Star Wars 1. Chapter 1

From a Certain Point of View

Han Solo set the _Millennium Falcon_ down on Coruscant for the first time in over a decade. The traditional galactic capital had now been under the control of the New Republic for six short months. Han glanced at Chewie as the two looked out over the busy hangar floor, the absence of white uniforms their first hint that the Empire had really and truly fallen from power.

Even with every holonews broadcast touting the fall of the Empire and chronicling the rise of the fledgling New Republic, Han still found it hard to believe. He and Chewie had had a brief stint with the ragtag group of rebels that at that time were known as "The Alliance to Reinstate the Republic". They had briefly played the role of heroes in the galactic game of holochess when they flew into the heart of the fight over the Imperial Death Star and helped Luke Skywalker deliver the crushing blow that took the juggernaut down.

The thought of Luke caused a painful twist to knot inside of Han's stomach. Having left after the award ceremony on Yavin, Han had heard the kid died on the ice planet of Hoth over a year ago.

He and Chewie had left to pay off his debt to Jabba the Hutt and then they had been making a living skirting just this side of legal to stay out of trouble and just enough illegal to make some decent credits. That is until over a year ago, the duo had fallen in with an up-and-coming businessman with a galactic shipping company that was comfortably legitimate.

Chewie and Han used their contacts to negotiate contracts and, working as recruiters and schedulers, the pair had become top executives in what was quickly becoming the largest shipping company in the galaxy. Reporting to the capital city to bid for a government contract, he and Chewie had a meeting with a representative from the New Republic in a few standard hours.

Thinking of representatives of the New Republic brought Han's mind to one Princess Leia of Alderaan, who, according to those holonews reporters, was practically Chief of State Mon Mothma's right hand. As the thought of running into her in the halls of the galactic capital spun through his mind, the knots inside of Han's stomach did a nauseating flip. Shaking his head, he stood up and followed Chewie out of the cockpit.

The last time he saw Princess Leia was on the busy hangar floor as the Alliance prepared to evacuate Yavin's fourth moon. The heated conversation between the two was one that had repeatedly played in his mind these past three years. Luke's solemn nod and wish of good luck sometimes sliced him deeper than Leia's sharp words, however, with the knowledge of Luke's fate adding a raw edge to the memory.

He certainly had his own reasons to hate the Empire and he hadn't left the Rebellion because he didn't believe in their cause. No, he left because he had a debt to pay and a life to get on track and that's what he had done. His path had often crossed with members of the Alliance over these past three years and he had even lent them a hand a time or two, always in exchange for any information the Rebels might have. That's how he had learned of Luke's fate, off the lips of a bright-eyed, naïve new recruit.

'_Skywalker? Yeah, he died on Hoth, right before we evacuated_.'

Han dragged his hand over his face and followed Chewie down the gangway of the _Falcon_. Locking the ship up, they headed to the capital building to make their initial meeting. If only he had stayed around, he couldn't help think that Luke's fate might have turned out differently. But he couldn't go back and change anything and it was a bit egotistical to think that he could prevent anyone from dying.

Han and Chewie made their rounds through the capital building, being shuffled from conference room to conference room and from one representative to another. It seemed the bidding process for this contract might take up to one standard week and when the pair returned to the _Falcon_, they contacted their employer on Corellia for an update and then turned in for the night.

Four days into his stay on Coruscant, Han had begun to make his way about the busy town with ease. Learning all the top places to grab a bite or a drink and where all the best games of Sabacc were being played. He had also figured out where Princess Leia lived and had walked past her building about a million times trying to stage a happenstance run-in with the New Republic VIP. It turned out that Han was much luckier at the Sabacc table than at the game of happenstance.

On the fifth day, Han hung around outside of Leia's apartment building to the point of loitering, being asked one or two times if he needed help by the building's burly doorman. Then he saw her walking towards him. Han shuffled nervously on his feet as he looked down at his clothes. Han had on some casual slacks and a dark, long-sleeved shirt. He ran his fingers through his hair very quickly as she approached him.

"Hey," he spoke to her as soon as her eyes showed a sign of recognition and although still at least a head taller than Leia, Han felt short for some reason.

"Captain Solo. I heard you were on planet," she spoke warmly to him and her voice sounded deeper and throatier than he remembered. Her hair was pulled back into a lone ponytail that hung over her shoulder in a long braid. She wore a knee length skirt and a white, button-down blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her skin looked just a shade darker.

"Wow, you've…grown up." He regretted the words as soon as he said them and he finished with a weak smile.

"Thank you, I think."

They stood there in an awkward silence as passerby's continued to flood in and out of the apartment building doors.

Leia was the first to speak when she said, "You know…Luke…"

"Yeah, I know," Han replied as he swallowed the lump in his throat.

They fell into a silence again and Han watched as Leia's eyes looked around him and then she questioned, "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I'm bidding on-"

"No. I mean, why are you here…outside of my building? Are you meeting someone?"

"No, I wanted to see you," Han replied before he could think of something less embarrassing to say. "It's been a long time."

A quick wave of panic washed over Leia's face and then he watched some creases on her forehead appear and she lifted her hands in front of her, baring her open palms to him as she said, "So…you've seen me," her mood shifting noticeably to the defensive.

Having only known the Princess in the protected environment of the Alliance underground, Han hadn't thought of how his impromptu meeting might look to Leia. Suddenly he felt amongst the millions of zealous sentients in the galaxy that might try to stage just such a meeting with the famous Princess.

"Alright," he replied not sure exactly what someone could say when they had been caught "stalking".

He watched as her mouth dropped open but no words came out and then her skin turned as pale as he remembered it. She shook her head and said, "I've got to go."

He grabbed her arm before he knew what he was doing and said, "Leia." As she tugged her arm away from him he could feel the mechanics working under his fingertips and he looked down at her hand.

"What makes you think that you're still on a first name basis with me, Captain?" she spat out as she tugged her shirt sleeve down.

"Is everything alright, Your Highness?"

Han turned to see the doorman standing just behind him, eying the Princess cautiously. Everything about this meeting swirling out of his control, Han felt his stomach tighten.

Leia looked at Han and then back at the doorman as she said, "Yes, Jarvin. Thank you."

As the doorman walked slowly away, Han said, "I guess I'd better get going."

"Yes, I guess so," she replied as she held one hand in the other. "Good luck on your contract, Captain."

"Thank you," he replied as he watched her walk past him, enter her building and disappear.

Over two weeks had passed since Han had seen Princess Leia. His company had been awarded the New Republic contract and now he and Chewie were stationed on Coruscant indefinitely. The longer he stayed, the more and more people he ran across from his short stint with the Alliance all those years ago. Mostly pilots and members of the Rogue Squadron, but happy, familiar faces were always a welcome sight to a couple of strangers in a big city.

Han and Chewie had both done some gentle probing into what might have happened to Leia's arm. They found out that Leia had been captured on the second Death Star, but if anyone knew the specifics of what had happened to her, no one was talking.

His run-in with the Princess had weighed heavily on Han's mind, but he had not attempted to loiter outside of her building for any more happenstance meetings. Bearing in mind how their last encounter had fared, Han had thought better of looking her up in the first place.

Walking down the hallway of the sixtieth floor of the New Republic Capitol Building on his way to yet another meeting, Han's thoughts were on work. He and Chewie had decided to try a 'divide and conquer' technique and were tackling the logistical meetings separately in an effort to speed the bureaucratic process along. The pair were itching to get the _Falcon_ back up in the skies.

Han's breath caught in his throat when he caught sight of Leia walking towards him, accompanied by a man of medium build wearing a sharp suit. Han thought that every piece of bureaucratic bullshit ever written was mostly probably written by a man wearing just that kind of suit.

As they neared each other in the narrow corridor, Han waited for Leia's lead on whether or not they would acknowledge one another. He watched her grab the arm of her companion, slowing his quick stride down as they stopped in front of Han and she immediately said, "Roman, this is Captain Han Solo. You might remember his name from the Battle of Yavin."

Han, having come to a stop in front of the couple, gave the man a friendly nod and stuck out his hand.

Leia's companion grabbed Han's hand and gave it a firm shake as he said, "An honor to meet you, Captain Solo."

Leia continued, "Han, this is Roman Barreca. He's a comptroller for the New Republic." Leia eyed Han for a moment as the two men looked at her, introductions and their handshake complete. Leia then turned to Roman and said, "Go on ahead, I'll catch up."

"Are you sure, hon? We don't want to be late."

Squeezing him on the arm, she replied, "When am I ever late? Don't worry, I'll be right there."

Han watched Roman turn and walk away and as soon as he turned his attention back to Leia, she said, "So, I hear congratulations are in order, Captain."

"Yes, we got the contract. Thanks. And, you know I don't mind if you call me Han."

Han watched as her eyes darted down the hallway behind him. Turning her gaze back to him, she said, "I'm sorry about the other day. Many people seek me out just to see if the rumors are true."

Han hadn't heard any rumors regarding how Leia might have lost her hand, even when he had blatantly sought them out. Her comment renewed his resolve to probe further, however, when he got back to the hangar that evening. It also explained why she had seemed so spooked the other day.

He heard Leia break into his silence when she said, "So, what will this mean for you? I mean, do you still run shipments? It seemed you might be more…_administrative_ might not be the right word."

"No, I guess that's about right. Me and Chewie work more on contracts and scheduling now and do a lot less flying then we used to."

"You must miss it. The flying, I mean."

"I do, but everything's gotta move forward, you know?"

"Yes, I do."

She looked past him again and he studied her face while she wasn't looking. It was much thinner than it had been and her eyes didn't seem as wide and innocent anymore. He wondered just what they had witnessed since the last time he looked into them. When she turned her attention back to him, he said, "Hey, I told Chewie I ran into you and he said to tell you hello, you know, if I saw you again."

Her smile brightened and she replied, "Please tell him I said the same."

"We thought you might like to have dinner with us. Chewie and me." He watched for her reaction and she didn't seem totally shut off to the idea, so he added, "You can bring that Roman guy, too."

He watched her swallow and then she fumbled in her carryall and handed him a card. "You can contact my secretary to have something setup."

He took the card from her without even looking at it. Was this the high-society way of brushing someone off? He wondered. But in response, he only mumbled, "Thanks. I guess I'll be seeing you then."

"You're welcome," she said as she smiled at him. Giving him a nod, she moved to walk past him, but she hadn't gotten very far when she turned back and said, "Oh, and Captain?"

Spinning around to face her, he replied, "Uh-huh?"

"_Chewbacca_ had better be there." And then she turned and walked away before he could respond.

Maybe not a total brush off after all, Han smiled as he watched her walk away.


	2. Chapter 2

From a Certain Point of View

Han and Chewie sat alone at a table set for four in a ritzy restaurant on Coruscant. The Princess and her companion weren't so much late, as Han and Chewie had been early.

Han squirmed in his seat and looked towards the entrance of the restaurant yet again.

[It's a damn good thing a human's sense of smell is so underdeveloped,] Chewie growled under his breath while Han's attention rested on the woman now slowly walking towards them.

"Yeah, why's that?" Han whispered out the side of his mouth as Leia neared their table.

[Because I can smell your anxiety from here…,] Chewie hooted as the pair began to stand and right before Leia reached the table, Chewie added, [...among other things.]

Han jerked his head towards the Wookiee and shot him a stony glare.

[Hello, Princess. You look well,] Chewie growled politely and took Leia's hand inside of his large paw.

Han turned his attention to Leia and began to translate, "He said-"

"No, that's alright, Captain. I've been studying Shyriwook." Turning to look at Chewie, she replied, "Thank you, Chewie. So do you."

Wondering just how much of Chewie's previous comments she was able to make out, Han pulled her chair out for her and as she took her seat, he asked "Where's what's his name?"

"His name is Roman and he's working late," she replied matter-of-factly as she settled into her seat. "He sends his regrets."

Han sat back down and took a sip of the whiskey he had been nursing and asked, "So, how long you been seeing each other?"

She eyed him for a second and then said, "It's been several months now." Han watched her as she turned to the waiter and ordered a glass of wine. Turning back to him, she continued, "Since I've been on Coruscant." Placing her linen napkin on her lap, she asked, "Are you seeing anyone, Captain?"

"No one special. And no one on this planet."

The dinner was full of small talk, without one single, awkward silence between the three diners. The food and the drinks were excellent, which only added to the charm of the evening. Han made a mental note to thank that pilot for the restaurant recommendation.

Leia filled the two spacers in on all they had missed since they had left the Alliance, but it was a holonews account at best and nothing the two hadn't heard or known already. She talked quickly when she reached the immediate events leading up to the fall of the Empire, starting with Hoth up until her arrival on Coruscant, switching gears from holonews reporter to galactic historian.

Han and Chewie both expressed their condolences on the loss of Luke and it was the only 'down' point of the evening. But, ever the politician, Leia recovered the conversation skillfully and the three were laughing and sharing anecdotes before anyone had known what had hit them.

There was something different about the Princess that Han couldn't quite put his finger on. She was older and more mature, sure, but she had an edge that even years won't grant you naturally. For all that he had seen in his life, Han recognized something in the dull reflection of Leia's eyes that made his stomach turn uneasily.

Just what had happened to the young Princess that he had shared an experience in a garbage chute with? Even then, her world had just been destroyed, yet the gleam in her eyes was still there. Watching her as they made small talk, he cringed at the thought of the evil, heartless bastard or thing that had doused the fire out of those eyes.

Walking back to the _Falcon_ following their meal, Han cursed the universe as a whole. Thinking of the Princess and picturing her face in his mind's eye, he couldn't remember a time that he felt so downright helpless.

* * *

It was less than a week later and once again on the sixtieth floor - Han made a special note of that happenstance - when he ran into Princess Leia again.

She was alone and the two came to a stop in the hallway. After a polite greeting, Han said, "I had fun the other evening."

She smiled and then replied, "Yes, I did, too. And I received your thank you note. That was…very sweet."

He stared at her, even though his brain was telling him not to, it was like her eyes were tractor beams and they were pulling him into their gaze. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he said, "I thought I might've heard back from you."

She blinked her eyes and looked down the hallway, over his shoulder. He felt an immediate relief from the magnetic pull of her stare. Looking back at him, she shook her head and said, "You know, Han…I just don't-"

"What? Have friends?" He hadn't meant to cut her off, but he followed her train of thought too quickly and took offense to it before she had even completed her sentence.

She looked at him and sighed heavily. "Men never want just friendship and I'm already in a relationship."

Wondering just what experiences she had had to warrant that little revelation, he countered, "Maybe you've been dealing with the wrong type of men."

She glanced down at her watch and then back up to him. "I've really got to go. It was great seeing you again."

"Okay," he mumbled, not sure why he felt the need to keep her near him. "Oh, here," he added as he dug a card out of his jacket pocket. "I have a secretary, too…if _you_ would want to set anything up."

She shook her head and smiled warmly as she took the card from him and immediately read it. Still looking down at the card, she said, "A title and everything." Dragging her eyes back up to meet his, she smiled and said, "Well, wonders never cease, do they?"

"Yeah, well, don't make me wonder too long, okay?"

They both nodded at each other and then turned and went their separate ways.

* * *

Several weeks went by and Han had not heard from her. As the days ticked by, his mind became more and more preoccupied with how she looked and how she held herself now. Was he attracted to her? Sure. But this was different, almost like that tractor beam feeling again. He couldn't recall any woman filling his thoughts this way.

Was it an attraction or a morbid curiosity as to exactly what had happened to her during their time apart? Han couldn't be sure. But he contemplated the scenarios continuously until he had more theories running through his head than a statistician stuck in the maw.

Han walked towards his office one morning and greeted his secretary as she sat at her desk just outside of his office.

"Anything new, Vespa?"

"Yes," her head shot up at the sound of his voice and grinned wickedly before she said, "_You've_ been scheduled for a dinner date with a…_female_."

Millions of unsolved statistical theories burst in his head like a supernova as thoughts of Leia actually dialing his comm number and asking him to dinner warmed his insides like he was some sort of lovesick sap.

Focusing his attention back to his secretary and trying to collect himself, he asked, "Does this female have a name?" As he walked into his office.

"Oh, she has a name," Vespa said dramatically as she followed him into his office. "A name with galactic recognition," she added as her voice rose and Han regretted, and not for the first time, hiring someone who reminded him so much of himself. "A name that sits at the top of the New Republic hierarchy," she continued with a teasing flare. "A name-"

"Alright, that's enough," Han, having entered his office, spun around and took Vespa by the shoulders as he turned her around and pointed her back towards her desk and out the door. "Some people have work to do around here."

She turned around right outside of his open door and continued in a much more serious tone, "I mean for quite some time now I've wondered why someone that looks like you…well, you must know how you look." As she said this particular speech, she looked almost embarrassed, if Han had thought her capable of that emotion. She continued, her voice low and conspiratorial now, "And not one single dinner date after all this time, well it makes a girl's mind wander." Han began to walk towards her as she continued, "But now it all makes perfect sense-"

He closed the office door on her and her deductive diatribe.

As soon as he sat down his comm rang, "Yes, Vespa?"

"Princess Leia Organa? I mean, really-"

"Bye, Vespa," Han cut her off once again.

He looked at his terminal and found the dinner date, four nights out. Leia's office comm information was listed under her name. Sliding his headset on, he looked at the comm and back at the screen several times before he finally punched in the buttons.

"Organa."

"Hey, it's me. Han."

"Hi, Han. I guess you got my dinner invite?"

"Yes, I just had one question."

"What's that?"

"Do I have to bring Chewie?"

There was a silence and for a moment he thought maybe he had blown it, until he heard her say, "No, I think I can handle you alone this time."

A grin spread across his lips as he pressed, "So, will what's his name be working late again?"

"What's his name always works late," she replied, her tone flat and not very revealing.

"Okay. I'll see you in a coupla days, then. Should I pick you up at your apartment?"

"No, I'll meet you at the restaurant. Thank you, though."

"Alright."

"Alright. Organa out."

"Solo out."

* * *

Han rolled out of his bunk the morning of their scheduled dinner with a definite spring to his step. The thought of dinner alone with Leia had been playing in his mind to larger and larger proportions the better part of the last four days. If the night ended in even a minute representation of some of his more pleasant scenarios, then Han would still be a very, very happy man.

When he entered the lounge he felt the change in the atmosphere almost immediately and it wasn't the _Falcon's_ circulation system acting up again, either. Chewie was standing by the holochess table looking about as grim as Han had ever seen him and he had been on the wrong side of Wookiee slavery when the pair first met.

Chewie didn't say a word, but pushed a datapad towards Han on the table and set a mug of kaffe down next to it. Han slid onto the banquette and began reading the day's headlines while he sipped on the hot drink. His first swallow threatened to come right back up his throat as he read what was surely the thing that Chewie had intended for him to see.

Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan's heritage had been traced back to Padme Amidala, former Queen and Senator of Naboo and Anakin Skywalker, former Jedi Knight turned Sith Lord, otherwise known as Darth Vader. The New Republic was reportedly researching the recently uncovered evidence and had declined to comment on the news.

Han's stomach turned as his eyes landed on his copilot and friend.

[Did you know about this?]

"No," he replied, in shock, or disbelief or indignation; he couldn't quite place his emotions in one correct, little package.

Han spent the day on autopilot, going from meeting to meeting in a hazy fog. Did she know it already, is that why she looked so different? Was it even true? How was she dealing with it if it was true? By the end of the work day, Han felt as if he had been run through the autovalet, twice.

Not entirely sure how to proceed with their dinner date, he went to the _Falcon_ and got dressed for the evening, arriving at the chosen restaurant early. After a couple of drinks at the bar, he decided she wasn't going to show and he wasn't entirely surprised by the fact.

He walked to her apartment building only to be joined by a wild mob of reporters and other assorted crazy people. Making his way to the burly doorman he had met on his last visit, he was promptly told that she was not accepting visitors. Not another very shocking revelation in light of today's events.

Not one to ever give up that easily, Han managed to sneak into her building through another entrance along with another set of men dressed in bureaucratic suits. As he walked among the herd of men that he had joined, Han looked down at his attire for the evening and lamented that at least dressing up had paid off for him in a very small way.

Once inside the building, he wasn't sure what to do, not knowing her apartment number or home comm code and unable to fall in with the group of men any longer as they began to disperse. He followed a trio of men to the turbolifts and took it to the sixtieth floor, having become fond of that number in recent months and thinking better of lingering around the lobby for any extended period of time.

Walking along the hallways of the sixtieth floor, he pulled his comm out and punched in her office number, the only one he knew for her and left her a message. "If you're anything like I think you are, you'll be checking this from home. I'm in your building and I will knock on every door until I find you. Comm me at five-nine-four-five before you get me arrested."

Han roamed around the catacomb of hallways on the sixtieth floor, vowing to think up a better plan as soon as he gave up on this one.

He jumped when his comm started to vibrate. "Solo," he spoke into the device.

"I'm not up for dinner tonight, Han."

"What about some company?"

"No, not that either."

"C'mon, Leia," he replied as he tried to think of that other plan. "If _I_ snuck in, goddess knows what other kind of whackos might be roaming around your halls, what about if I hung around as your personal bodyguard?"

"No, I can take care of myself, thanks."

Han let out a deep breath and after a long silence, he offered, "What about as a friend?"

He got no response from that question, but he hadn't heard her sever the line, so he said, "You know you don't want to be alone."

There was another long silence and then he heard her say, "No. That's where you're completely wrong."

There was something different in her voice and Han clenched his jaw for a moment before he replied, "Whatdya mean?" Taking several deep breaths into her silence his determination swelled inside of him as he added, "Tell me what you need and I'll make it happen."

"I want to disappear," she replied quickly, her voice was a desperate whisper.

Han swallowed the lump that had crept up his throat and asked, "What's your room number, sweetheart?"

He sat there and waited, he could hear her steady breathing and then he heard a long, deep sigh before she said, "Two hundred and twelve."

And then the line went dead.


	3. Chapter 3

From a Certain Point of View

Han arrived in front of Leia's apartment and stood there for a moment. The sound of voices on the other side of the door stilled his hand from pressing the bell right away. He recognized the sound of Leia's voice and heard a man's voice as well. Glancing to his side, he saw someone walking towards him down the hallway so he finally pushed the intercom.

The conversation inside of Leia's apartment fell silent at the sound of the chime inside. Han looked up toward the holocamera pointing down at him and then heard the swoosh of the apartment door as it opened.

Leia was standing in front of him, her eyes bloodshot and the skin on her face was red and blotchy. She looked down at her feet as she stepped back and said, "Come in."

Han stepped in and noticed Roman standing next to the table in the dining room, glaring at Han while he watched Leia intently.

"Just give me a minute," she whispered as she shut her apartment door and motioned for Han to enter her living area.

Han walked over towards the couch as he watched Leia and Roman disappear into the kitchen.

