he didn't know – he watched the threads holding her to that world gradually come undone. At first, it filled him with fear and dread. Then he noticed the filament between him and her shined a little brighter, grew a little thicker.

She fought to keep her ties to that world from coming loose – understandable, given her passion for life – but slowly, one by one, they untangled, retracted. With each one went some of the aches and pains handed to her by life, physical and emotional. She was reconciling the inevitable, or so the thread between them told him.

And then one day she opened her grasp and let the last one go, sliding quietly along her fingers as it went.

He felt it happen. At first there was a feeling of free floating, a tug at the filament, and then a radiating warmth from her general direction. He hoped she would follow the thread to find her way to him. He called to her.

And then she was there, a smile vibrant as when he first knew her. Not idealistic like when they were young. Not weary like when he left her. Just…Leia, serene and content. Everything he'd waited for.

All the things he'd wanted to say to her melted away, as words were unnecessary here. A look into the pools of her copper-flecked eyes told him that she knew everything he wanted her to know. She always had.

He gathered her into his arms – for this place created a reality for them in which they had arms to wrap around each other – and pulled her close. He inhaled deeply and filled lungs he only imagined with the memory of the fragrance he always loved. The embrace was at once familiar and strange, as flesh and bone no longer separated them, just as they imagined themselves in intimate moments of happier times in the world that was.

The warmth swelled, and the boundaries between them continued to blur. Slowly, the perception of separate bodies dissipated. Again, there was only here, but now there was also her, and they were eternally inseparable, as they'd promised all those years ago.