Standing for a moment, Han looked around Leia's apartment. It was scantily furnished and lacked any personal items as far as he could tell. The living area in which he stood had a cream-colored lounger that looked as if it had never been touched much less lounged in and two conformed chairs flanked the kaffe table on either side of the lounger. There wasn't a holoscreen in sight and Han wondered just what the hell Leia did on her days off as he finally lowered himself down onto one of the conformed chairs and waited.

The apartment was eerily quiet; Han couldn't even hear the traffic outside of the large window against the long wall to his left. He watched the bustle of Coruscant as he tried _not _to listen to the harsh whispers coming from the room next door.

He heard Leia tell Roman that she needed time to think and Roman replied something along the lines of 'with another man?' Han shuffled uncomfortably in his seat and became quiet again. Roman told Leia that he wanted to help her through this and Leia replied that he could help by giving her some space and time. Their voices fell to a softer whisper and Han couldn't make out what they were saying anymore.

Finally, there was a silence. Not a whisper or word could be heard from the pair in the other room and Han imagined that Leia might be kissing Roman goodbye. He wondered how a desperate kiss from those lips might feel and taste. He wondered if her hands were wrapped around his neck and just where that creep's hands were on Leia. Before his mind could get worked up any further, he heard the two exiting the kitchen and he stood up to greet them.

Leia walked out of the kitchen and stood at the table where Roman had been earlier, her eyes following her boyfriend as he walked toward her apartment door. Roman gave one glance to Han and nodded his head very slightly; Han did the same in return as he watched the man let himself out the apartment without a word.

Turning back to Leia, she looked at him and said, "He's just worried about me."

"It's alright," Han replied with a shrug.

Leia walked over to him in small, tentative steps. It was the first time that she had ever appeared to be frightened to Han and that in itself scared him. He wanted to ask her if the reports were true and if she had already known, but he clenched his jaw and waited for her to speak.

She came to a stop on the other side of the lounger from him and placed her hands on the back of the piece of furniture almost as if to steady herself. She looked out toward the window for a moment and then back at Han and she asked, "Would you be willing to take me somewhere?"

"I told you I would."

"I mean, somewhere off-planet. On your ship. You may be gone for a few days."

"That's not a problem," Han answered as his mind spun with obligations and commitments that were speckled on his calendar in the next couple of days. What was it about this woman that made him think everything else paled in comparison to her immediate needs? He barely knew her and yet whatever she needed he felt compelled to provide it.

She opened her mouth as if she was going to speak but no words came out. She looked as if she was trying to figure him out and decide whether or not she could trust him. Her demeanor had changed from fear to trepidation.

"You can trust me, Leia," he said in answer to her unspoken concern.

She nodded her head and whispered, "I know." Taking a deep breath, she swallowed and said, "Just give me one more minute." Disappearing down a hallway, she left Han standing alone once again in the middle of her living room.

Han stepped towards the large window and looked out over Coruscant once again, at the millions of people all heading in different directions, each with their own story. Han wondered just what story he had walked into today and just what direction it would take him. He heard footsteps coming down the hallway behind him and he spun around to find Leia approaching him.

She had splashed water on her face, or something, because her skin had calmed down and there was only a slight pink tinge around her eyes now. She had a small bag slung over her shoulder and she asked him, "Are you ready?"

"Yeah," he answered and then said, "There was quite a mob scene going on outside when I got here though."

"Oh, that reminds me," she replied as she turned toward a shut door off the living area and palmed it open. "C'mon," she said, as if talking to a child and Han wondered just what was going to come waltzing out of that room when he heard a familiar whiz and beeping noise.

As Artoo rolled out into the living room and chortled a greeting to Han, Leia looked at him and said, "Artoo can activate the service lift for us and we can exit through the back of the building."

Han wondered where Artoo's annoying counterpart was, but thought better of asking about him should that give the Princess any ideas about bringing him along too, so he replied, "Okay, good," as the trio headed for the exit.

Leia comm'ed the door man and had a hovercab waiting for them at the rear of the building. They were dropped off at the hangar and started to make their way to the _Falcon_ in silence. For the first time since this whole mess started, Han thought about Chewie. He wondered if the Wookiee would want to just pick up and leave to tote Leia to goddess-knew-where.

As the _Falcon_ came into view, Han saw that her ramp was shut tight, indicating that Chewie was probably still out to dinner or a card game and Han's chest tightened at the thought of leaving him without so much as an explanation.

Pressing the codes into his ship, Han looked at Leia while the gangway slowly lowered. Feeling safe to ask now, he said, "Where's old goldenrod?"

The pathetic, mournful warble that Artoo let out was more than enough explanation for Han, but Leia translated anyway, "He didn't make his transport when we left Hoth." Her voice tripped over the word transport and the word Hoth was nothing more than a faint whisper.

Han mumbled an apology as he followed Leia and Artoo up the _Falcon's_ ramp. When had news of a droid's demise ever affected him this way? Maybe it was Artoo's strange, sentimental attachment or Leia's shattered look when she told him, but something inside of Han made him vow that he would go back to Hoth one day and find that stupid piece of machinery. How hard could it be to find that annoying hunk of junk on a planet full of ice?

Han began to punch in the locking code on the _Falcon's_ ramp as Leia said, "I went back…to look for him."

As the ramp closed up behind him, Han turned to look at her. Had she been reading his mind?

Leia continued, "The entire base had been decimated. There was no way…"

"C'mon," Han replied as he motioned for Leia to head towards the cockpit. "Let's get our clearance from the tower."

Han sat down in his pilot's seat as Leia slid into Chewie's large co-pilot's chair. Turning to Leia, he asked, "Where're we going?"

He watched her looking out of the viewport in a daze and she answered him without looking at him, "Tell 'em we're going to Naboo."

"Alright," Han answered as he submitted his request and waited to get clearance.

Once they lifted into real space, Han asked her again, "Okay, where are we really going?"

Leia stood up and walked over to the navigation console and began to punch and twist at the controls. "We're going to make a short jump in the direction of Naboo, just in case they're tracing our vector." She slid back down into Chewie's seat and added, "The coordinates are set, Captain. On your ready."

Han didn't know what he found more disconcerting, the fact that Leia had just fondled his ship's control systems like she owned the place or the fact that the entire display had turned him on a little. Thinking better of questioning her expertise, he pulled the lever that shot them into hyperspace and then turned his head and looked at her. Her jaw was clenched shut and he studied her profile as she looked out the viewport. Her skin was smooth and milky white. He followed a small trail of light freckles from the bridge of her nose down to her neck. He wondered how someone so strong and cool could look so...soft and inviting.

Releasing a long, deep breath out of his nose, he asked again, "Okay. Now, where're we _really _going?"

She turned and looked at him for a moment, and then she replied, "Dagobah."

Han shrugged his shoulders and looked back at the controls of his ship. Dagobah? He didn't quite get it; the entire planet was nothing but a dirty bathtub. But if she was looking to disappear, then maybe it wasn't a half bad place to do just that. The _Falcon_ slid back into real space and Leia reset the coordinates in the nav computer. Jumping to lightspeed once again, the old freighter headed to Dagobah.

The nav system had calculated the trip to take at least a standard day and once all the coordinates and alarms had been checked, that left lots of free time for the two humans and one droid aboard the small ship.

Han immediately set about the task to make dinner. It seemed after everything that had happened that day, the pair would actually be able to share that meal together.

As they sat at the holochess table and ate, Han bided his time patiently waiting for Leia to say something. As their meal was almost finished, his impatience got the better of him and he asked, "You wanna talk about it?"

She was sitting about as far away from him as she possibly could, but not quite across from him. He watched her head immediately begin to shake in the negative as her eyes rested at a point somewhere on the bulkhead across from her. Finally, she turned to look at him and arched her eyebrow as she said, "No." Her tone was defiant and left no question on whether or not she was serious.

The sound of their utensils occasionally clinking against their dishes was the only noise for a long while.

Leia set her fork down on her plate and then looked at him and asked, "Where should I sleep?"

He looked at her; she looked tired. Where her eyes were pink and puffy earlier they now had dark circles. He sighed heavily and said, "You can take my cabin."

"Okay."

He had expected an argument from her and her abrupt acceptance of his proposal stunned him. He watched as she stood up and began picking up their cups and plates.

"I'll get that," he said, as he began to stand and reached for the dirty dishes.

"Please, Captain," she said, her voice firm and pleading at the same time. He looked at her for a moment and she said, "Let me do this."

He straightened up and raised his hands in surrender. She looked at him for a moment and then gave him a weak smile as she picked up the last cup and spun around and headed for the galley.

Turning around, he headed for his quarters, remembering they could probably use a bit of tidying up before a woman might want to sleep there. He started with his 'fresher, quickly straightening it up before he moved to his cabin. Walking around the room, he picked up anything that wasn't bolted down and piled it up in his arms and then shoved it into his locker. He was just finishing up placing new sheets on his bed when she walked in.

He scooped the discarded sheets up off of the floor and heaped them into his arms while he looked at her. Her eyes went from his face to scanning the room and then back to him.

"You didn't have to go through any trouble."

"It wasn't any trouble," he responded as he walked towards the 'fresher and shoved the sheets into the autovalet.

As he turned the knob to start the machine, he heard her say, "Where will you sleep?"

Stepping out of the 'fresher and back into his cabin, he said, "In Chewie's bunk."

She looked at him and he saw a vulnerability in her eyes that tugged at his heart.

He took a step towards her and asked, "Are you sure you're alright?"

She looked down at her feet, shaking her head in the negative as she said, "Yes, I'm just tired." Bringing her gaze up to meet his, she added, "I can take Chewie's bunk."

This time it was Han who shook his head in the negative and said, "No, I'll take his bunk. It'll be bad enough if he smells me in there. Believe me, if you slept in there I'd never hear the end of it."

They both smiled at each other and then Leia said, "You left without telling him anything."

"He'll understand."

"It was selfish of me to ask you to take me."

"Don't worry about Chewie, or me. Just get some rest and everything will be better in the morning."

"I wish I could believe that."

"You can believe whatever you want to believe."

"Yes. But that won't make it true."

They looked at each other in silence for a moment and then said their goodnights and went to bed.

As Han climbed into Chewie's bunk, he thought about his old friend. Thinking about how Chewie might have reacted when he returned to find the _Falcon_ had disappeared along with its pilot, brought a smile across Han's lips. This wasn't because Han thought Chewie would have gone berserk and caused a scene, but because he could imagine the Wookiee walking right passed the empty docking bay as if it had been planned out between them for months – this departure. Chewie never let the universe surprise him; over two hundred years of living had taught him that.

Turning on his side, Han's thoughts went to the woman sleeping on the other side of the wall that he was facing. The mystery that was Leia Organa became more and more puzzling and intriguing by the day. There was the calm, strong façade that she wore so well and Han knew was more than just a show. She was definitely a woman that was in control and used to being there. But there was a softer side seeping through that was thoroughly tantalizing. To be needed by a woman that didn't need anyone was a novel feeling indeed.

In the final moments before he dozed off, Han wondered what thoughts were filling Leia's head as she drifted off and in particularly if she thought of him at all. The gentle pull of sleep overcame him and he entered the world of his dreams with thoughts of her on his mind.


	4. Chapter 4

From a Certain Point of View

In the morning they both had a cup of kaffe and shared what passed as breakfast for someone who couldn't find his appetite and a princess who never ate. The rest of the short trip was spent in relative silence; while the pair mostly just tried to stay out of each other's way.

They sat in the cockpit of the _Falcon_, waiting to enter Dagobah's atmosphere. Leia stared out the viewport in what appeared to be deep contemplation. Meanwhile, Han stared at Leia. She was dressed in military-like fatigues, her small brown boots polished to a shine. Her hair was swept up in a coronet of tightly-wound braids surrounding her head.

The intricate weave of her hair was fascinating to the spacer, and he thought how its prim, taut design reflected the woman that sat across from him. But it was the little unruly hairs that refused to be pulled into the fray that Han found most tantalizing. A few wispy curls tickled her cheeks by either ear and along her forehead some disobedient strands hung loosely.

That was the side of the princess that he longed to uncover. The free spirit that he knew went along with that sharp wit and attitude. The smile and the sideways glance that peeked out from underneath her hardened exterior and the wispy hints of a woman beneath the cold shell of a politician and soldier.

When they finally entered Dagobah's atmosphere and Han caught his first glimpse of the planet's murky surface, their relative silence was finally broken. "I hope you don't think I'm landing _my_ ship anywhere near this place."

"Calm down, Captain," Leia replied as her eyes scanned the planet below them. "Just give me a minute."

"A minute?" Han asked in return. "A minute to do what, exactly? Build a krethin' space port?"

"There, that looks pretty good," Leia replied calmly as her finger pointed off to a spot in the distance.

"What looks pretty good?"

"Yeah, that'll do nicely."

"Where?" Han asked as his eyes followed her direction, not seeing anything that could fit the definition of 'nice'. "Where oughtta do nicely?"

Leia stood up and pointed more emphatically, "Right there. On that ridge."

Han spotted the clearing she was referring to and said, "If by ridge, you mean deceivingly tall pieces of grass all huddled together to look like something, then no. No way am I landing my ship in that booby trap."

"I didn't know you were so risk averse, Captain, or I would've hired a different pilot."

"First of all, you didn't _hire_ me and second of all, I am not risk averse. I'm a realist."

She turned and looked at him for a moment. The hint of pink-tinged skin was still apparent on her face and the natural light pouring in through the viewport made her eyes shimmer. "Will you just trust me and land the ship on that ridge?" There wasn't any teasing or taunting in her voice. Just pure exhaustion.

Han shook his head and rolled his eyes, just how he got himself into these things he didn't know. Turning back to his ship's controls, he began to maneuver toward the 'ridge'.

It was definitely a team effort and Han was more than a little impressed on how well Leia handled her co-pilot's duties. When all was said and done, it seemed that Leia had been correct about this particular piece of earth and as the _Falcon_ set down with a solid thud, Han released the breath that he had been holding.

Han shut the ship down as Leia exited the cockpit. When he followed behind her several moments later, he found her waiting for him in the lounge with her tiny bag slung over her shoulder and her little droid sidled up next to her like a child.

Han walked past her and toward the exit of the _Falcon _without a word. Pressing in the ship's code, he watched as the gangway slowly lowered to the ground. The thick, smelly air of Dagobah rushed in like an uninvited guest, making itself at home in every nook and crevice of the small freighter. Han shook his head as he remembered how long it had taken him to get the smell of that garbage chute out of the upholstery.

As the smell crept in, he watched Leia and Artoo amble out. Following her down the platform he watched as she stepped onto the spongy ground and spun around to face him.

He was half way down the ramp when she spoke to him.

"You can leave now, Captain. Thank you."

"What?" He asked as he continued down the gangway towards her. "Oh no, I'm not just leaving you here in the middle of nowhere." When he finished speaking he stood before her, his feet still on the angled platform which magnified their height difference as he towered over her.

"I told you I wanted to disappear, what did you think I meant?"

"I didn't think you meant that you wanted to be slowly eaten by blood-sucking swamp animals on a soggy, smelly planet in the middle of the outer rim," Han replied as he looked at the vast expanse of nothingness surrounding them and his ship. Looking back at her, he said, "Just what do you plan on doing here?"

"That's none of your concern. I asked you to bring me here, that was all. I don't know how long I'll be." They stared at each other, she seemed to recognize the determination in his gaze as she said, "You can leave or you can stay, but I'm not asking you to wait for me."

Han swatted at his neck as he heard something buzzing around his ear. "Fine," he replied with a heavy sigh as he watched her turn around and walk away, her little droid bouncing around behind her.

He watched her until she disappeared amidst the trees, bushes and hazy air. Turning around and heading into the cockpit, he then sent an encrypted message to Chewie on Coruscant trying to explain his whereabouts. Sitting in his pilot's chair, his eyes relaxed and the swamp in front of him blurred. He quickly realized that what he had planned to be just a few missed appointments and an apology was now shaping up to be a potential career-ending, extended, not-so-much-fun vacation. But he had no intention of leaving Leia on this planet, so he settled in and waited.

The first couple of days she was gone, Han spent tinkering on the _Falcon_ with any projects that could be completed on the interior of the ship. The smell and the humid heat combined with the aggravating mix of insects this planet laid claim to negated any ideas of working on the exterior.

Han thought about Chewie and wondered just how mad the Wookiee was going to be at him when they saw each other again. He didn't know what he was going to tell his old friend in explanation of his actions. Although if anyone could understand following a strange tug in your gut, it would be Han's lifelong friend and co-pilot. They had made a life out of following their guts over the years.

His patience worn thin by the third day, Han began to take daily hikes in an effort to locate the wandering princess. Quickly finding his scanner to be of no use - the millions of living creatures he picked up on the readings only serving to worry him more than he was already - Han tried to use his intellect and intuition to find her. He only found them to come up short of the task as well. Several times he thought of taking the _Falcon_ up and moving his search into the skies, but the thought of landing that precisely again quickly shelved that idea.

Nine days had passed since the Princess left him standing on that platform. It was early morning and Han was asleep in his bunk when the _Falcon's_ proximity alarms sounded. Slapping the acknowledge button on the console near his head, Han laid back on his pillow. The alarms had proven to be a nuisance on a planet chock full of roaming, hopping, slobbering animals, but Han had set it every night anyway taking some comfort in their watchful, mechanical eyes.

A light tapping on the ship's hull brought him to full alert, however, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes and waited to see if it had been his imagination. A slightly stronger version of the previous tapping had him up and headed for the exit in a flash. Checking the external monitor, Han breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he saw one petite bundle of trouble standing outside of his ship with her arms folded against her chest.

Pressing in the ship's codes, the gangway let out a loud hiss and began to lower. He stood at the top of the ramp and waited for her and Artoo to trounce up the ramp and then he closed it behind them. She walked passed him and headed straight for the lounge. The smell she left in her wake was enough to knock any remaining cobwebs out of his skull.

When he stepped into the lounge he watched her fling her bag on the holochess table with an exhaustive sigh.

She turned to look at him and said, "We can go back to Coruscant now, Captain."

He let out a quick breath as his mouth hung open and he looked at her in disbelief. "Excuse me?" He didn't even attempt to mask his annoyance and aggravation with her.

"What?"

"Where the hell have you been, Leia?"

She looked at him a moment and then she said, "To hell, Han," her chest puffed up and she added, her voice rising. "I've been to hell and back."

He studied her for a moment. She looked younger than she had ever looked to him before. Well, younger or eerily vulnerable, he couldn't be sure. "What are you talking about?"

Han watched her as her chest quickly deflated and her voice dropped down to a whisper, "You don't want to know."

She had left him over a week ago a tidy, little soldier going off to disappear and do goddess knew what. Looking at her now, it appeared she had fought her own little war, emotionally and physically. There wasn't a tightly-wound braid left on her head and every piece of exposed skin she had was covered in filth and mud. Here was the woman underneath that he had longed to see, but it was definitely not in the way that he had wanted to.

He took a step towards her and she flinched. Halting his approach, he whispered, "Try me."

Shaking her head, she replied, "I'm talking about things that you can't understand. I'm talking about things that you _really _don't want to know about."

"Why don't you let me decide what I want to know about and what I can understand?"

"Just take me back to Coruscant or leave me here," she replied, her demeanor becoming defensive once again. The politician, the soldier, the hardened shell snapping into place all around her. "I don't owe you anything, I'll pay you for your time and your fuel…but it'll be in _credits_, not information."

Standing in the lounge of his ship, Han could only look at her and shake his head in confusion and disbelief. What was it with this woman? He had never felt so angry and betrayed by a woman before in his life. He tried to understand what she might have been through, but her cool demeanor and harsh words sliced through his empathy and slung him right on the defensive.

"You need to freshen up before you're welcome in my cockpit," he finally replied.

She looked down at herself and a flash of red painted her face before she straightened up and said, "Sorry, I tried to make due."

"Yeah, well go and be sorry all you want under about a ton of soap and water. Don't worry about conservation, _we'll_ make due."

She gave him a disgusted smirk, as if she was insulted by his audacity to point out that she stank to holy hell. He just shook his head and walked towards the cockpit. Maybe she had _finally_ found something that would turn him off when it came to her.

Han sunk into his pilot's chair and mulled over the princess' words. He wondered just what she had meant by her comments. The sound of the water system humming to life made him picture her in his shower. Naked and covered with soapy water, he imagined her fingers running through her long, unbound hair, the soap bubbles gliding over her breasts and down her abdomen to the sparse patch of hair below. So much for not being turned on by her, he mused.

Han groaned and shifted in his seat when he heard the water system shut down. _Get a hold of yourself, Solo. Usually personal chauffeurs don't get to boink the boss, and that looks like about where you rate._

They made it back to Coruscant the same way they had left, the relative silence and dummy hyper jump included. Leia's arms, neck and face had been scattered with scratches and bites and she had at least allowed Han to dab some antibiotics and bacta gel on them for her. The one hand, the mechanical one, was free of scratches and bites and Han did his best not to let his eyes linger on it too long or mention it to Leia.

When they landed, she tried to hand him a credit chip but he refused to take it. She thanked him and shook his hand as if they had just completed some sort of transaction. After she left his ship he felt lost and alone and he wondered just where the hell she had taken him to, literally and figuratively and any other which way he could try to make sense of it.

Han found the life that he had left behind as disconcerting as his bizarre relationship with Princess Leia. Turns out Chewie had left shortly after him and their boss had already sent replacements for them. Vespa cried and carried on dramatically and Han envied her ability to let things out in the open like that. He thought he might prefer that to all the guesswork and confusion all this 'relative silence' had gotten him.

It took several days for the reality of his situation to hit him fully and when it did it came down hard. Everything he had worked for over the past couple of years had been ruined by one fool decision over a woman; typical, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

He had not seen or heard from Leia since their return to Coruscant. Not able to stand it any longer, he hung around outside of her apartment building, needing to see her again. When he caught sight of her his heart dropped into his stomach and then quickly leapt up into his throat. She was walking towards him, accompanied by Roman.

As the couple approached him and finally noticed him, Roman grabbed Leia's hand and they both came to a stop before Han. Roman spoke first. "Can we help you?"

There was a long, awkward silence while Han stared at Leia and the couple stared back at him.

"Are you alright?" He addressed Leia as if Roman was not even there.

Leia hesitated and then said, "Yes, I'm fine."

Han stared at her, his gaze boring into the wide, brown eyes before him. She didn't waver, she didn't even blink.

Roman finally broke the silence as he cleared his throat and pulling on Leia's hand, he said, "Come on. Let's go, Leia. Good day, Captain."

He watched her disappear into her building on the arm of another man and it proved to be the final, knockout punch. He staggered back and steadied himself against the wall of her building, watching the busy streets of Coruscant buzz around him. What had he done? What would he do now?

Han got back on his ship and headed for Kashyyyk to try and work things out with the one person that he knew he could count on above all others. He found things on Kashyyyk left him only more lost and desperate, however, as Chewie told Han that he was home now and that their paths were no longer intertwined.

After spending the day with Chewie's family, the Wookiee was walking with Han back toward the _Falcon_ after dinner. Han ran his fingers through his hair and let out a deep, long sigh. "It's good to see you home, Chewie. Malla and the kids seem really happy to have you back."

[They are, as much as I am.]

"I'm sorry I left you like that, buddy. But it looks like it might turn out to be a good thing for you, huh?"

[Yes. It'll probably end up being a good thing for you, too.]

Han stared at the path ahead of him. "Yeah, you never know, I guess."

[What will you do now?]

"Good question. Maybe there's a Sabacc game waiting for me out there."

[Don't set your sights so high, cub.]

Han spun around on his friend and they both stopped walking. His anger swelled inside of him as he saw all of his options fizzling out like suds on a pint of gizer ale. "Well, what would _you _have me do?"

[I would have had you not leave Coruscant on some fool errand.]

Chewie's words cooled his anger and Han looked away. He reached up and broke off a small piece of a low-hanging branch. Twirling the twig in between his fingers, he sighed, "I've got nothing, Chewie." He looked at his friend and then looked out over the edge of the platform where they stood. Throwing the small twig, he said, "I've sacrificed everything and got left with nothing."

[Why was that?]

Han turned back and looked at his friend. He fixed his jaw and remained silent.

[Why did you leave? What were you looking for?]

"I wasn't looking for anything. She needed help and I gave it to her. I should've known better. I should've never gambled with my life not knowing…"

[You can't go back and change that now. There's a reason you did what you did and only you know what that is.]

"Great," Han scoffed as he turned and the pair began to walk again. "I'm the only one to blame would be an easier way to say that."

Chewie chuckled. [Semantics. I was trying to be nice.]

"Why start now?"

They arrived in front of the _Falcon_ and Chewie offered, [Stay for a few days, for as long as you need. Take your time, sort your head out.]

Han looked over at his ship. The only thing he had left that he could count on. "Naw. I appreciate it, but…"

[No need to explain,] Chewie replied as he rested his heavy paw on Han's shoulder. [Clear skies, cub.]

Han met the Wookiee's stare and said, "Yeah, thanks."

He walked into his ship and shut himself inside. When he sat down in his pilot's seat, he caught sight of the lone Wookiee standing and watching from a distance. Firing up the engines, he took the _Falcon_ and headed for the skies.

Planet hopping had been something he and Chewie had done when they were looking for work, just popping in and out of spaceports all over the galaxy, trying to find work but usually only finding trouble. Han slipped right back into that world like he would an old pair of his spacer pants. Only he wasn't searching for work and whatever he was searching for, he never seemed to find it at the bottom of the bottle. That didn't stop him from tirelessly looking, though.

One morning, Han woke up in a strange place which wasn't that unusual of late, but unfortunately this place was a different kind of strange. He shook his head and rubbed his neck; it felt like he had been hit on the head with a gaffi stick. But then he _was_ hit in the head with a stick, and he immediately made note of the difference.

When he came to, he was tied up and two women were walking around him like predators circling their prey. They were old and ugly and smelled as bad as Leia had when she came back from her vacation on Dagobah. The thought of Leia made his head hurt in a completely different way and almost overshadowed the throbbing pain…_almost_.

"Yes!" One of the old hags hissed and Han looked up at her with blurred eyes.

"Yes, he does think of her," the other one replied with a toothless grin.

"Now the trap is set."

"Now we wait for it to be sprung."

Han heard the blow to his skull before his frazzled nerve-endings felt it and then his world went black once again.


	5. Chapter 5

From a Certain Point of View

Han tried to wake himself but his body refused to yield to his demands. His eyelids felt as heavy as a pregnant bantha and his head hung down so low that his chin was resting on his chest. Sitting upright, he thought he must have fallen asleep in his pilot's seat and he waited for a big Wookiee paw to knock him upside his head and snap him back to reality. But the painful memories of recent events slowly clicked into place and he realized that he was not on his ship and Chewbacca wasn't here to wake him and he didn't have much to wake up to anyway.

Unable to open his eyes, he took a silent inventory of his situation. There were voices flitting around him; female voices chatting incessantly like protocol droids at a Hutt conference. He was barefoot and his ankles were bound to the chair in which he sat.

There was a stench all around him as he lifted his head and turned it from side to side, trying to find a pocket of fresh air that just wasn't there. As his head lolled back down towards his chest, he realized the foulest of the odors was radiating off of his own body.

The back of his head throbbed with the beat of his heart and he recognized the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. His wrists were bound to the armrests of the chair in which he sat. He had no shirt.

"Nah!" A voice screamed and the echo pierced through Han's skull causing his eyelids to flitter. "He-"

"Comes to! And so-"

"He must!"

There was a silence and Han pried his eyes open. The room was dark, his vision was speckled with stars and he stared down at his legs and tried to focus. Blinking a few times, he recognized his torn trousers, their shredded edges darkened crimson and his torn flesh peaking through. As he raised his head two hazy figures were standing in front of him.

"Hit him again and he may-"

"Die. That won't-"

"Do."

There was a hazy sheen covering one of his eyes but the other was furiously working to focus. Han recognized the two hags that he had seen before and he watched them as they eyed him with an insane eagerness. The room surrounding him had irregular walls and a curved ceiling and seemed almost cave like. There were no furnishings or windows. He couldn't even find a door.

"We should-"

"Begin."

They walked towards him, each holding a tiny mallet and Han's stomach lurched at the new smell they introduced to the medley of foul odors that he had been fighting to become accustomed to. The hags came to stand at each of his hands.

"You will meet a-"

"New definition of pain."

Han felt each woman take one of his forefingers and begin to press a tiny shard of metal under his fingernail. As they lodged the objects further into his nail bed, the experience became slightly more than uncomfortable, but Han held in any signs of anguish. And then suddenly they stopped, and he thought they might be finished. The glint of one of the miniature anvils caught his eye right before they began to hammer.

He screamed through the first three fingers, his body writhing in agony. By the time they were finished with his hands, he no longer had a voice or the strength to attempt to fight.

As they knelt down and began to work on his toes, they began to speak – completing each other's thoughts and sentences in an odd way.

"She calls out to you, but you-"

"Cannot hear it. She will come to us-"

"To find you. She is-"

"The chosen one. She will-"

"Fulfill the prophecy."

Han wavered in and out of unconsciousness as they tortured him and rambled on in this way.

After they finished with his hands and feet they stepped back and disappeared.

Dozing off or passing out, Han had no idea how long they had left him there. Upon hearing their voices he brought his head up and prepared himself for whatever they might have in store for him next. He realized that they were using his pain as bait and he was determined to suppress his emotions and his reactions to their savagery. He had become numb to the pain anyway.

Each heavy blink of his eyelids brought the two women into focus. Four mad eyes peered down at him, two sickly grins taunted him. Each held a jar against her chest. In one jar there sloshed some sort of liquid, clear and oily. In the other, there was a black, solid substance that somehow appeared to move and separate. The hag holding the jar with the liquid cackled and grinned wickedly and Han stared at her in anticipation. He didn't even see the other open the lid and throw the contents of her jar at him.

At first it felt as if a cool blanket had been thrown over his body. Then the blanket began to move against his skin and then his entire body exploded with pain. They were everywhere, small black insects of some kind and they were biting him, each tiny organism stinging and ripping at his flesh. He screamed in spite of himself and his every muscle tensed, fingers and toes flared reignited the pain that had subsided there. Until, thankfully, he passed out.

When he came to the tiny bugs had ended their feast, either because they were engorged with his blood or he had no remaining skin left to bite. The other hag began to unscrew the lid on her container, still full of an oily liquid.

"We do not wish-"

"You to die. This will-"

"Stave off the infection."

At the end of their speech, the hag slung the contents of the jar at Han and a sheet of liquid crashed over him and covered his body. There was a moment of relief from the stinging pain of the bites and then the liquid began to burn like fire. Every single nerve ending flared with the heat of three suns. Han screamed but nothing came out.

If he had been there mere days or endless weeks, Han had no idea as he lost track of not only time but of the numerous ways that the pair continued to torture him. He only knew that each new technique brought his battle to a whole new level. They used extreme heat and extreme cold; they broke bones and reset them. The onset of every new, painful ordeal somehow started as a relief from the pain that had preceded it, until the new misery became the next measuring stick. Finally, the comfort of death became his only goal and seemed would be his only salvation.

Han had always prided himself on his high tolerance of pain. He had popped dislocated fingers back in their sockets, dressed his own wounds with a sip and a splash of low-grade whiskey. He had never spent a minute in a bacta tank. None of that seemed like a badge of courage now, as he prayed for a stimshot or a vat of bacta to swim in, anything to ease the pain that engulfed him. He had been beaten to the edge of his life and if he made it through this, he knew he would never return to the person that he had been - in more ways than one.

* * *

It was a different sensation that woke him early one morning. There was a light touch on his cheek that felt like needles dancing on his skin. He wondered if his body would recognize anything but the dull ache of agony that shrouded him now. His hands fell free and hung listlessly by his sides, their sudden range of movement another shot of pain. There was a movement near his ankles and his body jerked in reaction.

He felt his body lifting and heard a foreign voice whisper in his ear. For a moment he thought he was dying, but as his body convulsed and the throbbing ache increased he gave up on that hope.

"Easy."

It was the first word that he was able to decipher and the soft, husky voice caused a wave of relief to wash over him, dragging a tortuous ache behind it in its wake. The rush of blood awakened frazzled, latent nerve-endings and caused his entire body to shudder.

The next few words were harsh curses mumbled under the newcomer's breath. Han recognized them as Alderaanian and his hope and relief surged yet again, bringing with it another wave of agonizing pain. And then his world went black.

When Han awoke his body was slumped against a rough wall of the cave that had been his prison cell. A small figure was crouched in front of him and as soon as his hazel eyes met her brown ones, his lips turned up in a relieved smile – and even that hurt.

"We've got company. Stay right here," Leia whispered to him as he blinked his eyes into focus.

He nodded his head in affirmation, finding it easy to comply to her wishes as he tried to move his legs but found that he couldn't.

Han watched what followed through the hazy vision of one eye. Leia fought the two hags, each of the three women wielding lightsabers. The entire battle was a blur of greens and reds. There were flashes of lightning and half the time Han thought that he might still be dreaming. Leia, the hope of a rescue and this entire battle a mere hallucination created by his weakened mind; a mental escape, a mirage.

But the sounds of the hissing blades as they swung furiously through the air and crashed together with sputtering sparks made it all seem so real. He remembered Luke practicing with his lightsaber in the lounge of the _Falcon_ and the sounds and the smells were the same, encouraging him to believe that it was more than mere fantasy.

Han watched as Leia fought impressively against the two hags. He could hear her grunt with exertion as she heaved her blade in a mixture of lunges and parries. As the battle wore on, he could see the sag in her shoulders as the glowing blade seemed to become heavier and heavier in her grasp.

The two hags began to circle her, taking advantage of her weariness. Leia held her ground, barely able to hold up her blade in defense as they began to speak.

"You will not defeat us, just as you will never defeat-"

"Your destiny. You are ignorant to-"

"Your own destiny. The old man, the hermit, he did not-"

"Tell you everything. You know that now-"

"To be true."

Han watched as Leia swung her lightsaber around and lunged at one of the hags, seemingly drawing strength from their words.

"Yes! You found that out-"

"Yourself! Don't you wonder what else has been hidden-"

"From you?"

This time Leia let out a deep growl as she spun around and slashed her lightsaber at one of the women, coming close enough to her head to singe the hag's hair with her blade.

"Yes, yes you do. It burns inside of you. The-"

"Unknown. But we know."

"Yes…we have no need to-"

"Destroy you. We had only the need to-"

"Plant the seed. And now it is done."

"Now all we have to do is-"

"Watch it grow."

Han watched as Leia straightened herself up and stood with her feet spread wide below her. Her chest heaved in and out with her shallow breaths and she looked from one old woman to another. Leia flipped off her lightsaber and hung it from her belt. With a shriek of warning, Leia held both of her hands out, palms facing each hag and threw them against either wall of the cave with an invisible force that Han felt pulsate through the entire room.

When the hags hit either wall, their lightsabers fell from their hands and fizzled out and each woman slumped over in a heap.

Leia stood in the middle of the room for a moment before she turned and walked slowly towards Han.

"Let's get you out of here."

Han moved his lips but no sound would come out, even the useless vibration of his vocal cords made him wince in pain. He felt Leia crouch next to him, pull one of his arms over her shoulder and lift him as if he had repulsors.

He walked alongside of her, trying to move his legs, if only just for show. As they approached her starship he attempted to speak again.

"_Falcon_?"

"There's nothing else here."

Han felt his heart sink down into his stomach.

She placed him in a medical bunk and strapped him in. Taking a finger, she brushed his hair out of his eyes and said, "I'm going to get us headed home. Don't go anywhere."

"Where would I go?" Han mumbled and tried to smile as his face contorted in pain.

Han heard the whine of the hyperdrive engaging and waited for Leia to reappear. When she returned he felt her standing over him for a moment and he turned his head to see her. She was studying him, her eyes flitting across his body and he realized she was probably trying to determine where to begin.

He heard her fumbling through some compartments and then he felt a cool wetness on the skin of his neck and he flinched and then his body shuddered in reaction.

"This will help with the pain and let you rest."

Han didn't even try to respond and then he felt the sharp pang of the hypo shot in his neck and then there was nothing.

* * *

When he awoke, he had the bizarre feeling that his mind was somehow free of his tattered body, as if his brain sat suspended in a specimen jar while the rest of him got crumpled up and thrown away. For the first time in days, weeks or however long it had been, nothing hurt. Blinking his eyes, the ceiling above him came slowly came into focus and the familiar hum of the engines let him know he was still on a ship tearing through space at lightspeed. He couldn't lift his head to survey what was going on with the body he still could not feel.

A soft wisp of air tickled the hair in his ears and he strained to turn his neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he could barely see a blurry face lying next to him on the medical bunk. Biting his lip he struggled to turn his head just a little more, revealing the peaceful, sleeping face of Princess Leia. She sat next to his bunk in a chair, her head resting alongside his, her delicate features relaxed in sleep.

An alarm on the ship sounded and she opened her eyes to meet his. Her mouth opened in surprise and she sat up quickly, wiping the side of her mouth with the back of her hand. Their eyes locked again for a moment and then at the sound of another alarm, she stood up and mumbled, "We must be coming up on Coruscant. Sit tight."

As he watched her disappear from his line of sight and listened as her footsteps disappeared down the corridor, Han wondered to himself again, _Where would I go?_


	6. Chapter 6

From a Certain Point of View

Han spent several weeks in the Coruscant medical center, the better part of his initial stay entailed merely floating in a bacta tank. After that came the physical therapy and nerve regeneration. The hags that had kidnapped and tortured him could learn a thing or two from the Rodian in charge of Han's daily activities. At the end of each day, Han ended up in a heap on his medical bunk, exhausted and feeling as if once again he was on the brink of death.

It hadn't helped that sleep had become an issue for the Corellian, sometimes waking to a deeper exhaustion than he had succumbed to the night before. Some nights and mornings were better than others but neither he nor the medical staff could pinpoint a rhyme or reason. There wasn't a change in medication or routine that could trigger his sleep pattern in one way or another until eventually the inconsistency itself became his new routine.

Han didn't have any visitors his entire stay, a fact that had not escaped him. Could be that only one person really knew where he was. And the only news he heard from Princess Leia was what got reported on the holonet. She had resigned her position with the New Republic, admitting to the rumors of her heritage and seemingly retiring into seclusion. The New Republic, in response, had not taken a stance regarding her, their representative's only comment being, "No comment."

It was early morning on the day that Han was finally to be released. The Coruscant sun beamed through his window signaling the new day. Han sat on the edge of his bed, his fingers and toes were still wrapped up in tiny white bandages and they reminded him of little Sand People. The first of his wounds were proving to be the last things to heal. The bacta had accelerated his nail growth, but half of the tender skin on the nail beds was still exposed.

He had dressed in some clothes that his Rodian therapist had kindly picked up for him, although they looked more like medical scrubs than street attire. He looked down at the shoes that still sat patiently waiting on the floor and winced at the thought of sliding his feet into them.

Turning his head, he looked out toward the window and the beckoning day light. He had no idea where he might go today. Over the past several weeks he had tried to work through some options, but none of them seemed promising now that the harsh reality of this day had finally come. He heard and felt someone enter the room; so used to this level of diminished privacy, he didn't even turn his head to acknowledge the interloper.

She walked past him and into his line of sight and his adam's apple bobbled in response. Stopping in front of the window that he had been staring through she seemed to join him in trying to determine what to make of this day.

"Where will you go?" She spoke to the window, her back to him.

"I don't know. I lost my ship." _I lost my ship_. The words were small and simple but their implications were enormous. His frustration over his future and his loneliness these past couple of weeks surged inside of him and he had to take a breath to calm himself.

She turned her head and stared at him. He felt as transparent as the window across the room and as breakable as the glass it was made of. She looked like a mountain in contrast to how he felt. She was strong and towering in front of him. Memories of her duel with his captors flashed through his mind and the very sight of her confused him and made him feel weak.

He wondered how she had shown up on the day he was to be released. Had she been alerted or had she been keeping track of his progress? It seemed too coincidental to think otherwise and the fact that she continued to string him along, even from a distance, caused his rage to flare up once again.

"I'm sorry I got you messed up in this and I'll do whatever I can to get your job back."

He felt her words strike him across the face and he slid off the bed and onto his feet. Covering the jolt of pain that shot up his legs from his protesting toes, he straightened himself up and looked down at her as he fumed back in response, "I'm not worried about my job."

"Then I can give you money-"

"I don't want your money." The very mention and offer of such material things in light of everything he had lost infuriating him even more. Did she really think a credit chip could erase what had been done to him and what he had lost? He recalled her words after Dagobah regarding paying him in _credits_ and not information and his fists clenched tightly, the pain his fingertips released in response coursing through his veins and adding to his fury.

"Fine. I have-"

"What's this all about, Leia?" He glared at her, watching his invisible daggers hit their target with the preciseness of his beloved ship's belly gun.

Her mouth hung open for a long moment until she shook her head and looked out to the window. "The less you know the better."

"_Apparently _not."

She spun around slowly and faced him. "I'm truly sorry for what happened to you."

Her words and sentiment, even though they rang sincere, hit him like a blaster bolt and dislodged his angry words from deep inside of him. "Oh, yeah. For which part? Me losing everything I ever worked for, including my ship? The _Falcon_, Leia! I lost the fucking _Falcon!_ Not to mention that I nearly lost my life!"

She stood in front of him and accepted the onslaught of his words as if she was wearing a titanium shield. "For everything," she finally replied in a small voice.

Han drew a deep, calming breath. "I deserve some sort of explanation."

He watched her turn around again and look out the window.

He continued talking to her back. "Who were those women? What did they want with you?"

She stood in silence.

"What happened on Dagobah?" Han heard his voice rising but couldn't stop himself. "Where did you go? What the hell did you do? Did you know-"

She spun around so fast that Han hardly had time to register the move before she held her hand out toward him and yelled, "Stop! Just stop!"

He recoiled in fear for one brief moment before reeling it back in, but the look on her face told him that he hadn't been quick enough. She recognized his reaction and her face clouded over with shame, anger and embarrassment.

His rage slipped off of him like clothes on a Twi'lek dancing girl. The horror on her face chopping him back down to size. "Leia," he started as he took a step toward her.

"No." She held her hand up and moved toward the door.

"I'm sorry." Even as he said the words, he wondered how he had ended up apologizing to the woman that had ruined his life. Her eyes darted away from him and he noticed a slight tremble to her hand as she let it drop down to her side.

"I have to go," she muttered as she slipped out the door and left him standing there.

He stared at the space she had just vacated and shook his head, his emotions still swirling inside of him as if trying to figure out exactly where to land. She seemed genuinely horrified by his reaction to her, horrified with herself – not with him. He chastised himself for the slip, but couldn't honestly say that he wasn't a little freaked out over everything he had seen her do during his rescue. Just what was she?

Hobbling over to the medical bunk that he had called home for the past several weeks, he sat down and collapsed onto his back.

* * *

Han awoke with a start, his heart racing and his body painted in perspiration. Looking around it took him a moment to place exactly where he was. Still alone in his hospital room, he had no idea how long he might have slept, daylight still poured in through his window indicating that it could not have been very long. He stood up on shaky legs and headed for the 'fresher.

Staring at himself in the mirror for a long moment, Han ran the water in the sink below him. His hair hung nearly to his chin and the medical personnel had only kept his facial hair trimmed to a long stubble. The hazel eyes staring back at him could've just as well belonged to a total stranger, he hardly recognized himself anymore. He rested his bandaged fingers on the sink to steady himself. As he splashed water on his face, he heard the 'fresher door slide open. Dabbing his face with a towel, he looked up and found Leia standing there.

She seemed primed for battle; her hand rested on the blaster at her hip, her breathing was shallow as if she had just run across the entire city. "Are you alright?"

Confused and slightly disoriented by her sudden reappearance, he replied, "Yeah. I just woke up." Slowly realizing where he was standing and where she had just barged into, he added, "You ever think of knocking?"

His question seemed to go right over her head and the fact that they were standing in the 'fresher seemed of no consequence to the princess at that very moment. She started to speak, her eyes never leaving his, as she said, "In answer to your questions. I don't know. I don't…I don't know what all of this is." Her head began to move from side to side. "Everyone thinks I have all the answers. But I don't. Everyone thinks I'm something that I'm not. Or maybe I am…maybe I'm…"

Her hands fell down to her sides and her shimmering eyes fell to the floor. This person that had just scared Han by raising her empty palm to him and had rescued him from brink of death without as much as shedding one drop of blood now stood before him on the brink of tears. He wouldn't have thought it was possible, but somehow seeing this side of her scared him even more.

Taking a deep breath, she looked back up at him. "I know you deserve a better explanation than that."

She stood before him small, yet large; fragile and scared, yet strong and fearsome. She seemed focused and lost all at the same time. Dragging his hand over his face, he sighed and asked her, "What are you gonna do now?"

"I have a spare bedroom."

Han had trouble processing how her words answered his question.

"I was wondering if you needed a place to stay."

Quickly catching up to her meaning, he asked, "What will your boyfriend think of my staying with you?"

"I don't answer to anyone."

Han released a quick breath. "If there's anything I can believe in this galaxy, Princess, I can believe that."

Her lips curled up very faintly and her shoulders seem to fall a degree.

Looking up at the ceiling, Han made a show of thinking things over. "Well, after considering my other offers…" Looking back down at her, he continued, "I don't guess things could get any more interesting than they have already."

"That depends on how you define interesting, Captain."

Han felt his own mouth curl up into a smile as he shook his head at her. Whatever she meant by her words, he couldn't entirely be sure and she seemed overly satisfied by his amused, yet puzzled reaction. He watched her spin around and exit the 'fresher. Turning his head to find his reflection in the mirror, he stared at the stranger gazing back at him and wondered once again just what he might be getting himself into.


	7. Chapter 7

From a Certain Point of View

After weeks of a wholly sedentary lifestyle, the short trip to Leia's apartment proved to be too much for Han's weary body to handle. As the door to her apartment slid shut behind him, he felt the room begin to spin under his feet. A sinewy arm linked with his and guided him to the lounger.

A pair of Leias knelt in front of him. "You don't look so good."

He blinked as the pair slowly became one, then he relaxed and allowed his body to sink further into the conformed cushions.

He closed his eyes and felt a hand land on his thigh. "Sit tight and I'll go make us some dinner."

He nodded his head and listened as her footsteps faded into the other room.

* * *

As his eyes fluttered open, a few dark figures came into focus at his feet. A quick burst of terror shot through him as pieces of his consciousness snapped into place and the shapes slowly morphed into one single person: Leia. He drew in a deep, calming breath and he felt her hand resting on his lower leg, right above his ankle as she gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

Concentrating all effort on focusing his eyes on her, he found that she wore a thin smile, like a parent putting on a brave front for a child.

"What's wrong?" Han's voice croaked out before his vocal chords had fully awakened. A set of shallow coughs followed his words as he gathered his elbows up underneath him and tried to sit up.

"Nothing," Leia responded quickly as she stood and watched Han warily as he slowly lifted himself to a sitting position. "Dinner's ready, if you're hungry."

A tingle at the base of his neck left Han feeling as if he was missing something and he furrowed his eyebrows at Leia while he scratched the back of his neck through his long, unruly hair. "Sure, I can manage to eat something. I think."

* * *

Seated at the dining table with Leia sitting across from him, he looked down at the watery soup and crackers that she had served him. He listened to her claims of concern for his tolerance to eat anything more substantial while her spoon clinked idly inside of her own bowl, never drawing it up to her mouth for a taste. Thoroughly convinced that she was pawning off yet another falsehood, Han didn't question her as he slurped on the tasteless broth, actually taking comfort as it trickled warmly down his throat and settled in his stomach.

He watched as his bandaged fingers held a steaming spoonful of soup. Resting it on the side of his bowl to let it cool, he looked at Leia and said, "You resigned from the New Republic."

She hesitated before she responded. Abandoning the spoon in her soup, she placed her palms down on the table before her and then met him in the eye. "Before I left to find you…yes."

"What're ya doin' now?" He brought the spoon up to his mouth and drank in the steamy liquid as he watched her.

Her mouth fell open but nothing came out. Snapping her bottom lip closed she looked down at the glass of wine in front of her and lifted her finger to trail along the goblet's rim as she said, "Although I don't hold any official title, I continue to report to the New Republic."

Han swallowed and dunked his spoon back in his soup. "Not sure exactly what to do with you, are they?"

He had meant it in a light-hearted manner, but the hint of fury that flashed in her eyes as they snapped up to meet his caused him to hold his breath in for a brief moment. Then her lips curled up in a smirk and the fire in her pupils shimmered into an amused spark. Taking a sip of her wine she replied, "No, they have no clue."

Their eyes locked and he smiled at her, a broad smile that turned painful as his lips cracked under the pressure – something else that wasn't fully healed. He winced and brushed his finger along his bottom lip, quickly studying the bright red smear of blood on his still-bandaged fingertip before licking his lip and wiping the soiled bandage on his pants.

She watched the entire display and a look of concern clouded over her face. Standing up, she skirted around the table and walked towards him. "I have some balm that we could put on that."

"It's alright."

"You're still far from fully recovered."

He leaned back in his chair, watching her watching him. "It'd take more than a few _ladies_ to bring me down. Believe me, many have tried." He stretched his legs out under the table and crossed his feet at his ankles.

She shook her head at his comment, but that was the only immediate reaction she favored him with. And then, instead of an indignant rebuttal or embarrassed blush, a strained look of pity slowly caused her eyebrows to push the skin between them in an insane effort to meet, causing lines and wrinkles to burst forth on the Princess's forehead.

Thrown for a loop by this unexpected reaction, Han replied with the words he had intended to say, "Hey, c'mon. I was only kidding." But instead of delivering them with a cocky bravado, they came out in a concerned, apologetic plea as he straightened up in his chair and leaned towards her.

A quick burst of air escaped through her nostrils as she shook her head at him and smiled half-heartedly. Her face relaxing once again, she rested her hip against the table, placing one hand down to steady herself there. Lifting her other hand and tugging at his chin-length hair, she said, "I don't think I've ever seen you so…scruffy-looking." As she finished she trailed a finger along the stubble of his jaw, ending the motion with a delicate swipe at his bloody lip.

A light scent that he had begun to identify with her tickled his nostrils and caused his scalp to tingle. A deep swallow was all he could muster in response as he watched her hand fall down to the table and land on his wrist.

"C'mon," she said as she straightened up and tugged at his arm. "Let me clean you up."

Han ran his tongue along his lower lip, mopping up the trail of blood there as he rose to his feet and let her guide him to the 'fresher.

They walked down the hallway and the familiar aroma of the enigmatic princess teased Han's senses as they entered her bedroom. He recognized her perfume and shampoo, and what might be her deodorant, but as they brushed passed the bed where she slept, the smell of her as she dreamed while snuggled amongst the white linens, a mixture of her breath and her sweat – her very essence interwoven with the other scents – intrigued him.

Entering her 'fresher, she pulled a chair from the vanity and sat him down next to the sink, his back leaning up against the wall behind him. He watched her as she pillaged through several drawers until she found a small pair of shears, a straight razor and some soap.

Seemingly satisfied with her inventory of items, she stood before him, heaved a deep breath and said, "Hair first?"

Han shrugged his shoulders as the scent of sweet red wine was introduced to the tantalizing medley. "Sounds good."

He watched her reach for a folded towel and drape it across his shoulders, tucking it into his shirt at the neck. Twisting her body towards the counter, she grabbed the shears and then turned back to face him. Her eyes studied him intently as she ran her fingers through his hair a few times as if planning a method of attack.

All Han knew was that her fingertips running along his scalp was the most erotic thing he had felt in a very, very long time and his brain tingled to life as if its warm-up sequence had been initiated. Clearing his throat, he shuffled in his seat and straightened up his posture.

"Stay still," she huffed as he heard the first clink of the shears and watched a large chunk of his hair fall in between them.

Standing there in front of him, Leia wore a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves folded up to her elbows. A white tank top peeked from underneath the outer shirt and both were tucked into a simple pair of khaki pants with a brown shiny belt that matched her low-heeled shoes.

Try as he might to divert his eyes, the only thing that grabbed his undivided attention was the interesting valley of skin that the tank top stretched in between and the light scent of her breath as it tickled the hair on his face.

Continuing with the task at hand, Leia ran her fingers along his scalp as she cut, the falling hair brushing across his skin on his face and down his arms as his eyes were locked straight ahead.

Thinking back to their previous conversation, Han cleared his throat and ventured, "So…what are some of the designs the New Republic has in mind for you?"

She heaved a heavy sigh as she took a moment to meet his eyes. Turning her attention back to his hair, she said, "They want me to train the next generation of Jedi. To re-form the Jedi Council in the likeness of the Old Republic."

He straightened up, this was the most information he had gotten out of her…well, ever. "And what do you wanna do?"

She furrowed her brow. "Stay still." Placing both hands on the sides of his face, she held them there in an effort to get her point across and the scent of her perfume drifted from her wrists to his nose. Letting him go, she continued to cut. "I don't want anything to do with the Force, or Jedi…or the New Republic…for that matter."

Han's eyes widened at that last revelation. Clearing his throat, he covered his stunned expression as he worked on keeping his head very still. "Then don't do it."

She sighed again and took a step back to look at him, apparently surveying her progress. "Then it would die with me…and I can't let that happen."

He watched her step back toward him and with the pressure of a single finger tip against his chin, she turned his head slightly and continued to cut.

Han now stared at the opposite wall, not appreciating this view nearly as much as his previous. "Is that you or them talkin'?"

Placing her hands against his knees she spun him around so that she could get to the back of his head but she said nothing.

He answered her silence as he offered, "You could train someone, just long enough to replace you."

She worked on the back of his head and didn't respond. Pivoting him around so that his back once again rested against the wall, she stood in front of him. Grabbing his chin, she tilted his head back and forth as she studied her handiwork. In a low, exhausted voice, she finally said, "That in itself could take years."

Her tone and her words led him to believe that she had already tackled her problem from every possible angle and he wasn't sure he could offer any groundbreaking advice, so he tamped his mouth down shut and breathed through his nose.

She tugged the towel free from off his shoulders and began to brush at his neck, face, chest and back sending more of his hair down to the floor below. Setting the towel down on the counter she leaned towards him, her mouth pursed, and his heart fluttered in his rib cage as if trying to escape. A gentle wisp of air - no not just air, Leia's breath - tickled against his neck as she worked on a few, apparently stubborn hairs clinging to him there. Han felt wholly indebted to those particular fallen comrades and wished they would hold out for just a few minutes longer as he enjoyed this unexpected, most delightful, royal treatment.

Taking a step back, she set the shears on the counter with a gentle clink and crossed her arms at her chest as she studied him and sighed, "Much better." Taking a forefinger and wiping another stray hair from his cheek before she was done.

Han moved to lean forward and look in the mirror, but she shot forward, placing her hands on his shoulders and halting his progress. Pressing him against the wall, she said, "Nuh, uh, uh. No peeking, I'm not finished."

Relaxing his body against the wall behind him, he held his hands up in surrender, an amused smile painting his face.

She kept a watchful eye on him as she took her hands off of his shoulders and released him. One side of her mouth crept up in a smile that reeked of triumph. Turning to the sink she tapped the water on and then Han watched with great interest as she began to unbutton her long-sleeved shirt, pull it free from her trousers and shimmy it down off of her arms, finally letting it drop to the floor behind her. Without missing a beat, she began to lather up the container of soap in the small dish on the counter acting as if all of this was perfectly normal.

Han could not recall ever seeing her bare arms before, or so much of her _exposed_ like this for that matter. He marveled at the delicate lines that revealed a deceptively muscular frame beneath that milky white veil. Her pronounced collarbones glided beneath her skin like a bow against the strings of a violin as her arms moved gracefully about their task.

Finished with the soap, she grabbed the small bowl and held it in one hand - the mechanical one, Han noted - while she began to paint his face with the foamy cream with her other hand – the real one. Her touch once again sent sparks of energy through his scalp and down his spine, his throat tightened as he tried to swallow.

The smell of the soap overpowered all others and she placed the container down and picked up the razor. She began to shave his face, her lips separated in concentration. The absence of conversation screamed in the awkward silence of Han's impure thoughts. He noticed her delicately tending to any unhealed cuts or abrasions and then becoming most inquisitive around the scar on his chin. Running her thumb along it when she was done, she finally offered, "Evidence from a _prior_ female skirmish, I gather?"

Han forced down a pronounced swallow. "Somethin' like that, yeah."

She afforded him another smirk, this one of the seriously-doubtful kind, but she left it at that and continued.

Her thighs began to press heavily against his kneecaps as she reached around for the other side of his face. Slowly, he allowed his knees to separate and she stepped forward into the space that he had created. Straightening up, she inhaled and then exhaled a deep, tired breath. Holding the razor in one hand, she wiped some soap from his lips with the other and then wiped it onto her tank top at the waist leaving a trail of tiny bubbles in its wake.

Han watched as if in slow motion and as if somehow happening to someone else, as he lifted his hands and placed them on her waist, his thumb rubbing the soap bubbles into the material until they disappeared. Raising his eyes up to meet hers, he began to glide his hands up her sides, waiting for the first utterance of a protest. Her eyes were fixated on his, her lips remained slightly parted allowing delicate tufts of wine-soaked air, but not a single word, to escape.

On their second trip up her sides, he moved his hands over breasts and she gasped and closed her eyes in response. Han recognized the sound of the razor clattering against the tile floor as it fell from her hand. Gently massaging her breasts now, she leaned into him adding a delightful pressure to his touch. Feeling encouraged, he trailed his hands down her body and she opened her eyes and looked at him, his hands resting at her waist once again.

He watched her as she crossed her arms over her abdomen and then lifted her tank top up and over her head, dropping it down to the floor at their feet. Standing bare-chested in front of him, he tried to convince himself that he was dreaming as he ran his hands back up her abdomen and then over her naked breasts. His lips separated and his head moved slowly towards them, he could almost feel them in his mouth already, the sweet taste of her innocent skin against his tongue. His scalp, his chest and every single vessel in his body burned as if pure fire pumped through his veins.

His whispered name was falling out of her sweet lips as he watched his hands massage her breasts, his fingers tweaking her erect nipples eliciting a faint whimper from her in return. Something in the back of his skull tingled and he blinked heavily. Focusing on his fingertips, he noticed that they were lacking their little white-tipped bandages and he jerked his head slightly to knock off the confusion.

She whispered his name again and everything began to blur around him, every object in his view exploding into millions of colorful, swirling particles. The blood in his veins began to cool as the entire room started to spin with a definite jolt and her whispers became louder.

"Han!"

Blinking his eyes at the piercing pain in his head, he found her hovering over him and he was no longer sitting on the small chair, but scrunched up against the wall on the floor of the 'fresher.

"You fainted," she said as she moved to help him up, her tank top still on and tucked in neatly.

Realizing it was a dream, he quickly discovered that his body had reacted to their recent encounter, real or not, and he was fully aroused. Holding his hand up to her, white-tipped, bandaged fingers and all, he said, "Wait. Gimme a minute. Let's wait until the room stops spinnin', okay?"

She took her hand and moved his head to explore where his pain seemed to be radiating from. When she pulled her hand away he saw a red streak of blood.

She began to stand as she said, "Let me clean that up."

Knowing that having her hands on him in any way or fashion wouldn't help his current situation, he answered abruptly, "No, just gimme a minute, alright?"

His voice was harsher than he had intended and she looked confused and wounded as she stood up and began to clean up the razor, shears and soap. Drawing a deep breath he watched her as she gathered up a bandage and some antibiotics, and then turned to look down at him.

Finally getting his bearings, he moved to get up and she was on him like a mother bantha. Moving him slowly back onto the chair, she began to clean his head wound without waiting for permission.

As she wrapped his now throbbing head with a bandage, Han's eyes fell down to the faint remainder of soap trailed along her waist and imagined his hand resting there and his thumb rubbing the bubbles away and tried to remember exactly when he had truly passed out…


	8. Chapter 8

From a Certain Point of View

Han rolled over in his bed. A sliver of daylight winked through the screens on his window, teasing his eyelids open with its brilliant warmth. As he stretched his arms over his head and yawned, he glanced over at the chrono and stared for a moment.

It had been five days since he left the Medical Center and he had over a week and half left before he had to return for a follow-up visit. Slowly tapering off of his pain meds, his bouts with dizziness and nausea were becoming less and less frequent. And other than that 'incident' in the 'fresher, his days and nights living with Leia had been uneventful.

Like a stray nerf that she had brought home, the young rebel tended to his wounds, fed him and cared for him with a tenderness that often surprised him. But her protective guard never dropped, he still knew very little about her personal life and he wasn't even sure where she disappeared to everyday.

On a few occasions, like when she changed the bandages on his fingers or administered his medication, he could almost see her struggling to remain unemotional and detached. The signs weren't hard for him to recognize; he had made a life out of remaining detached. Only now, in the harsh light of his recent loneliness, did he wonder just where that life had gotten him and he worried where it was taking the fallen Princess.

His thoughts went to his old friend, Chewbacca, the loyal Wookiee that had been as much a part of his life as the _Falcon_. The manner in which they had finally parted ways hadn't exactly sat well with him. With all this newfound time to reminiscence, he slowly realized that the price of that loner life he clung so hungrily to had come with a hefty penalty. Loyalty and friendship had suffered greatly at the hands of freedom and autonomy.

Turning on his back, he looked up at the ceiling as a heavy weight settled on top of his chest. Each morning he was greeted by these alien thoughts of regret and despair. Never before had he been plagued by such self-doubt and self-pity and as his medicinal fog cleared, their persistence sharpened to what now seemed to be a razor's edge.

Han recognized these familiar demons from the debilitating night terrors he had suffered sporadically while in the hospital. And although they no longer plagued him in his sleep, he found them lurking in the shadows of his wakefulness, pacing back and forth like wild animals frothing at the mouth. They bore down on him, relentless and carnivorous, they ate away at him and he felt powerless against the overwhelming pressure and intensity of their hunger - a hunger, it seemed, for his very soul.

Pushing several long deep breaths through his lungs, he rolled out of bed and headed to his 'fresher to get dressed. He wondered if this was rock bottom for him, sure that he was unable to fall very much farther from here. Splashing his face with cool water, he did his best to shake off the unsettled feelings and ready himself for another day.

* * *

Later that afternoon, lounging in Leia's living room reading last week's edition of the Coruscant Comet, Han looked up at the sound of the apartment door sliding open. Leia walked in and placed her satchel on the entryway table.

"You're early," he stated as she walked towards him.

"You took the bandages off your fingers."

Han looked down to his half-grown fingernails and then back up to her. "Yeah, they don't hurt too much anymore." Taking another look at the raw, exposed skin, he added, "I can put the bandages back on if it bothers you."

"No." She shrugged off her jacket and flung it on the conform chair by the window. "I think you should wear the bandages at night, though. To apply the bacta effectively."

Han swung his legs over and placed his feet on the floor.

Leia moved towards him and sat at the edge of the lounger that his legs had just vacated and relaxed back against the cushions with a sigh. "Any more dizzy spells or light-headedness?"

He stared at her, she had her head tilted back and her eyes were closed. "No."

Her head lifted up and she opened her eyes to find his. "Well, that's good news." She finished with a tender smile.

"Yep." Placing his hands on his knees, he moved to get up as he said, "And speaking of good news, I thought I would cook us dinner tonight."

The pair had been "enjoying" Leia's cooking since Han had arrived and it turned out that the watery soup she served him that first day had been her flagship meal.

Standing now, he watched as she cocked an eyebrow at him. "Are you insinuating anything about my cooking, Captain Solo?"

"No," he replied quickly as he flung the Coruscant Comet onto the kaffe table. "I wouldn't dare."

"That's not exactly a retraction."

Han chuckled. "I'm still here, ain't I?"

"Meaning my cooking hasn't killed you yet?"

"Your words not mine." He winked at her and began to walk toward the kitchen. "I'll get started while you get comfortable."

Han entered the kitchen and went directly to the chiller. Leia had been bringing home miscellaneous grocery items over the past couple of days, what she had kept in the kitchen before he arrived was anybody's guess. Regardless, he began to set various spices and vegetables on the counter as he mentally patched together a recipe with the limited ingredients on hand.

Most of the vegetables were chopped and the nerf steaks were marinating by the time Leia entered the kitchen. She was wearing a cream-colored, long-sleeved thermal tee shirt that Han began to recognize as one of her favorites. It bore a red Alliance symbol on the upper right and hugged her tiny frame intimately. She wore some dark grey, casual pants that cinched at the waist with a small chord. On her feet, were large, thick socks, another Leia-staple. It seemed no matter what the temperature of the apartment, she was always cold.

Drawing in a deep breath through her nose, she wrapped her arms around herself. "Oh, that smells wonderful."

Letting out a chuckle, Han replied, "I haven't even turned the burner on yet. That's just the raw seasoning."

"Well, it still smells good," she pouted as she reached around him and grabbed a chopped tekli sprout, sniffing at it for a moment before popping it into her mouth.

Han shook his head and looked at her. "Do you even know what you just ate?"

"A sprout?" Leia answered while still chewing, forming her words definitely more as a question than a statement.

Han watched her as she chewed and waited for him to answer her. There was something about Leia in the kitchen that he liked instantly. Maybe it was because it was the one place he had ever seen her appear off-balance and unsure of herself. She seemed younger and innocent and unguarded. He felt a silly smile crawling across his face, but he couldn't stop it.

"What?" Leia placed her hand over her mouth, covering her own shy smile. There was a sparkle in her eye that could have illuminated the entire Coruscant underground.

"C'mere," he said as he placed his hands on her sides and lifted her to sit on the kitchen counter, "You can talk to me while I cook."

She hadn't resisted his handling of her, but the giddiness instantly vanished. Arching an eyebrow at him she swallowed the remainder of the tekli sprout and replied, "What do you want me to talk about?"

Han recognized her defensive shields shooting up and he looked back down at the vegetables and shrugged. "Whatever you want."

He made a point to avoid eye contact as he left her on the counter and began to gather pots and miscellaneous food items, not wanting to scare her off. After a short silence, he suggested, "You know, like your hair…or makeup…or the latest fashion trends."

He looked over at her and gave her a wink and she allowed a smile to caress her lips. Her shoulders relaxed and she drew her legs up and crossed them in front of her, her elbows resting on her knees. She watched him cook in silence for a long time, however, before she finally decided to speak.

Han hadn't really had anything specific in mind for her to talk about. And when she started off by discussing the New Republic he certainly hadn't been shocked. But it was only by the time the nerf stew was simmering and he was leaning on the opposite counter giving her his full attention while she sipped on a glass of red wine, that she finally surprised him.

"We had a chef at the palace. His name was Nat. And no one was allowed in his kitchen…_ever_." She lifted her eyebrows to add emphasis to this fact.

Han took a sip of his drink and remained silent.

Leia stared at him for a moment, twirling the wine around in her glass, before she continued. "My father and I would sneak into the kitchen at night, after Nat went home. Bail would make me some of the silliest concoctions. Like…" Her eyes drifted up to the ceiling, her thoughts a million parsecs away. Meeting Han's gaze again, she continued, "Bayberry jam and muja fruit sandwiches." She smiled and took a sip of her wine. "Always messy, sometimes double and triple decker…always way too much for us to eat."

Her eyes came down to rest on the glass of wine in her hands and she straightened up her posture. There was a time that he hated her for what she had done to him, a time when he had equated everything that had gone wrong in his life recently to the day she walked back into it. But for better or worse, right or wrong, he no longer blamed her for the decisions that had landed him here. He wondered if she had made peace with her decisions.

"Sounds like fun," Han finally offered with a warm smile.

"It was," she answered simply and then shook her head as if chasing painful memories away. "Anyway, we would of course, do our best to clean up before Nat came back in the morning."

"Of course."

"But he always somehow knew that we had been there and he had an uncanny ability to name our previous night's inventions." She drew a long sip of wine. "And so it became a game between us."

She smiled broadly, and Han saw the young woman who had run across the hangar to greet him and Luke after they blew up the Death Star. He felt something inside of his chest wind up tight. She had had a family full of love and cherished memories and it had been maliciously stripped away from her. Now here they were, living in the same self-appointed exile, alone and guarded from the rest of the universe - her by a cruel twist of fate and him by his own design. Han didn't know which was worse.

"Sometimes our stomachs paid the price, though," she added into his silence, as she rolled her eyes and rubbed her belly to accentuate her point.

"I can imagine." He decided that he could sit and watch her talk like this all night. The spirit of that younger Leia was pouring out of her once again, her eyes wider, her smile all teeth and cheeks. A few freckles, usually hidden by a light layer of makeup, dotted her freshly washed face. Her innocence, whatever was left of it, exuded a beauty that filled the room.

Han certainly would've thought that Alderaan and her lost childhood would have been hard for her to talk about, depressing even, but the more she spoke it seemed just the opposite was true. So he settled back and let her talk, asking innocuous questions here and there and soaking her in like a luxurious bath.

* * *

Like Leia's thick socks and Alliance thermal tee, these kitchen conversations quickly became an established routine for the unlikely pair. As Han cooked, Leia would sit on the counter and talk to him. She also helped chop seasoning and was a very diligent taste tester. His entire day now centered around this time they would share together and his dark mood and depressing thoughts were kept in check by her stories and those smiles that he knew not just anyone got to see.

And so, their days together went much like that over the next week and a half. And the morning of Han's appointment was upon him before he even had time to worry about it much more. Deciding not to mention it to Leia, Han waited until she left the apartment to get dressed and head to the Medical Center alone.

With a clean bill of health and a new determination blooming in his gut, Han left the hospital and made his way to the main military hangar. He was surprised at how many friendly, familiar faces he found when he arrived there. As he engaged in some idle chatter with Wedge Antilles, Han's heart jumped up into his throat when he recognized Leia skirting around the hangar floor and climbing up into an X-wing - Luke's old X-wing.

She had indicated to Han that Artoo remained at her office every evening and he recalled how strange he thought that had sounded when she had first said it. Watching the little domed droid being lowered into the infamous X-wing, all of Han's misgivings regarding Leia's whereabouts during the day surged inside of him.

Wedge followed Han's line of sight and confirmed the spacer's suspicions. According to the New Republic General, Princess Leia left the planet almost every day.

* * *

She came home late that evening and dinner was all but ready by the time she arrived. Sitting down at the table across from her, Han worked on suppressing the mistrust that had flourished inside of him over the past several hours. If Leia noticed anything, she declined to comment.

After rearranging the food on his plate in silence, Han put his fork down and asked, "So, how was your day?"

"Fine. And yours?"

Something inside of him screamed to tread lightly. "Great. In fact, I went to the med center today and got my final clearance."

"Oh." She looked genuinely surprised. "That's wonderful."

"Yeah. And then I went by the hangar and talked to Wedge for a little bit."

Her eyes shot up and her face turned about two shades paler, but she said nothing.

"He says he can set me up with a job and an apartment."

Her mouth fell open and her head immediately began to shake back and forth. "You don't have to leave."

"I think I've worn out my welcome, Your Highness." Han picked up his glass of ale and drank from it. "I'm fully recovered now." They watched each other as he set his glass back down.

"I'm the reason you lost your job, your ship-"

"You don't owe me anything, Leia. And if you insist that you do, you can consider that debt paid."

She placed her hands on the table and pushed herself up to a standing position. "Let's talk about this later."

But there was no later. She disappeared into her bedroom and didn't come out for the rest of the evening. Han certainly didn't make a habit of trying to figure out women, but Leia definitely had him thrown for a loop here. There was no doubt in his mind that she wanted him to stay with her and that their 'relationship' had developed into some sort of friendship over the past several weeks. And he would be lying if he said he was in a rush to leave, especially to go and bunk with a bunch of single pilots.

But if there was any one thing that could gnaw at Han's gut it was the feeling of being lied to. He knew that technically she hadn't lied about anything because she never really talked about where she went during the day, but something about the sight of her lifting off the planet in Luke's old X-wing just didn't sit right with him. In fact, it set in Han's stomach like a lava rock – heavy, hot and uncomfortable. Han went to bed unsure of his next move, but like any good gambler, he kept playing his hand over again and again in his mind.

* * *

The next day she arrived home later than she ever had before, missing dinner altogether.

When she finally entered the apartment Han barely gave her time to set her bag down when he stood up and said, "Where've you been going during the day?"

She placed her bag down gently, her movements slow and deliberate. Turning around to face him she stared at him for a long moment as if gauging how much he could possibly know. "That's none of your business, Captain."

He began to walk toward her. "Oh, so now I'm '_Captain'_. Yesterday you were practically begging me to stay but the minute I ask you to be honest with me, I'm demoted to your personal pilot again."

"I was not begging you to stay. If that's what you heard then you've got quite an imagination."

Standing in front of her now, he looked down at her, their eyes furiously locked on each other. "Then why don't I just leave tonight?"

"Suit yourself."

She held her ground and glared back at him for several heartbeats before she turned on her heels and stormed out of the room.

_That damn woman!_ Han stood there for a moment shaking his head. He walked to the dining room and began to clean up his dinnerware. After placing all the dishes in the sanitizer, Han poured himself a drink and returned to the dining room table. He took a seat facing the living area and sipped on his drink.

He barely had time to contemplate his next move when he heard her bedroom door slide open. Her small figure glided like a shadow down the hallway until she came to a stop at the other end of the table. "You're still here."

"Disappointed?"

"I did _beg_ you to stay, remember?"

Her flippant reply, the words steely and cool, glaringly contradicted her body language. If he had ever seen her putting up a front before, it was nothing compared to what she was doing now. "What are you hiding, Leia?" His tone was soft and his eyebrows were wrinkled in worry.

The hint of compassion or fear or whatever he had seen before vanished and a cool façade slid over her like a second skin. "Leave or stay, it makes no difference to me. But don't start thinking I, _in any way_, have to answer to you."

For the second time that evening their eyes locked in a long silence. Han wasn't sure what else to say. He wanted to grab her and shake it out of her until she crumbled in his arms and told him everything. But he was afraid that he wouldn't be strong enough to hold her together if she did finally break and he dreaded hearing what she might actually have to say. So any reply that came to his mind stalled deep in his throat until he swallowed it down – silencing the words forever.

He stood up, grabbed his empty glass and headed to the kitchen without a word. When he came out, just moments later, she was gone. In her room, out of the apartment, he couldn't say for sure. He walked to his suite and readied himself for bed.

* * *

Han slept restlessly and for the first time since leaving the hospital felt the horrific grip of his night terrors return. No more than a hazy fog of anguish and horror, shock and sorrow, his dreams had no storyline or face, just raw, unadulterated emotions. And not unlike the torture he had endured in captivity, his nightmares meticulously tore him apart, dragging him to the edge of self-destruction, only to cruelly yank him back. The vicious cycle repeated until Han yearned once again for the comfort of death, the only answer to the overwhelming pain.

Teetering on the edge of subconscious sleep, Han slowly felt his body sink into a peaceful serenity like a warm embrace wrapping around him. Something hovered over him like a canopy offering him shelter from his emotional storm. It was familiar and comforting and his body went limp with a thankful exhaustion. He wondered if he had succumbed to the sweet pull of death, but the drumming of his heart convinced him otherwise.

Fighting to maintain control of his mind, Han tried to identify this mysterious salvation. His eyelids, heavy as the metal doors of Jabba's Palace, refused to obey his request to open. A mental gauntlet thrown down now, he struggled to take back control of his senses, his every muscle fighting him the entire way. Finally a flicker of light invaded his consciousness as his eyes fluttered open.

What he had expected to find he couldn't say for sure but what he did find rocked him to his very core. Leia's face just centims from his, resting on a shared pillow, her breath washing over him in delicate tufts. Her eyes closed, her face marred in intense concentration and her chest rising and falling in a deep rhythm.

It wasn't until her fingers stirred that he realized they were holding hands and he slammed his eyes shut and worked on calming his now frantic breathing. She disengaged herself from him and he felt the mattress lift as she rolled off the bed. The sound of his bedroom door sliding shut signaled him to open his eyes once again, finding himself alone, his room drenched in the darkness of early morning.

Gliding his hand over the mattress where her body had just been, the warmth that remained there convinced him that what he had just experienced had not merely been a dream. He took the pillow and pressed it against his face, inhaling that familiar scent that she had left behind. Turning on his back, he closed his eyes, trying to discern exactly what had just happened.


	9. Chapter 9

From a Certain Point of View

Han shut his eyes and drew back into his thoughts, the remnants of Leia's presence still lingered in his subconscious like the phantom warmth she had left behind on the sheets. Feeling at once violated and exposed, fragile and vulnerable, Han drew in a deep breath and then held it. She had been that warm embrace, that shelter from the storm, that mysterious salvation from the demons of his dreams.

He released the breath he was holding and opened his eyes. Just what to make of this strange turn of events, he wasn't exactly sure. Was this an isolated incident spurned on by their argument the night before? Maybe she had sensed his distress, and feeling guilty, had come to his aid. Or was this the reason he had not suffered from his nightmares since moving in with her?

Her very curious reticence regarding him leaving and getting an apartment now took on a whole new light. Was she afraid for him? Should he be afraid for himself? The burning desire to get answers to any one of these questions encouraged Han to get out of bed as he heard the telltale sounds of Leia moving around in the apartment.

Dressing quickly, he rushed out of his room to catch Leia before she left; they didn't usually see each other in the morning. She was standing in the foyer, rummaging through her bag and her movements froze at the sight of him. He slowed his pace as he walked towards her, utilizing the last bit of time to determine his course of action.

Something between the time he had woken up and now had convinced him not to mention what he had discovered earlier that morning and the very sight of her confirmed his decision. Whether it was the apprehensive look spread across her face or the nagging uncertainty if perhaps it had never really happened, he couldn't say for sure.

"Mornin'," he offered as he came to a stop a few steps away from her.

"Good morning," she replied as she slung her satchel over her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about yesterday. I never meant to insinuate that you _answer _to me in any way. I guess where you go is really none of my business."

She heaved in a deep breath. "This…," she began as she fanned her hand between them and let the air out of her lungs, "_relationship _that we've started…you living here, someone waiting for me when I get home. It's just all new to me. That's all."

"Well, I've decided to take that job with Wedge. And I'll definitely talk to him about an apartment, too."

"No," she answered abruptly and then her shoulders fell and she sighed. "That's not what I meant. I guess we should just…maybe talk about expectations…and boundaries. There's no need for you to spend money you've barely earned on an apartment. Not just yet, anyway."

_Not just yet_, he dissected her every word and studied her every movement searching for any hidden meaning buried in them. Running his fingers through his hair, he heaved a sigh of his own. "What about Roman? I mean, I ain't seen him around, but I'm sure he's bound to start-"

"Let me worry about Roman."

"No. You say that, but if I were him, I'd-"

"When I left to find you…let's just say that the New Republic wasn't the only relationship that I broke off."

Han's breath caught and he stared at her for a moment. Shaking his head, he replied, "All the more reason, Leia."

"It's not like that. It had…or _has_ nothing to do with you."

Han tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. When he brought his eyes back to her, she was patiently waiting for him.

And there, in the dark puddles staring back at him, he lost his desire to fight or flee. He took another deep breath and said, "Alright. I'll meet with Wedge today, see what this job pays and decide about the apartment once I get started."

One corner of her mouth ticked up in a small smile. "Alright."

He offered a hesitant grin in return. "Expectations and boundaries," he said like a statement.

She nodded her head but didn't respond.

"Will you be home tonight to discuss 'em?"

Taking a moment to stare at him, she smiled and nodded before she turned around and left.

* * *

"Rogue Squadron, Solo. Not just anybody can walk into something like this, you know that."

Han sat across the desk from General Wedge Antilles. A fellow Corellian, he and Wedge had become fast friends during his short stint with the Alliance. "I know that, Wedge, and I appreciate it. But like I said, I'd rather something that didn't come with so many…stripes."

"Can't blame a guy for trying. It actually does my heart good to know that the years haven't changed you."

Han nodded, his stomach turning at his old friend's words.

"Anyway, I'll see what I can dig up that's…suitable for you."

Han squirmed in his chair and said sardonically, "Why does that make me feel so uneasy?"

"Either because I'm Corellian or because you are."

"I think it may be a little bit of both."

Wedge chuckled as he started to shuffle through some flimsiplasts. "And what about that apartment?"

"I think I'm set on that, for a while anyway."

After some good-natured negotiating, Han accepted the highest, non-military position that Wedge offered him and agreed to begin work that very day. The job would keep him on the hangar floor, supervising security, scheduling and maintenance crews.

"Alright." Wedge stood up and the two men shook hands. "I look forward to working with you, Han."

"Same here, Wedge." Han took his hand back and then stood for a moment.

"Was there something else?"

"Do you know anything about where the Princess goes in that old X-wing?"

Wedge opened his mouth and then closed it again, regarding Han for a moment before he spoke. He took a hand and massaged his chin. "That's right. You took her off-planet right after the news broke, didn't you?"

Han nodded.

Wedge looked down at his holoscreen and punched a few buttons on his input terminal. "I'm not at liberty to disclose her flight paths, but…" He looked back up to Han and after a deep breath added, "It would be my best guess…"

"That she's using a dummy jump," Han completed the General's thought recalling his own 'dummy jump' towards Naboo when he flew the Princess to Dagobah.

Wedge nodded.

"How'd she get an X-wing, anyway?"

Wedge sat back down in his chair, waving a hand at Han to do the same. "That's Luke Skywalker's X-wing, as I'm sure you realize."

Han remained silent.

"Anyway, there were several things that happened following Commander Skywalker's death…and let's just say…" Wedge leaned forward, placing his arms on his desk. "I'm not going to be the one to mention to the Princess that that X-wing belongs to the New Republic…and I'm not alone on that."

"These _things_ that happened…"

Wedge leaned back in his chair, rested his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers together. "Most are classified, and the rest…" Wedge brought his hands up to his mouth and then lowering them and lacing his fingers together, he said, "Well, the rest, I believe, would be for the _Princess_ to tell."

* * *

Han's entire day was spent completing forms, attending training, gaining security clearance and meeting personnel. The welcomed distraction of people and work did not allow him to dwell on anything too long; the echo of Wedge's words the only thing that persistently swirled through his mind.

Something told him that even Wedge only knew half of the story regarding Princess Leia and most probably the 'classified' half. Whatever the rest was, it safely rested inside Leia alone. But even the general idea of it, the hint of what might have happened, was enough to garner respect from the seasoned General as well as, it would seem, many others.

An endless parade of possibilities marched through Han's mind throughout the entire day. Wild scenarios that explained everything from her mechanical arm to her apparent birthright both entertained and disheartened him – some, so preposterous they were comical and some, so horrific they were depressing. But before Han knew it, his first day of work was complete and he headed 'home' and was showered up and preparing dinner by the time Leia arrived.

She entered the kitchen tentatively with a timid air that definitely wasn't the norm. He looked at her and stared. She wore a skirt and tank top, apparently having shed her blazer when she entered the apartment. Her legs were short, yet muscular and lean. Her biceps were curvy and defined but still very feminine. Her collarbones protruded in sharp angles and her breasts stood at attention like two compliant soldiers. He could see the outline of her ribcage through her tank top and her stomach beneath was a flat plane.

She was a bundle of muscles and nerves and, for the first time, she appeared like a weapon to him – a highly polished sword. Vague memories of her battle to save him flashed through his mind along with several of those wild possibilities he had entertained earlier. Just what had she been through? What was this story that only she could tell?

"What?" She asked defiantly, apparently not appreciating Han's overt study of her.

"Nothing," he replied quickly while he shook his head and looked away. "How was your day?"

She scooted up on the counter and took a seat, her legs dangling as she crossed them at the knees. They started off with the usual small talk, Han giving her a brief synopsis of his first day of work and Leia asking all the normal questions. He continued to study her, not knowing which was more mesmerizing: her smile, her legs, her breasts…her eyes or the mystery of everything that hid beneath them.

It wasn't until he was fixing their plates that he broached the subject of 'expectations and boundaries'. "So, I'm not allowed to wonder where you disappear to every day or ask any questions about anything regarding your personal life."

"That sounds about right," she replied flatly as she slid off the counter and landed softly on her feet.

"Meanwhile I'm an open book." He handed her a plate of food.

She scoffed. "I'd hardly describe it that way."

"Well, for the past few weeks I could barely go to the 'fresher without you knowing about it."

She set her plate down on the counter and folded her arms across her chest. "Who's the one that's been doing most of the talking while you cook?"

"We have yet to reach anything close to current events in your life."

"Oh, okay. Current events, is it? So tell me, what exactly happened between you and Chewie?"

She threw it at him like a professional smashball player and Han didn't even have time to think about fielding her question before he felt the color rise to his cheeks. "Alright," he replied steely and he felt his nostrils flare. "Maybe we both have things that we don't want to talk about."

"Precisely." She wore a victorious air as she grabbed her plate and turned toward the dining room.

Han stood in the kitchen for a moment before he moved to fix his plate. If everything about Leia seemed to confuse him, this exchange certainly did not. What she was alluding to was not a new concept to the worldly spacer. Everything had a price: credits in exchange for spice, dirty deeds in exchange for under-handed favors and information in exchange for information. He shook his head and headed for the dining room.

He joined her at the table, sliding into his chair in silence. Stealing quick glances at one another, he could feel the questions climbing up his throat, begging to be set free. _What were you doing in my bed last night? Have you been digging around inside of my head? Is Darth Vader your father?_ But nothing came out. Han swallowed them like a hollow, tasteless meal and his stomach rumbled as they churned inside of him. Looking down at his plate, he could only stare, he had fixed his favorite dish, but somewhere along the way his appetite had been completely lost.

* * *

Nearly three weeks later, Leia sat in her now traditional spot near the sink in the kitchen, washing some fresh fruits and vegetables. Han had gone to the market, his first paycheck loaded on a credit chip, and had purchased everything for a celebratory meal that evening. He felt particularly liberated and energized as he moved around the kitchen with a light spring to his step.

Leia was easily swept up in his mood as she entertained him with stories and the pair bantered back and forth with light teasing. Things had been touch and go between the two following their argument several weeks ago, but the easy conversation had been slowly returning and the excitement of this evening seemed to get them right back to where they had been.

The day had been breezy and chilly, the temperature dropping at the first signs of the winter season. Han had suggested a nice hearty soup was in order and the two worked together; she sliced, he diced and eventually all the ingredients were in a large pot. Han set the burner on high and turned to look at Leia.

The blustery day had left her hair unruly, with wispy strands sticking up here and there and the color on her cheeks was now a tantalizing combination of red, both from the toasty warmth of the kitchen and wind burn. She had just finished popping something into her mouth. Han just barely caught the quick hint of purple disappearing behind a guilty smile, as Leia's eyes met his from across the room.

"Was that a grape?" Han asked. His eyebrow arched in curiosity as he began to walk towards her.

As if unable to control the reaction, she immediately closed her eyes and hummed in delight as she nodded her head in the affirmative.

"Where are they? I wanted to try one."

Her eyes flew open and her lips parted slightly, a sprinkle of color deepened the redness on her cheeks.

"You ate them all?" Han stopped in front of her, his voice elevated in disbelief. "Those're my favorite!" He had bought an entire cluster.

She bit her lip and nodded as her hand began to disappear slowly and discreetly behind her back.

Han's face turned serious and he cocked his head at her. "What's that behind your back, Princess?"

"Nothing," she mumbled around a half-chewed grape.

He took one more step toward her, placing his hands on the counter at either side of her legs. "_Nothing_?" He whispered the word although he had not meant to. Sliding his hand down the counter slowly, he added, "Okay, let me see this nothing."

Her elbows jerked and Han pounced in response, grabbing her wrist and pulling her hand in between them amidst shrieks of laughter and protests from Leia. Concentrating on her captured hand, Leia squirmed as he pried her fingers open to reveal an empty palm. Quick as a flash out of the corner of his eye, Leia's other hand went to her mouth, her cheek bulging out visibly as she pulled her hand away.

"Leia!" Han screeched in response as he grabbed her other wrist, only to find another empty palm, this one tinged purple.

Her jaw bit down on the plump fruit and a tiny bit of juice escaped from the devilish grin she fought not-so-successfully to suppress.

"They were sooo good." Her words were delivered with a slight whine to them, apparently attempting to combine an apology and an explanation of her childish behavior.

Han still held both of her wrists in his hands and he stared at her while slowly shaking his head. Between the redness on her bloated cheeks, the juice dribbling down her chin and the wicked glint in her dark eyes, he wasn't sure where to focus his attention.

And then the frivolity in the air burst like the ersatz grape in Leia's mouth and the mood in the room instantly sobered. Han felt his cheeks fall as his smile quickly faded, suddenly acutely aware of how close he was to her.

Whatever this relationship was between the two of them, neither one ever dared to venture toward the serious, both finding comfort in the barriers they had carefully erected around themselves. Han could feel her pulse pounding beneath his fingertips and a memory of her lying next to him in his bed flashed through his mind. In recent weeks, he had tried unsuccessfully to catch her again, but he never could. She had been there though, perhaps not every night, but often enough. He had become more and more adept at recognizing the signs.

He watched as Leia bit her bottom lip, a habit that made her appear deceptively vulnerable. Dragging his eyes back to hers, he forced a faint smile as he asked, "Were they really that good?"

He looked down at her mouth again as she released her bottom lip from between her teeth and nodded very slightly in answer to his question.

The silence hung between them, the bubbling soup the only sound in the room. He still held her hands in his, his stomach pressed against her folded legs as his eyes locked back on hers. He pulled gently on her arms fully expecting her to resist, but her body willingly gravitated toward him.

The wide, brown eyes staring back at him did not belong to any Leia that he had ever seen before. His heart thumped inside of his chest as he leaned into her, their faces just centims apart. _Tell me to stop_, he silently begged her as he swallowed and said, "I would've liked to judge that for myself."

She shook her head almost imperceptibly and her mouth opened but she seemed unable to form words. Her eyes were wide with a hint of fear and desire married inside of them.

He had certainly dreamt of kissing the Princess more times that he would ever care to admit, in fact, he had dreamt of doing things to Leia that he was more than sure would earn him a lightsaber to the gut. But something stopped him.

He pulled his head away slightly and studied her for a moment, diving into the murky water of her eyes, as deep as the Mon Calamari oceans yet as dark and mysterious as the swamps of Dagobah. He felt lost and confused and he blinked several times to find himself again.

Looking down at her chin, he took his thumb and swiped the trail of syrupy liquid from her face. Meeting her eyes once more, he slowly brought his thumb up to his mouth and kissed the nectar from his finger, savoring the sweet, tangy flavor as he watched her watching him. The silence in the room was as dark as the depths of her eyes.

The lid on the soup clanged against the pot as the hot liquid burped bubbles of steam. Leia blinked at the sound and reality filed back into the room like so many soldiers. Han watched her for a moment longer and then he stepped away and turned his attention back to the simmering pot.

They sat across the table from one another, suddenly strangers - as if an invisible line had been crossed. The memory of that faint hint of desire in her eyes was teasing him cruelly. He wanted her…and not just in his fantasies or as a phantom of his dreams. He wanted to stand up, walk across the room and kiss her until the line they crossed was no longer invisible. But there were some things in his life, like flying or the love of his ship, that Han knew from the start he could never do in half-measures and the woman sitting across from him was one such thing.

"Chewie and me didn't agree…about leaving after Yavin," Han started before he even knew where he was going.

She looked up at him and visibly swallowed but said nothing.

"He wanted to stay. Join up even." Han sighed heavily, the words escaping his lips leaving a void in his soul. "But I was the Captain. It was my ship. My call."

"And you wanted to leave."

"I _wanted_ to pay off a debt."

"I believe Chewie might have wanted the same thing."

Han stared at her and then blinked. "Yeah."

"But he stayed with you all that time afterwards." She shrugged her shoulders. "What suddenly changed?"

Han took a sip of his drink and then set the mug down. "I think the problem might have been…what didn't change."

She bit her lip and then pressed them together as if stifling a reply.

"Wookiees see time a lot differently than we do, because of how long they live and all." Han looked away from her, down at the table in between them. "It wasn't actually all that long."

"Before he finally gave up on you?"

He met her eyes again. "Yeah."

"Or was it that you gave up on yourself?"

"Does it matter?"

"It probably does to Chewie."

He stared at her, not able to formulate a reply. She took a sip of her wine and went back to her soup. Han watched her for a moment before he finally did the same.


	10. Chapter 10

From a Certain Point of View

The pain radiated through Han, from his fingertips to the tips of his toes. He gasped for air, the crushing pressure on his chest nearly suffocating him. His footsteps pounded against the duracrete in time with the beating of his heart but his movements were sluggish, as if running underwater. And the faster he tried to run the farther his destination slid forward in front of him.

Long arms came out of nowhere and grabbed him, the heat from their skin searing him and razor sharp claws left trails of blood behind them. Flailing his arms and kicking his legs, he fought to escape. Silent screams curdled his blood until a sharp pang nearly cracked the back of his skull open and he fell to his knees. Finally finding his voice he moaned for mercy as he struggled to free himself from his captors.

Darkness settled over him turning everything black, from the air that he breathed to the blood running through his veins. Toxic and venomous he fought the poison seeping through him as it seemed to wick the fight right out of his bones. A long, tortuous scream of defeat died in his throat as his eyes flew open, shattering the darkness with the faint hint of light.

Deep, panting breaths of air escaped through his mouth as his chest heaved up and down. It took him a moment to gain his bearings as he brought his hands up to his face and studied his fingernails, mistrusting his eyes that they were indeed still there. One more long forceful breath escaped his lungs as he blinked his eyes heavily. He was in his bed, the sheets balled up all around him and drenched in his sweat. A dream, it was a dream. A wave of intense relief washed over him, triggering hot, stinging tears to well up in his eyes.

He rolled out of bed and walked to the 'fresher, shedding his damp clothing along the way. It was the middle of the night, but he thought better of trying to sleep again as he stepped under the jets of water and cleansed the film of perspiration that covered him.

Leia had not come home from work and after waiting up late for her to arrive, he had finally gone to bed. If there was ever any doubt about what had been happening in the middle of the night, recent events put those thoughts to rest. His only question now was why she had left him alone to suffer and where, in all of the nine hells of Corellia, was she?

By the time dawn broke, Han was floating in kaffe and he went to work looking like a spice addict the morning after. He was groggy and found it hard to focus. It felt like so much more than a simple lack of sleep, more like the dream itself had been siphoning the strength out of him.

Later that evening, he sat in her apartment at the dining room table. His elbows on the table and his head resting in his hands as he fought the constant, sweet pull of sleep. It took all he had to lift his head and look towards the door as he heard it slide open.

As soon as he saw her he shot up, the adrenaline pumping through his veins chasing the drowsiness away.

"What happened?" He gasped as he approached her.

Her face was dirty and her left cheek was swollen, the skin a shiny purple. Her clothes were disheveled and ragged and on her left bicep her sleeve clung to her skin, stained with the deep crimson of dried blood.

"It's not that bad," she replied as he grabbed her chin, tilting her head up so he could study the nasty bruise.

"Leia, what happened?"

She looked up at him and studied his eyes for a moment. As if recognizing his exhaustion, her face clouded over with guilt and grief. She took her hand and grabbed his wrist, pulling it away from her face. "I was looking for something."

And then she dropped her hand and took a step toward him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against him, her chest deflating with a heavy sigh. It took him a moment to respond, but eventually he draped his arms around her in a loose embrace. Her body melted into him in return and he increased the pressure of his hold as he rested his cheek against the top of her head.

Whether it was this uncharacteristic display by the Princess or his nagging exhaustion or a combination of both, he didn't know, but all he wanted to do was hold her like that forever. As if with her in his arms all the rest would just disappear. There were no unanswered questions or demons lurking in the shadows, only the two of them and it felt so unbelievably right in spite of everything else. He let out a sharp breath and felt the sting of tears wash over his eyes. But even through his hazy fatigue, he knew it just wasn't that easy.

After a long moment he gave her a squeeze, and said, "C'mon, we should clean up that wound."

They walked to the 'fresher and she sat in the same chair that Han had sat when he had first arrived, the chair where she had tended to him until he passed out. While he gathered up bandages and bacta, she removed her long-sleeved shirt, hissing in pain as she ripped the material away from where it had attached itself to her mangled skin.

When he turned around to face her, he tried not to notice the thin camisole that was not-so-discreetly clinging to her every curve. Leia moved and held herself as if oblivious to the fact that she had a woman's body or that Han would even notice it under the thick layer of grime that she brought home with her.

The bright, red blood trickling down her arm helped him to regain his focus and he knelt down in front of her and began to clean what was clearly a blaster wound. They both remained silent as he worked on her injury. The trail of dried blood and filth meandered all the way down to the creases in between her fingers but he concentrated on the area directly surrounding the nasty gash.

As his hands worked on her upper arm the backs of his fingers brushed up against her breast repeatedly; an innocent, inadvertent touch to be sure, but electrifying nonetheless. A wave of bumps covered Leia's skin as the air turned thick around them. Han's throat closed up as if he was allergic to her and he struggled to swallow and keep his concentration on the task at hand. Several soiled bandages later, he applied a liberal amount of bacta over the clean, exposed burn and then sat back on his heels and looked at her, resting his hands on his thighs.

An entire conversation flowed between them in that one long glance. He was tired, physically from a lack of sleep and an imaginary fight for his life. But also tired mentally, tired of playing this game with her, with her half-answers and mysterious behavior. And she was clearly affected by his apparent suffering during her absence, looking at him as if he was the one that needed tending to, her eyes studying the lines on his face like the pages of a holonovel.

Shaking his head into the silence and sighing heavily, he started, "Leia-"

She began shaking her head in the negative, brushing off his question before he even had a chance to ask her anything.

Placing his hands on her knees, he pressed on, "Who did this to you?"

The answer flashed across her face and Han could see her waging a battle with her mind. Tightening her lips together furiously, unwilling to let a single word escape.

Han's determination swelled; he was no longer content on waiting for her to break. He was tired and worried and fed up with her silence. He put as much force as he could behind his next words, "Leia-"

And then her hands were on his face, cool and trembling against his skin, silencing the remainder of his thought before it could be voiced. She leaned into him, their faces so close their noses nearly touched. Her chin hitched up and her lips brushed up against his, their breath mingling in the air between them. Her eyes remained open and wide, darting back and forth, silently studying him.

Han drew in a breath as if to speak again and she pressed her lips against his. The kiss was awkward and chaste, only landing on half of his mouth. Closing her eyes, she rested there for a heartbeat as if savoring the silence this bold move had afforded her. Her lips were soft and warm against his and he felt her hands traveling to the back of his head as his own eyes closed. Lacing her fingers through his hair, he felt a wave of bumps wash over his skin as she pulled him into a deeper kiss with one heavy breath.

Han's heartbeat and breathing sped up reflexively and he lifted off of his heels and ran his hands up her thighs as he leaned into her, finally resting them on her hips with a gentle squeeze. The half-whimper, half-moan that she gave him in response caused a painful surge in his crotch and he answered her with a tortured, low-pitched groan of his own.

And then the tentative, awkward start was behind them and they plunged ahead full throttle. He snaked his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, her body sinking against him, soft and supple as if void of bones. Their chests pressed together madly, their breathing fast and furious and their lips never separating. She clung to him desperately, wrapping her arms around his neck as if he might try to escape. The sounds coming from her, agony and ecstasy, woven together like the braids in her hair, reached into his soul and squeezed his heart with an iron fist. Their tongues danced and battled for position while Han's mind raced to catch up with the rest of his body.

Although he preferred action over words, especially if those actions resembled anything close to what Princess Leia was currently doing to him, something about her kiss set off those pesky warning bells in the back of Han's brain. The woman that preferred words was resorting to action probably for reasons as complex as she was. He hoped, desperately hoped, that part of those reasons were to convey feelings she had a difficult time trying to express. But he knew in his heart that part of the reason was to evade answering his questions. And suddenly the kiss that he had longed for and the lips that he had craved to taste, turned bittersweet.

He brought a hand up to her face and rested it against her cheek as he attempted to slow down their frantic encounter. His thumb stroked the side of her face, finding a damp warmth there that cooled his engines even further. The moment began to unwind around them as he gently pulled his body from hers, the arms wrapped around his neck reluctantly loosening. Transforming their deep kiss into gentle caresses, he began to plant tiny, delicate kisses along her now-closed mouth and then along her jaw line – tasting for the first time her salty tears.

He pulled his head away from hers and began to wipe the tears from her cheeks with the backs of his fingers. Snaking his hand around to the back of her neck, he pulled her to him and rested his forehead to hers. A quick silent exchange passed between them. Something that Han thought said: this is good, but it is nothing without the rest.

She sniffled and he pulled away from her. Clearing his throat, he said, "You should get cleaned up, so I can dress that burn."

Relaxing back on his heels again, he looked at her. She moved her mouth to speak, then inhaled a quick breath as if sucking the unspoken words back into her lungs. She closed her mouth and swallowed as she reached out and trailed her hand along his face, resting it on his cheek and stroking his lips with her thumb as if she already missed them.

Responding to her silence, he took her hand from his face and squeezed it, before he rose to his feet. Standing there for a moment, he leaned down and planted a lingering kiss against her forehead, and then turned around and left. Every step felt like a thousand and all he wanted was to turn around and finish what she had started, pin her against the 'fresher wall and take her for his own. But the bitter taste of her tears still rested on his lips and kept him moving, leaving her and his unanswered questions behind.

He exited the 'fresher with bandages and bacta in tow. Setting them on the dining room table, he looked around the room as if the answers to his questions were scribbled on the walls and the ceiling in a foreign hand. Taking both of his hands, he ran his fingers through his hair, ending the gesture by fisting chunks of his hair and pulling madly as if he could forcibly remove the frustration that resided in his mind.

The silence in her apartment mocked and taunted him. The bare walls, the nondescript furniture and the cool, shiny marble floor all refusing to reveal anything about their owner and occupant. They were a living replica of the hardened shell that she wore like a second skin, a camouflage of the life and passion that breathed within. He took a deep, tired breath and dropped his hands to his sides.

The sound of her bedroom door opening jerked his mind back to reality and he turned and faced in that direction. She was walking down the hallway toward him, wearing loose, casual pants and a sleeveless shirt, her hair was pulled back in a single braid and her feet were bare.

They sat next to each other at the table, coordinating their movements silently. Han adjusted his chair so that he faced her sideways as he applied more bacta to the open sore and then followed up with a medicinal patch. He ran his fingers over the medicated pad, warming up her skin and activating the adhesive. Her eyes were on him, but he diligently tended to her arm, intentionally fighting the urge to look at her.

She sighed so heavily that her entire body raised and dropped with her shoulders and her arm moved from within his grasp. He straightened up his posture and reset himself without comment.

Finished with the adhesive pad, he began to unravel a length of bandage when he heard her whisper, "It all started when Luke died."

His hands stilled and his eyes rose up slowly to meet hers. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips formed a tight, white line. Han watched her and waited in silence. After a long moment he turned his attention back to her arm and began to work on her wound again, wrapping the bandage tautly against her skin. Out of the corner of his eye he watched her turn her head away from him, staring toward the same walls that he had tried to coax answers out of earlier.

"I was…devastated. To say the least."

Her words were low and sounded as if it pained her to give them voice. He kept his head down and his movements slow and deliberate, not wanting to upset whatever delicate balance was allowing her to speak.

"But there was something else. An almost immediate change in the air around me…as if I-"

She stopped abruptly and her eyebrows pulled down toward her nose. She seemed unable to find the words she was looking for. Then, her face softened and she whispered, "As if I had learned to breathe without oxygen."

Fastening the end of the bandage, he dropped his hands to his knees and their eyes met for the first time since she had started speaking again. He felt she was trying to gauge his understanding of her words, but at the same time did not expect him to fully comprehend them.

"I started to feel this pull, this urgent need to go somewhere, anywhere but where I was." Her eyes closed briefly as she shook her head. "I thought I was going crazy."

He took her hand and cradled it within his own with a gentle squeeze.

She turned her body so that their knees were touching. "We were discovered…by the Empire, and that pull…that urgency…it was physically painful." She looked down at her hand in his and then sighed. "I was supposed to take a transport, but I took Luke's X-wing and Artoo instead. I had fully intended to meet up at the rendezvous, but…before I knew what had happened, I was crash-landing on Dagobah."

When she finished she seemed more relaxed, as if coasting with the momentum of her words now. She lifted her eyes to meet his and let a short, burst of air escape through barely parted lips, one of relief as if her spoken words had been weighty and large and she felt lighter without them inside of her.

Han's voice cracked when he finally spoke. "Was someone there…on Dagobah?"

She nodded her head. "A Jedi Master. Yoda." She paused. "My father had me study all the Jedi Masters and Master Yoda was arguably one of the greatest."

He watched her as she seemed to organize her thoughts for a moment, pushing the appropriate words to the forefront with care. "He told me that I was the only hope for the future of the galaxy. That my destiny was much broader than the mere failure or success of the Rebel Alliance. And that my future choices could tip the scales between good and evil and eventually bring peace and balance to the universe."

There was a noticeable edge to the last sentence that Han could not quite put his finger on. She _seemed_ skeptical but at the same time delivered them with a reverence that he thought was very sincere. He felt a puzzled look crawl across his brow, but said nothing.

"He said he would train me as the last of the Jedi." She seemed to recognize Han's confusion and she looked away for a moment and let out a sharp breath. "My father raised me and trained me as a politician. I was brought up to believe in the power of the pen, to fight with words, laws, justice…and maybe the occasional blaster." She stole a quick glance at Han and smiled weakly before she looked away and said, "Not with blind faith and lightsabers."

Trailing her finger along the table, her eyes followed the invisible path she created. "He refused to help me get my X-wing out of the swamp unless I trained with him."

She looked back at Han with that same look of defiance in her eyes that he had seen so many times before in so many different situations. The familiarity of it caused him to relax and she seemed to do the same.

"It wasn't that hard, once he started explaining it to me."

Han smiled and then took a finger and tucked some stray hairs behind her ear. He wondered if anything didn't come easy to the beautiful woman in front of him.

"He told me that I would have to face Vader and the Emperor to restore balance to the Force." She looked up at the ceiling as she said the last part, again a mixture of disbelief and belief in her words. Pushing herself up out of the chair, she walked a few paces away from Han, leaving her back to him.

"And what didya do?"

She spun around to face him, her shoulders angled with her straight posture. "I got my X-wing out. Quicker than he expected. And he was…upset with me. Told me that my training was incomplete, that although I was powerful I had no idea how to harness that power and that I should stay until my training was complete." She walked back towards him and placed her hands on the back of her chair. "But I left."

Han leaned forward in his seat and had wanted to say: 'And then what?' but it seemed impatient and immature, so he kept his lips drawn together and waited for her to continue.

"I had convinced myself that the success of the Alliance was tied to the destiny that Yoda spoke of. The same destiny that my father and I had worked so hard for…and given up so much." She walked around the chair and sat back down facing Han again. "That if the Alliance overthrew the Emperor and Vader then in essence I would have faced my fate…if that was my fate." She shrugged. "So, I decided to rejoin the Alliance and…wait."

Han recognized the tone of these words. They were the words of someone who had done something that they thought was totally right at the time but had been proven dismally wrong in retrospect.

She pressed her body against the back of the chair and folded her arms. "It wasn't as if the Emperor had a penthouse where I could pay him a social call. I figured if it was meant to happen then the opportunity would present itself."

"And I'm guessing it did."

"Yes." There was a long, deliberate pause as her eyes bore into him. "Very quickly." Her answer was terse, her words sharp and low as she unfolded her arms and then looked away from him.

The abrupt swing in her mood led him to believe they were butting up against a raw nerve, a crucial point of no return in her story. Placing his hand on her knee, he asked, "Do you wanna stop?"

She placed her hand over his and gave it a squeeze and then her eyes blazed a path up his body until their gazes met. Shaking her head, she whispered, "No." Staring at him for a moment, she asked, "Do you want me to?"

His breath caught and he licked his lips. Her question bounced off the naked walls of her apartment and sliced through him with each pass. Whatever she was about to say could never be unsaid, could never be unheard and the weight of his answer pressed heavily on the back of his throat. And suddenly all he wanted to do was kiss her.


	11. Chapter 11

From a Certain Point of View

Han swallowed…hard. He swallowed his urge to say yes, along with his urge to kiss her or to get up and flee. With a deep, calming breath, he took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze as he said, "No," with as much force and conviction as he could muster. "But let's treat the rest of your wounds first, okay?"

She smiled and sighed as she shook her head in agreement, seemingly relieved at the prospect of a short respite from her story telling.

He tended to her cheek first and then dabbed bacta on the remaining cuts and scratches. When he finished, he placed everything on the table and then stood.

She looked up at him, puzzled and he held his hand out to her and said, "C'mon. Let's get comfortable."

They walked over to the living area and sat down on the lounger. Leia drew her legs up underneath her and they both slung their arms over the back cushions, angling their bodies so they faced each other. Her cheek was still swollen and now the shiny sheen of the bacta gel drew Han's attention to it even more. She was watching him, her eyes wide and patient as if waiting for a signal to continue.

There was a transformation taking place before his eyes. Han guessed it had been happening slowly while she spoke but the small break and perhaps change of venue had now made it too pronounced to ignore. Not sure how to describe it, he studied her for a moment in the silence. She was becoming less one-dimensional, less princess or politician or woman…and more all of it wrapped up into one.

His eyes followed the curve of her body on the lounger like a speeder blazing a path along a long, desolate stretch of highway; the silky, smooth lines of her skin broken up with patches of bacta like speed bumps for his eyes. At the end of the journey, her bare toes stuck out from where her legs were tucked underneath her and Han rose and left the room without a word. He returned with a blanket from his bed and draped it over her. She smiled and clutched it around her shoulders and began to speak as if the gesture was an invitation for her to continue.

She told him that she had had difficulty locating the Rebellion once she left Dagobah and that the destruction at Hoth had decimated the troops both in number and morale. He watched her face and her eyes as she spoke, he watched her make sounds out of memories he could clearly tell she had never before formed into words.

Once she rejoined the Alliance at Sullust, she told him, plans were already underway for what Leia herself described as a suicidal mission involving yet another Death Star. She smiled when she told him that she had been sworn in with the Rogue Squadron and commissioned to fly Luke's X-wing in the assault. Han didn't know exactly what expression he offered on his face in return. He felt shock and admiration all at once and wasn't sure which had won out.

Leia breathed out through a small smile, appreciating Han's reaction, whichever one she recognized. "There were actually very few people left to tell me no." She smiled again, the half-smile afforded by a comedic anecdote wrapped in the middle of a tragic story. "And it was either…die on the bridge of some Alliance freighter, or die fighting in Luke's X-wing. Either way…I guess they thought it was only fair to let me choose."

No trace of her smile remained.

She described the chaos that ensued once the assault team exited hyperspace to find that not only had the forward mission failed, but that the Empire had clearly been prepared and expecting the surprise attack.

"We engaged in battle anyway, we had no choice. And then it happened again. The deep, painful pull I had felt on Hoth came back…ten-fold." She sighed. "I knew what it was…who it must've been."

"The Emperor's calling card?"

Smiling, she nodded at him.

The very idea of another Death Star was enough to make Han's stomach turn.

Leia seemed to read his thoughts as she continued. "I can't tell you how it felt to be back on the Death Star. It was a strange sort of reckoning, as if everything had come full circle." A smile crawled across her face. "I thought of you and Luke, believe it or not." She shook her head, shaking the smile away as she did. "But I knew there would be no rescue this time."

He could only look at her through the ache of guilt that wracked his entire body. He just wanted her to stop talking as if ending the story here would erase anything that she had yet to tell him…that he had yet to hear.

If he had only been there. The words stabbed at him in accusation. Every muscle in his body clenched, fighting the desire for movement. He wanted to rescue her, but it was his punishment to sit idle and let whatever was going to happen, happen.

She studied him for a moment. "It almost felt like…I don't know how to describe it. Like the piece of me that I lost or had left on that first Death Star…like it was calling to me and that this was my chance to reclaim it, to become whole again. To set things right."

She took Luke's lightsaber with her and was escorted by Vader himself to the Emperor. Vader and the Emperor argued while Leia watched on. The floor and bulkhead of the Emperor's bridge shook with Vader's anger. Most of their conversation had sailed over her head at the time, only later had she been able to make any sense out of it.

"He was angry at the Emperor and Bail and Ben Kenobi. He couldn't believe I had been paraded under his nose my entire life. I had no idea at the time why that would have mattered to him."

The Emperor ordered Vader to strike her down, but Vader refused. She said Vader stared at her with his eyes that weren't eyes at all and said that all he could see was _her_ and that he could not hurt her again.

"I listened, not understanding but I was also watching. They left Luke's lightsaber on the armrest of the throne and as they bickered and argued they walked further and further away from it. I had it in my hand and ignited before they even knew what had happened. I swung at Vader but he stopped me, even his defensive parry nearly jarred the lightsaber from my hands. I knew straight away that I had no business wielding a lightsaber against two Sith Lords."

She fought with Vader as the Emperor watched on. Vader defensively blocking her attack, but never attempting to strike her.

"When he cut my hand off I think he was as surprised as I was and if I didn't know any better I think he felt my pain as his own.

"The Emperor was screaming for Vader to finish me and I looked up to him - to his masked face and he was staring at me. The Emperor called my lightsaber to his hand and lunged at me. I didn't move, I didn't even flinch. I wanted it to be over and I wanted him to watch. But Vader stopped him…

"I scrambled for Luke's lightsaber and stood before Vader over the Emperor's dead body. He told me that he would not fight me. I swung at him, several times and I knew I would never win against him. I deactivated my lightsaber and asked what he and the Emperor were talking about. Powering down his own lightsaber and clipping it to his belt, he proceeded to tell me that he was my father.

"He spoke my name. I can still hear that haunting sound. The sound of _my_ name on his lips. It was revolting. I could feel my blood turning to ice in my veins." She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and shivered. "I whispered the only word that I could form on my lips, 'No'. And he said…" She stopped and her stare peered through him. He could tell that although she was looking right at him, it was not him that she saw anymore. "He said I didn't have to believe it for it to be true."

Vader told her he was Anakin Skywalker and that he had been a Jedi Knight. And that he was most certainly her father.

"I knew with every fiber of my being that it just could not be true. That Bail would've told me, prepared me, he would've never kept me in the dark about such a thing. And then Yoda, Yoda wouldn't have sent me to face my father blindly. I refused to even entertain the thought."

Han had not thought much about the rumor that Darth Vader was Leia's father since back on that morning when he had first read about it. Even when he had seen her later that same evening, he never looked at her as anyone but the person he had met all those years ago, the Princess of Alderaan. Although she hadn't said it yet and although she still seemed primed to deny it, something snapped inside of him at that moment that let him know that it was true.

If it should have mattered to him, he wasn't sure, but it didn't. Han had a father that he had no love lost for and spent his life trying not to become. Looking at her now, he could not discern much difference between her predicament and his, along with millions of other sentient beings in the galaxy.

"He approached me and I let him. He was talking about my mother and her eyes and…" She turned away from him as if she could not bear witness to his reaction. "He never even knew what hit him."

The first thing Han did was look at her tiny fingers clutched around the edges of the thick blanket. They were so delicate and fragile-looking yet they had brought down the most horrible figure to rein terror over the galaxy in Han's lifetime. The pained look on her face made him feel guilty for his admiration.

"Nothing I have ever done felt so wrong and so right at the same time."

Han's admiration morphed into relief. This must've have been the worst part of her story and he had mentally prepared himself for far worse. So she had killed a Sith Lord that just might be her father. "There is nothing wrong with what you did. They were both maniacs who deserved to die."

She looked at him as if he had grown another head. "Not that way! Don't you see? I'm no better than he was. I became exactly what I loathed, what I lived my life to fight against. I cut down a virtually unarmed man who was…who was confessing…" She was shaking her head, her face contorted in confusion, disgust and regret. Once again her stare seemed to shoot straight through him to somewhere beyond and she whispered, not to Han it seemed, but to herself. "I tipped the scales, but in what direction?"

Her eyes refocused on his and seemed to silently plead for him to answer her. His own fatigue swelled as his mind scrambled for the right words to say. Giving up he pulled her to him and her body collapsed against his. Burying her head on his chest, she lay quietly in his arms, the warmth of her tears saturating his shirt, the only indication that she was crying.

He ran his hand up and down along her back and she pressed herself against him in return. Their body heat radiated from underneath the blanket and there was the scent of her essence mixed in with his. It was musky and floral at the same time, grounded and light, and Han closed his eyes and inhaled it.

She turned her head and rested her ear against his chest as if trying to find his heartbeat. One of her arms pulled the blanket up and over so that it covered Han as well, his one leg jutting out underneath as it stretched lazily to the floor.

When she spoke it was in a low voice of someone who might be half asleep. "I had wanted to become whole again, but all it did was destroy what was left of me."

The minutes ticked by slowly, like the years she had just bridged between them. Her breathing became slow and steady. He didn't want to wake her so he sat there with his thoughts and let the exhaustion creep back into his bones. His eyelids became heavier, the pull of sleep overtaking him. Kissing the top of her head, he tightened his arm around her and surrendered to his unconsciousness.


	12. Chapter 12

From a Certain Point of View

Han walked home from work along the streets of Coruscant as if he were seeing the city for the very first time. There was not a hurry to his step. There was not a purpose to his lengthy strides, they were only a product of his long legs. He studied the tall buildings towering over him, the wind whipping around them as if they had punctured holes in the sky.

Millions of windows winked at him in the twilight. For every window there was a desk and a person for it or a home and a family in it. Hundreds of nameless, faceless beings brushed by him in the street. Some skirted around him because he was not walking fast enough for their taste. Others shuffled toward him as if in competition to reach nowhere first. Occasionally he would scrunch his nose at the smell of someone's body odor, either a product of their unkemptness or their natural aroma. The reason didn't seem to matter to Han.

This was the Capital City that she had fought for. These were the beings that she had saved, the buildings that she had liberated, the very ideals that had been her only motive driving her for her entire life. He thought her life wasted, yet he envied her convictions at the same time. He called her inner torment ridiculous, yet he respected her for it. The moral dilemma that was ripping her soul into shreds was no dilemma for him, yet he wondered if it should be.

He turned and entered the building of Leia's apartment, the doorman, who months ago had treated Han as an interloper, now held the door for him with a contemptuous smirk. Han noticed how his shoes sounded on the marble below them and concentrated on the hollow sound, preferring their echo to the sallow voices and sordid conversations flooding the ostentatious lobby. The contrast of the shiny, waxed floor to the stained duracrete just outside made Han feel instantly in need of a 'fresher, as he strode toward the gleaming doors of the turbolifts.

It had been several days since Leia had shared with him everything that had happened since he had left her on Yavin IV. Every morning since then he had left her at the apartment when he went to work and every evening she was there waiting for him when he returned. She was dressed and active, flitting around the apartment as if she had accomplished monumental tasks out in the universe while he was away and had just only beaten him to the door.

Han suspected that she hadn't left the apartment since she came home nearly a week ago, beaten and bruised and exhausted. He suspected she had given up. Part of him rejoiced at the thought, thinking she had certainly done enough. But mostly it made his stomach turn, like seeing a child begging for food on the street. It was the kind of thing that made him wonder just what kind of universe he was living in.

If he could turn back time, if he could stand upon that platform and have her drape that medal onto his shoulders yet again, he wondered what he would do. Would he grab her and take her with him? Protect her and hide her from everything in the universe? Flying the galaxy, with her destiny only a nip at their heels? Or would he stay? It didn't even seem like a fair choice.

* * *

She sat on the counter of the kitchen, her legs crossed in front of her and her back to the cabinet behind her. She looked relaxed and rested and blissful as if a giant weight had rolled off of her and disappeared down the duracrete streets of Coruscant. He wondered if he had picked up pieces of it along his walk home. His breath felt heavy in his chest.

They had not talked much more about anything of substance. Their conversations now seemed impervious to anything serious in nature. There had been no further discussions or follow up questions or revelations. It was like she had poured her heart out and now the lid had been tightened back over the container.

He hadn't felt her touch since he climbed out of her arms that morning on the lounger. He had not felt her lips since she had kissed him in the bathroom. Like a spice addict once his last hit has worn off, Han's skin crawled with the knowledge of these things. But also, like an addict, he did not want to name that which he wanted. So he looked at her, like she was a cigarette he craved to inhale or a drink he thirsted to taste, his jaw forever clenched in silent resignation.

"You've never asked me about what happened when you brought me back to Dagobah."

His back was to her, his hand resting on the opened chiller door, his eyes scanning the contents of its shelves. He straightened up his posture but did not move to look at her.

"I thought you might be curious."

He shut the chiller door, no longer aware of what it was he needed. He turned around and looked at her. "I am."

Her mouth was shut tight, her lips almost pursed together, her eyes flickered with an anger he could not place. "Why didn't you ask?"

The blissfulness of the previous days had evaporated like yesterday's rainstorm making Han wonder if they had every really happened. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I've been thinking about Luke."

The change in topic threw him off. He did not like to think about Luke although he had, often. He walked across the kitchen and stood in front of the range. As he turned each piece of meat over on the grill, the room burst with pops and sizzles and the smell of searing meat and spices flooded his senses.

"When you brought me to Dagobah, I wanted to confirm…what Vader had claimed. But Yoda was already gone."

He balanced the metal tongs across the lip of the grill and rested his hip against the counter so that he faced her. "Gone?"

"He had died."

He folded his arms across his chest and glanced down to his feet. "Sorry."

"But I was still able to speak to him…it's hard to explain. But he confirmed that what Vader had told me was true."

She held her mouth in such a way as if more words were waiting to come out. "What else?" He asked her without preamble.

"It was about Luke." Her gaze dropped to the floor. "It doesn't matter now."

A cool wave of enlightenment followed by a warm trail of jealousy rippled across his skin. He had never thought of what her and Luke's relationship might have turned into after he left. "Were you and Luke…?"

"No," she replied as she looked back up at him. "No, it was nothing like that."

He turned to the range and busied himself with dinner as she silently watched him. Something made him say it, the words formed in his head and he did not have her ability to deny them a voice. "Somebody else should've died that night." There were too many things that he had to sit back and silently accept.

She said nothing.

Gripping the edge of the counter, he stood looking at the wall in front of him and said, "Luke should've been brought back or somebody else should've died trying." He said each word succinctly and deliberately. If he had been there, _he_ would've died trying. He felt sure that that was exactly what he had said.

"Luke stayed with the Rebellion. Took my cause on as his own and it killed him. And now I can't even remember what I was fighting for; this future looks nothing like what I had envisioned."

He was moving his hands again, busying himself with the task of not looking at her, not wanting to see the pain and sorrow painted across her features. He longed for one of her stories, her happy stories.

"Maybe you were the smart one."

It was only a whisper but it snapped his head around as if she had screamed at him. Why did his own thoughts sound so perverse on her lips? He felt an overwhelming desire to slap her for even thinking them. He wanted to tear out his insides in a way that only one wretched and unlucky enough to get exactly what they wanted only to realize that it was not what they wanted at all, could understand.

Two long strides and he was standing in front of her. One heartbeat more and he was kissing her, hard as if to erase the words that had just fallen out of her mouth. There was nothing sexual or sensual about it, there were no whimpers and no moans. A moment later, hazel eyes burning into brown ones, he said, "Don't ever say that again."

She looked at him, startled - her anger and despair spun into confusion and understanding at once. "I meant it," she whispered, as sternly as a whisper is able to sound.

He took her hand and brought it up to his face, turning it over and studying the lines of her open palm. He kissed her at the wrist. "That's what makes it worse."

"What are we doing, Han?"

She looked frightened and his throat constricted reflexively forcing him to swallow. He brought her hand down and gave it a squeeze as he smiled and said, "Nothing."

'Nothing you don't want to do' is what he wanted to say. Nothing that makes you fear me like you fear the universe hovering outside of this apartment, he thought as he dropped her hand and turned back to the grill.

She didn't tell him more than she wanted him to hear, she didn't let him any closer to her than she wanted him to be and for now that was enough for him. How long it would be enough, he could not bear to think about, for it could be mere seconds or it could be endless centuries. The more she talked, the more he wanted to listen. The more she let him in, the further he wanted to go. She was capable of fighting Sith Lords and demon witches and he knew she was fully capable of fighting him, fighting any feelings she did not want to breathe life into by the mere fact of admitting to them.

So the only way to answer her was to say nothing. Because nothing could describe everything that was happening between them.


	13. Chapter 13

From a Certain Point of View

It was the sound of her breathing that woke him. His eyes, blurry with sleep, swept over the features of her face. There wasn't a line on her smooth, white skin – not a worry on her brow. Her cheek and her mouth were puffed out against the pillow beneath them and a long piece of hair trailed along her face and down the line of her neck. One of her hands was resting on his, and he closed his fingers around it gently.

She stirred and he closed his eyes. He felt her move to take her hand from his and he squeezed it. Opening his eyes to meet hers, he found her face now painted with fear.

"Stay."

She shook her head at him and pulled her hand once again.

Tightening his grip, he said, "It's just one little word. Nothing to be afraid of."

She lay on top of the covers. A thin, long-sleeved tunic swallowed her upper body, its light, eggshell color blending with her alabaster skin. There was an embroidered pattern that exploded with color at her neckline. The threads were a myriad of jewel tones, their zigzag pattern a complex dance that weaved and flowed over her breast and down to her stomach. Her legs were covered with long night pants made of a gauzy material that picked up on the lightest hue of the golden-colored threads as if their ink had spilled onto the material and stained them.

Han became aware of his bare chest facing her. He had short, boxer underwear on, but the coverlet draping over his torso left only the impression of his naked body jutting from underneath it. Her eyes bore into him as if she were afraid to look anywhere else in the room but at his face. The look in her eyes was of a woman on the edge, of a fugitive deciding whether to run for their life or walk slowly ahead so as not to draw attention to themselves.

He looked down at her mouth and her lips were separated but only for the mere purpose of breathing. Her breath traveled slowly in and out of her lungs, but not a hint of any sound, not a single word seemed able to escape. Maintaining his grip on her hand, he placed the other at the back of her head and with one, quick, liquid motion, he pulled her to him. He hesitated, granting her time to protest. And then his mouth was on hers, his hand trailed down her spine until it rested on her lower back and he pulled her entire body to him.

His hand went lower, over the curve of her hip and down to her thigh as he hitched her leg over him. He kept his fingers resting in the crook of her knee maintaining a firm but light pressure so as not to allow her body to naturally roll away from him should he let go. She responded to his every request, almost as if in anticipation of it. He felt her press herself against him and run her fingers through his hair.

His hand ran back up her thigh, followed the dip of her waist, slid across her ribcage and cupped one of her breasts. It was almost without thought, his mind following a roadmap that his dreams had perfected so long ago. Like returning to his childhood schoolhouse, knowing where every hallway led, what was behind every door, the view from every window as only diligent memorization from years of experience will provide. Yet still feeling as if he didn't belong there at this particular point in time and as if everything was vastly different from what he had remembered it to be.

Leia broke the kiss and Han, unable to remain idle, afraid that if one break in his movement would dispel the reality, began to trail his mouth down her neck as if drinking in her skin. He heard her say, "You don't want to do this."

He stopped and paused with his mouth still pressed against the pulse point of her neck. The steady beat pounding against his lips in perfect contrast to the cool calmness of her voice. When he looked at her, her eyes were closed. "If you've been inside of my head, Leia, then I think you know that isn't true."

Her eyes opened and she looked at him. This time she pulled him to her, delivering a searing kiss as she tightened her leg around his hip and drew her body against his. In his dreams she was like this. In his dreams she wanted him as much as he wanted her but so foreign was this state of affairs that Han had to fight to get his head around it. Is this what it felt like for your dreams to come true?

He felt her fingernails dragging against the skin of his back and he pulled and tugged at the fabric of her night clothes, wanting to feel her skin beneath his own fingertips.

"This isn't...," she breathed out as his lips left hers and began to nibble along her jaw line. "It isn't what it feels like..." He reached her neck and slid his tongue up to her earlobe before he captured the skin between his teeth. It was a long practiced maneuver and it garnered the reaction that he knew it would. She moaned. Then her body shuddered as if she fought to regain control of it and then she said, "I'm only protecting you."

He pulled his head back and looked at her for a long moment, letting her words sink in. He trailed a finger along her cheek and then whispered, "Who's protecting you?"

She didn't answer him, so he kissed her again. Running his hand down her side, he made his way back up underneath her shirt. Cupping her naked breast, she moaned and ground her hips into him in return. The conflict between her words and her body not lost on him.

Pushing her shirt up over her head, she lay back on the pillow and allowed him to look at her. As with everything in her life, with all of his experience dealing with her, she held herself confidently and met his eyes with a fiery boldness that only served to encourage him.

Her chest heaving with the rise and fall of her lungs, he lowered his face and took one of her breasts in his mouth, his tongue flicking at the hardened nipple. It tasted like the fruit of the gods, like something man should not be allowed to experience. "Gods, Leia," he moaned as he moved to the other breast.

"I don't want to hurt you," she whispered as she fisted her hands into his hair, hugging his head against her chest.

"You're not going to hurt me," he replied back breathlessly as he looked up at her. "Believe me, doing this is not going to hurt me."

She smiled weakly, "You don't know who I am."

"I _know_ who you are," he whispered back. "I know exactly who you are and I want all of you."

He undressed her and she let him. He explored every inch of her body, pleasured her until she was calling his name in surrender. He tasted her and smelled her and satisfied every craving of touch that he had fought since the day that he had met her.

It could have ended there and he would have been satisfied. He could have died at that moment and he swore that it would not matter. The trembling ripple of her muscles in the aftermath of what he had done to her, the flush of her skin and the dazed look on her face were all enough to satisfy him for centuries.

He crawled up her body, his mouth leading the way. His eyes met hers at the end of his journey and he found her gaze, questioning, anxious, nervous and anticipatory all at once. "I have a contrachip," he breathed out as he began to kiss her neck.

Her hand glided down the side of his torso and pushed gently at the waistband of his boxers. It was a silent reply to a question that was never really asked. He pulled his head away from her neck to look at her again, to take inventory of the emotions that still resided there. Her eyes seemed wider in a gesture that allowed all the previous emotions Han had recognized to remain but also to include a few others. He took the notice of only one, the one that reigned over all its counterparts: desire.

That she wanted him, that she would give herself to him was more powerful a shock than he had ever experienced. Even lying naked in front of him, even after everything he had already done to her, she seemed yet untouchable or unattainable in this way. But like the legend of mythical creatures or hidden cities of gold, he knew that she could only be attained by those she chose to let attain her.

It was a magnificent yet hollow victory to find that you were the conqueror of the unconquerable only to realize that your enemy has merely surrendered. He had not caught her. She had allowed him to catch her. He had not passed a test. She had promoted him. He had not convinced her. She had willingly succumbed to him.

The concept was foreign to him when it came to her. She had always been a figure far out of his reach. This moment was never had in his dreams without a desperate contest of wills, without a fervent justification of his worth that she had yet to make him utter. But he quickly adjusted his mind to this current reality and found that he quite liked it this way. And something told him that she knew it.

He took his time as he made love to her, surprised at how in sync their bodies undulated together as if they were lovers reunited. She followed his every lead like an expert dancer. The touch of her hand on his bicep, the return of every kiss was just as he had imagined it. When they were finished, he held her in his arms, their bodies limp with exhaustion and painted in sweat.

He closed his eyes at the swell of his own emotions, of the now overwhelming gnaw of self-doubt and disbelief. Nothing in his past should've led him here, yet here he was. One heroic feat in the heat of the moment three years ago did not make him the hero that deserved to win this woman. Was it the sign of a weak man that would judge himself by the woman in his bed, or the sign of a strong woman?

He ran his hand over his face. It didn't matter. If his past had not landed him here, then he vowed that his future would justify it by any means possible. He would become the man that she deserved, the man whose life and deeds warranted her naked body pressed against his for as long as she would let him.

Leia wriggled from underneath his heavy arm and rolled out of bed. She stood up and walked around the room to the 'fresher without a word, her eyes meeting his as he watched her. He studied her naked form walking past him and held it in his mind's eye as it disappeared behind the sliding door.

He rolled onto his back and shut his eyes. After a million thoughts centered only on himself, on her, on them together; his mind suddenly extended to every other man in the universe, as he wondered just who else had held her before him.


	14. Chapter 14

From a Certain Point of View

Han returned from work that same day and immediately sought Leia out in the apartment. Walking tentatively into her bedroom, he peeked his head around the open 'fresher door and found her standing at the sink, studying her face in the large mirror as if a stranger were staring back at her.

Their eyes met and she turned away. There was an awkwardness in the room of first-time lovers that are unsure of how what they've done might affect one another.

Han studied her for a moment and then asked, "Leia, was that your first time?"

It was a question that had been on his mind the entire day. She had not necessarily acted as if it was; if anything she acted quite the opposite, but there were clues granted in hindsight, misgivings or an intuition that told him he had to ask to be sure. He watched the blush paint her face, all the answer that he needed, as she turned and looked down at the basin but she did not verbally reply.

"It's a little late to be embarrassed, sweetheart." He took two steps toward her but did not go any further. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She kept her head down, eyes on anything but him.

Another two steps and he was next to her. A tug at her chin with his finger and she finally looked at him. He said, "Believe me, you have nothing to be embarrassed about."

She stared at him, the color had not totally left her cheeks but she was gaining back her composure. Giving her shoulders an easy shrug, she replied, "I knew the mechanics."

He laughed, loudly. "You knew more than the mechanics." She turned away and he cupped her reddened cheek in his hand and kissed the side of her mouth as he whispered, "You were a master mechanic."

Leia chuckled and turned her body to face him.

He pulled her into an embrace and kissed the top of her head. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she responded as she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. "It's not as if I hadn't wanted to, I just hadn't…"

"Found the right person?"

She stepped out of his embrace saying, "I was going to say the time, but that works, too."

He shook his head at her. "You're quite a piece of work, you know that?"

She seemed miffed by his cockiness and Han tried unsuccessfully to throttle back on his wide grin. Recognizing the determined set to her jaw, he realized that she had regained whatever footing she may have lost by his question and her reluctant admission. She stuck her chin out and said, "I guess you forget that I've spent every night inside of your head for the past few months."

It was a well-delivered blow that left him slightly dumb-founded and totally embarrassed. As he felt all remnants of his cocky grin evaporate with the burning of his cheeks, he watched her lips curve up in a devilish smile. Another wave of blush hit him as he tried to recall anything and everything that he might have dreamt about in the last several weeks.

Suddenly every touch, every synchronized movement from yesterday made much more sense. She sidestepped around him and left him standing in the 'fresher. Running his hand across his face, he thanked the gods that she hadn't killed him after getting just one peek inside of the 'field guide to Han Solo's depravity'.

Releasing a cleansing breath, he spun around and followed her into the bedroom. "Should I be _surprised_ or grateful that you haven't killed me already?" He fought to maintain his air of bravado, but he felt himself slowly deflating in her gaze.

"Neither. The types of _tactical_ maneuvers you were plotting against me, I knew I could handle."

He blushed again.

Her smile turned wicked and she added, "I will say, though, that you are nothing if not consistent."

He cocked his head and eyed her sideways with a smirk, but failed to come up with a retort worth verbalizing. His mind raced to assign the correct meaning to her words.

She seemed encouraged by his silence, bolstered by this sudden turn of events. "Don't worry, the only thing you dreamt about nearly as much as me was the _Falcon_."

His eyes lit up at the mention of his long lost ship and it seemed to aid him in regaining some of his mental footing. But he still found no retort worth vocalizing and she left little time for him to think.

"I wasn't exactly sure if I should be offended, or jealous or…_very flattered_." She smiled, an easy smile that indicated that she was nearly finished with teasing him.

Rolling his eyes, he finally said, "Alright, I think you've made your point."

She took a step towards him and leaned into him, as she purred, "I do apologize, though, that I was unable to address _all_ of your fantasies in one night, Captain."

The look in her eyes told him that the game was back on, but _this_ game he was ready to play. She turned to walk away from him but he grabbed her arm, halting her progress and spinning her around in the process. Pressing her against the wall of the bedroom, he leaned his weight against her and said, "The day is young, sweetheart."

Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her. It was different than any kiss that the two had ever shared and he recognized the change immediately. It was the kind of kiss that only lovers can share. The openness and nakedness of it having an almost animalistic quality, trust laced with a familiarity that comes only with the act of making love. He thought of her comment about his fantasies, meant to tease him but he took it as an affront or a challenge, he did not like to feel as if anyone knew everything about him.

The kiss broke naturally with their mutual need for air. He sucked the skin along her neck and breathed out, "I want you in a way that I've never dared to dream about."

The rush of the moment was sucked out of the air like a vacuum and a thin silence engulfed them. He knew what he had meant by his words, he knew how they sounded and all the different ways that she could interpret them. He moved his mouth against her skin again, just noticing that he had stopped. He was comfortable with any way she chose to comprehend his meaning.

When he reached the collar of her shirt, he pulled back and looked at her. Only seconds had passed but it felt like days since either one of them had spoken. He could see in her eyes that she at least knew that he hadn't been referring to sexual positions or exotic locales. She swallowed and he smiled at her.

With a strength that he suspected was aided by the Force, she spun him around and pinned him against the wall. She looked as if she wanted to say something that would complement the move but seemed to be at a loss for words. She leaned against him, pushing herself up on the tips of her toes while dragging her body along his. Her lips were on his and he accepted them, granting her the lead that she seemed set on taking. Her hand slid down in between them and her fingers brushed against him with a tentative touch that, for the first time, betrayed her lack of experience. He thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth and groaned, encouraging her without words.

Her body slid back down his as their mouths separated. She trailed her fingers up under his shirt, lifting the material over his head, slowly and deliberately their eyes locked the entire time. He rested his back against the wall while the light cotton material of his shirt slid from his long arm, past his fingers and silently to the floor.

She stood just centims from him, but not one single part of their bodies touched save her fingers on his chest. They traced the plane of his collarbone and her eyes followed their path with the wonderment one usually reserved for a fine work of art. It felt like he had never been touched before. It was a level of intimacy that he had never achieved even with women that he thought he might have loved in the past and certainly hadn't thought possible in his current state of dress.

Han had had many sexual encounters, but he was no slut. He tried to reserve the act for women that he truly respected, and if he was lucky, loved. But such women were so hard to come by and liquor so inexpensive at certain ports, that that could not or had not always been the case. Nevertheless, he thought himself too old and too experienced to feel vulnerable or unsure in the act of lovemaking. In fact, he had been counting on his experience in that arena to be one thing that might even the playing field with the woman that had recently enchanted him, seeing how she was so obviously out of his league in most other respects. But here again, she humbled him with her mere presence not even appearing to try to, with her one single, purposeful, innocent touch.

She had followed the line of his collarbone over his shoulder and down his bicep to his forearm before she showed the slightest bit of hesitation. Up until that point, he was sure that she had choreographed the entire maneuver sometime in her own depraved dreams, if she had allowed herself any. But she had faltered; he could see it in her eyes when they met his. Unsure of herself and not used to the alien feeling, she had finally let it trip her up.

He grinned, that grin that he knew only seemed to affect one side of his face but seemed to affect women all over. "You got an X-wing out of a swamp, sweetheart. I think you can handle me."

There was a flicker in her eye, almost as if she wasn't used to anyone knowing the secrets she had told him and that she had forgotten that he knew of them. Then she smiled and began to lean into him, straining to maintain eye contact until her lips made contact with his skin and her eyelids slid shut. A trail of light kisses fluttered across his chest, over his nipples and down his rib cage as her hand brushed against him once more, eliciting a deep moan he neither controlled nor tried to curtail once it began. As he heard it with his own ears, he was nearly embarrassed by it, but he had had enough of that emotion for one day.

She stopped...everything. Not a trace of contact remained between them as she looked up, a broad smile across her face. "You're easier than an X-wing."

He grinned back. "That's a new one."

She turned him around forcefully, the playfulness immediately extinguished. Pushing him down on the bed, she asked, "How many women have you been with, Han Solo?"

In light of his recent thoughts, her question caught him off-guard and the use of his full name seemed to suggest that he had lost ground somehow. He had wanted to express what he had just been feeling but any words he tried to put to it seemed inadequate and trite. So he simply stated, "You didn't steal _my_ virginity, if that's what you're worried about."

He held his breath, wondering if his flippant answer would satisfy her. She studied him for a moment as her fingers began to work the buttons of her blouse and a smile worked itself across her face. She either appreciated his humor or understood it for what it was. Either way he felt relieved.

She undressed for him. It was not in an overly sensual or teasing manner, just in the normal movements of one that needed to rid themselves of clothes for any number of odd reasons. But it was still the sexiest thing that he had ever seen - her undressing for him. He not having to lift a single finger or coax a centim of fabric off her body but to have it done for him, completely willingly and openly. He was sure she must understand the power she wielded by appearing so submissive.

After the Princess was completely naked, he found himself being de-clothed in a similar fashion. From her hands tugging at the heels of his boots to her fingers working the clasp of his pants, no woman, depraved or otherwise, had done anything so erotic to him in his entire life. No woman had driven him to complete and utter agony over the want or the need to be touched in _any way_, no matter how innocuous.

Her task complete, she crawled onto the bed over his body and hovered there, looking down at him.

Taking a finger and pushing her hair back behind her ear, he offered, "You know, I can take over from here."

Her immediate response was an arch of an eyebrow. And then her face relaxed and she smiled and asked, "Am I being relieved of duty?"

As she said it she lowered herself so as to brush against him and he sucked in a hiss of breath. "_Not_ for failure to perform...," he managed to choke out the words as she moved over him.

Another arch of her eyebrow accompanied by a sly smile was all he got in return.

"There's just certain duties that only I can undertake," he explained as he returned her smile in kind.

She kissed him and with the gesture allowed her body to rest on top of his, her legs bent at his waist.

His hands ran over her body and he fought to recall when he had consciously touched her last. It had been when he had pinned her against the wall in what seemed like hours ago. Her reaction seemed to tell him that her body had missed and craved his touch. And without waiting for permission or confirmation that their game was over, he rolled her over and reacquainted himself with her naked body.

Han worked on her until she dragged him back up her body by the hair on his head, begging for a reprieve. Her face flushed, her chest heaving beneath him, he afforded her no such thing as he entered her with a quick, gentle thrust of his hips. She turned her head, pressing her cheek against the pillow and arching her back to aid his entrance.

The shockwaves rocked up his body at the feel of being inside of her once again, her body stretching to accommodate him. More so than their first encounter, this union felt several degrees different. No longer an exploration of senses and feelings, a tender investigation of two bodies, this felt like an intermingling of their souls.

He stroked himself inside of her with a long and steady rhythm, driving her to another climax. Their bodies worked together now, not in the rhythmic beat that had been his dreams but in a new tempo that was all their own. It was no longer a dance where she compliantly followed his lead, but an exchange of movements for a common goal. If she had let him drive her to climax this morning, this time she seemed quite capable of giving him directions.

As he watched her mouth drop open and her eyes widen with the tremble of her body he wondered if she had ever felt this level of pleasure before. Easily convinced that she had not and that he was the first and only to have seen her this way, to have brought her to this place, he stilled his hips and gasped a painful, muffled groan as he fought to control his body's nearly uncontrollable desire to join her in release.

"What's wrong?" She looked sincerely concerned for him.

"You're too much for me," he responded as he gathered his wits and began to move again. Another set of words lumped together to mean so much more than he had meant to say or perhaps they were exactly what he had meant to say – just not out loud.

She smiled and rocked her hips along with his and he spun them around, so that she was now on top. His hands slid over her body from her thighs, up her stomach and to her breasts. She exhausted herself on top of him pushing both of their bodies to their limits. It was like nothing he had ever imagined.

Finding another release, she arched her back and threw her head back, her hands gripping his chest, fingernails digging into his flesh. Unable to delay it any longer, he grabbed her at the hips and let his release pump into her with an agonizing moan. He fought the urge to cry out that he loved her and bit his lip down to stop himself. He was not some lovesick teenager that declared love after a few sexual encounters. But everything about this woman had him turned inside out.

Her chin traveled back down toward her chest as she brought her face down to look at him. Pure satisfaction and contentment painted her features with a glowing sheen of perspiration. She had never looked more beautiful to him.

She rolled off of him and nuzzled her body up against his side. He wrapped an arm around her and held her to him. Their breathing returning to normal and their hearts pounding to what seemed to be the same steady beat, he tugged on a piece of her hair and asked, "So why is it that you've been spending every night inside of my head?"

She looked as though he had just asked her to divulge the secrets of the galaxy and her mouth fell open, but she didn't respond.

He looked down at her hand resting amongst the sparse hair on his chest and he pulled at it until their fingers were intertwined. "C'mon," he said in a whisper. "You can talk to me. I know you know those mechanics, right?"

She smiled at him but still hesitated a moment before she said, "Those women, that kidnapped you, they still haunt you in your dreams."

"That's why you said that you were protecting me?"

"Yes, it's like a link. I establish a link between us. If I'm there, I can stop them," she explained and then her cheeks flushed as she added, "Which leaves you free to dream as you normally would."

He looked at her, feeling his own face burn again and she smiled at him. Squeezing her body against his, he asked, "So, you're using the Force to do this?"

It seemed almost silly to ask it once he had said it, but she stiffened in his arms and did not reply.

He added, "It's alright, Leia. I think I've known you could use the Force since you rescued me. There's nothing wrong with being a Jedi."

"I'm not a Jedi," she corrected him as she wriggled in his arms. "I haven't been fully trained." Resting her head against his chest, she added, "I know just enough to be dangerous. I thought that you would've known that from everything I've told you."

"Hey." He squeezed her again and waited until she looked at him. "I've heard everything you've told me and I know that you are not dangerous."

They stared at each other in silence, she seemed primed to argue his point but then he watched as her features relaxed and she seemed content to let it go.

"Thank you for taking care of me…again," he finally whispered to her with a warm smile.

She laughed. "Should I assume that you're talking about your nightmares and not more _recent_ events?"

He laughed with her. She certainly had the ability to dissect the meaning of his every word. "Take your pick," he replied, once again leaving the interpretation of his words in her capable hands.

He had wanted to ask how much longer these nightmares could or would continue and if there was any way to banish them completely. But anything that kept her in his bed every night seemed silly to fight about or wish away. But he did wonder if that was what she had been searching for these past few months and, if so, what would happen once she found it.


	15. Chapter 15

From a Certain Point of View

As much as Han and Leia had enjoyed their conversations shared in the kitchen of Leia's apartment, ever since their relationship had landed them in the same bed the kitchen conversations had followed them there as well. Looking back, it wasn't hard for Han to figure out why the two had only been able to drop their guards in the most non-sexual room of that apartment.

Now instead of Leia sitting on the counter watching Han fix a meal, their new routine had Leia lying on her back on the bed and Han lying on his side beside her. She inevitably was watching him as he diligently studied her. If the conversation grew too tense, he knew just where to trail his finger and if she did not wish to be set off course, she knew just exactly what look to give him.

If he could have cooked for her in bed, they never would have left it. They were like two teenagers who could think of nothing but exploring each other. He had memorized every bend of her body, and curve of her skin, every shade of the eyes that others would only see as brown. She had claimed him in much the same manner, their bodies were mere extensions of one another. What she wanted he gave her, what he needed she anticipated with her wants.

But there was something about his relationship with Leia that he had not cared to find with other women, but could not help to notice that it was missing with her. It felt as if he had forgotten to place his signature on some important line in the silent contract that had been reached between them. He knew that even in marriage one person never owns the other, but in love – especially in the love that he could not help to admit he was beginning to feel for Leia - he had expected to find a more solid grounding. But he had not. Every conversation, every inevitable argument, every time he kissed her or made love to her, he felt the loose gravel of their unsure footing slide beneath his feet.

"What about you, Han Solo?"

It was a morning where neither of them had any place to go. She was lying on her back leisurely, her arms tucked up underneath her head. He was next to her, his head on the pillow with his forehead pressed against the cool skin of her bicep.

He trailed his finger along her side, from her ribcage to her waist, causing her to flinch. "What about me?"

"You've always played the patient listener for me. When do I get to ask the questions?"

He raised his head and propped himself up on his elbow. "Ask away."

"Will you answer?" She looked at him for the first time since she had spoken, tearing her eyes away from the ceiling as if she had been reading a script.

He widened his eyes at her. "Sweetheart, I've been an open book to you since day one. I don't see what you could possibly want to know."

Her eyebrows shot down and she turned her body as if to roll out of the bed. "Forget it."

"Hey, what?" He grabbed her arm and she easily stopped but kept her back to him. "Wait a minute. What did I say?"

She turned back around to face him. Tucking her legs to the side, she held herself up on one straight arm so that her head was slightly higher than his. "I want _you_ to tell me. I want you to _talk_ to me. I don't want the Force to tell me what I want to know. Your dreams don't tell me everything."

"Okay. Alright. I'm sorry."

Her eyes fell to the sheets in between them.

He ran his fingers up the straightened arm that supported her. "Tell me what you want to know."

She slid her arm up underneath the pillow, lowering her body to the bed. Scrunching the pillow beneath her head and pressing her face against it, she shut her eyes and said, "No, just forget it."

He leaned into her, his face hovering in front of hers as his hand trailed over her shoulder and down the line of her waist. "Would you like to know what I want to do to you?"

There was a reluctant twitch at the corners of her mouth as she opened one eye and said, "No. That's no mystery."

"Would you like to know how much you mean to me?"

She hesitated, opening both eyes as she readjusted her head on the pillow. "No," she answered defiantly.

He lifted his eyebrows as if calling her bluff.

"Did you think of me?" A light blush took the place of any hint of amusement and her eyes lowered and then came back up to meet his. "When you left the Rebellion, did you think of me?"

Han swallowed and took his hand off of her hip where it had rested. "I barely knew you."

"That's not an answer."

"When I turned around that day," he began and then paused. "I told myself it was to save Luke's skin and deliver a godsdamn blow to the krethin' Empire in one fell swoop. And that wasn't a lie."

She raised her eyebrows and dragged the word out of her mouth. "Bu-ut?"

"But it wasn't the whole truth."

She turned over on her back and looked up at the ceiling while releasing an exhaustive breath. "Do you even know how to answer a question directly?"

He moved towards her, placing his face between hers and the ceiling, forcing her to look at him as he said firmly, "Yes."

"Then answer my question."

"I just did."

She shook her head at him. "I thought of you often."

The words hit him like salt on an open wound and suddenly every warning bell he owned was clanging inside of his head along with his heart in his chest. He relaxed back on his elbow and smiled, his mask of calmness firmly in place. "Well, I'm easy to think about."

She ignored his comment. "Do you ever think…about getting another ship?"

He had begun to equate her abrupt topic changes to a series of dummy jumps in hyperspace. They were meant to confuse pursuers and leave anyone who might finally make it to the real destination, confused as hell when they got there.

"No." He hesitated, like the _Falcon_ used to right before her engines engaged. "I guess I will have to eventually, but right now I just can't bring myself to think about it."

They remained silent for a few moments, until she said, "Did you ever consider calling your old boss? To get your old job back?"

"Nah, he ain't the forgivin' type and I kinda like my kneecaps facing frontways."

Her eyes registered shock and she turned her body to him. "I thought he was fully legitimate. You make him sound like a Hutt."

"He was just this side of legitimate." He looked down and then lifted his eyes to her guiltily. "Just barely."

"Han Solo, did you secure a government contract while treading on the line of justice?"

The fact that justice and government got more of a rise out of her than their previous talk regarding their feelings did not go unnoticed. He straightened up the line of his spine. "You think I was the first? Or the last?"

"Doesn't make it right." Her tone and the set of her jaw reeked of indignation.

"I'm not a hero, Leia. Quit holding me up to these hero standards you've erected."

"You were a hero, _once_. And you came to the New Republic with that reputation. You ever think that's why you might've garnered that contract? You don't think people remember what you did and who you were?"

His eyes drifted away from hers.

"What do you have against being a hero?" He looked back up to her and she said, "It actually suited you quite well." No hint of amusement was left on her face and her eyes carried a sadness in them as if she had just lost her family pet.

He stared at her. Being surprised at how the mind of Princess Leia worked was something he had gotten used to. The woman who had the wherewithal to shoot her way out of a Death Star after watching her home planet get destroyed could certainly find the darnedest things to get emotional over. But the disappointed, hurt look on her face was not something he thought he might ever get used to or immune from.

Letting out a deep breath, he ran his fingers through his hair and his eyes scanned the room as if the control he thought he had in this conversation was hiding somewhere in a dark corner. He looked back at her, his expression serious and his tone matched it. "See that look in your eyes?"

She looked at him but said nothing and she did not try to change or mask her expression once he had called attention to it.

"I never want to do anything in my life again…" He placed his hand on the side of her face and rubbed his thumb along her cheek. "That puts that look in your eyes."

She smiled at him, the hurt and disappointment sliding off of her face. Turning her head, she pressed her lips to the palm of his hand. He lay down on his back and she followed him, nestling alongside of him with his arm around her.

"It never has been a hero that I've been looking for, you know."

"What is it then?"

She shook her head at him. "It doesn't count if I have to tell you."

Han rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Women," and Leia chuckled.


	16. Chapter 16

From a Certain Point of View

Nearly one month later, Han stood on the hangar floor talking to one of his crewmen when an odd sight caught his eye. Courteously concluding his conversation, Han walked steadily toward an X-wing in the distance. Trusting his feet to find their footing, his eyes never left the sight up ahead. It was a woman crouched on top of the machine, her arms elbow deep into a mechanic's hatch. As he got closer, he could see the smudge of grease along her cheek and he could hear the argumentative beeps of a recalcitrant droid unit.

She wore the tan cargo pants and navy blue shirt of an off-duty flight officer. The light material hung on her body not like the baggy clothes of a child but like a fine, linen curtain hugs the curve of a breeze coming through an opened window. The sleek, clean lines of her thin, muscular frame were easy to follow for him, who had seen them firsthand. But also, he suspected, for any man that could recognize a fine machine by the mere sight of it no matter what the exterior package looked like.

Han glanced around the hangar, taking his eyes off of her for the first time, looking for any such onlookers while unconsciously resting his hand on his blaster.

"Hello there," he called up to her, sure that she was already aware of his presence and had witnessed his approach.

She turned her body to him, twisting her leg up to allow a forearm to rest upon her knee in a casual manner. A warm smile was her first method of greeting and then she said, "Hello yourself."

His eyes went from her face to her body, from her greasy hands to the opened mechanic's hatch then back to her eyes. "What're you doing?"

She looked down at the opened hatch and then quickly scanned the entire length of the X-wing with the soft eyes of a mother or a lover. "I'm having Artoo erase its memory sectors and…fixing a few things."

He held her gaze but said nothing.

Her head turned to the droid. "Artoo, keep working, I'll be back."

A series of blats and beeps went unanswered by the Princess as Han watched her climb down the access ladder and then spin around to face him. "I'm returning Luke's…_this_ X-wing to the service of the New Republic."

"Does this mean that you found what you were looking for?" His words were a surprise to both of them. He had not allowed the question to occupy the forefront of his thoughts lately, but it seemed it had lain patiently in wait.

"I guess so, yes."

"Well, have you or haven't you?"

"If I tell you I have, will you ask me to tell you what it was?"

There was a pause. "No."

"Then, yes."

He clenched his jaw and then took a finger and wiped the smudge on her cheek. Remembering where they were he hurriedly took his hand back and wiped it against his trousers. "What kind of Princess knows how to recalibrate an X-wing's memory sector?"

"What kind of Princess doesn't?"

Han chuckled. "None that I would ever want to meet."

"It's the universe that holds certain ideals for the title of a Princess, not me. Not ever."

There was a constriction in his chest and he said, "C'mon."

He began walking in such a way as to not allow her to question him or stop him and he could hear the gentle thud of her footsteps as she obediently followed. They reached a small alcove with a nondescript door and Han scanned his palm print and it opened. Once inside he spun around on her, slamming her body against the door almost before it had closed completely.

He kissed her, once again in a manner that said he would not be denied and other than a slight hesitation that was most probably from shock, she didn't deny him but responded in kind. It was over quickly, his urgent need sufficiently satisfied. She looked at him questioningly, their faces dark with the dim light of the room.

"I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss you in public. Outside of the four walls of your apartment."

She chuckled as she quickly looked over his shoulder and back at him. "Han, we're in a storeroom."

He remained unfazed as he shook his head. "It's not your apartment."

"Do you think I wouldn't kiss you in public?"

"It's no one else's business," he replied, embarrassed at what his confession had sounded like now. "That's not what I meant. I just-"

Her lips stopped him mid-thought. When she stopped the kiss, she spoke into his mouth, her lips brushing his as they moved. "I won't kiss you like this in public. But I will accept your hand as we are walking." She looked down to his hand and took it in hers. "Or your arm over my shoulder in the cool wind of the streets." She trailed her hands up his chest and then gripped him tightly around his neck. "I will expect a proper farewell when I take your leave." She pressed her lips against the side of his face and then whispered in his ear, "Like your lips pressed to my cheek."

"I really didn't need a demonstration, but I appreciate the effort."

She kissed him again, deeply, and then pulled her head away from him, her arms still wrapped around his neck. "I'm not ashamed of our relationship in the slightest, Han. I only…I only enjoy our time alone in my apartment so as…as I don't wish to leave."

"You don't have to explain."

"But I just did. So now you know." She bit her lip and then breathed out. "And…about what I was looking for…"

He rested his hand against her cheek, his thumb absently wiping the remaining grease smudge away. "You'll tell me when you're ready."

"Soon."

He smiled. "You'll tell me soon."

* * *

When he returned to their apartment after work she was waiting for him. She had showered and changed into a short-sleeved dress, a stark contrast to the greasy flight officer he had seen earlier that day. Her confession that she had found what she was looking for was weighing on him, but he had vowed to practice the patience he had promised her wordlessly earlier.

But something else occupied his mind now. She had not touched that X-wing in weeks. That X-wing had not left the Coruscant hangar since she had returned that day, beaten and bruised. Yet she continued to give the impression that she left the apartment every day. If she had found what she was looking for, especially if she had found it several weeks ago, then where was she going now?

She had been sitting at the table when he entered the apartment and she rose and met him halfway to the foyer. She wore an easy smile as if recalling their storeroom meeting earlier and she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.

The lightheartedness of the moment almost kept Han from asking, but when she pulled away and he looked at her he couldn't help himself. Her hair was loosely braided in two long braids that hung down her chest. She wore no makeup and that combined with her hairdo and her promiscuous air made him feel as if she were deliberately trying to derail his thoughts.

His hand held one of her braids in it as if it were made of glass and he followed it to its end and rubbed the loose ends between his fingers. "Leia, can you tell me where you've been going during the day?" He had spoken the words with his eyes on his fingers, but her silence made him drag his gaze up to meet hers.

She looked like a teenager caught sneaking out. She pressed her lips together but didn't say anything.

"Do you even report to the New Republic anymore?"

She let out a heavy breath and seemed more inclined to answer that question. "Yes," she said. "Just not regularly."

He let her hair go.

"They schedule meetings with me and I show when I want to. They are fairly certain that I've gone rogue on them."

He returned her easy smile and then watched as she turned and began to walk away from him.

"They're still set on restoring the Jedi Council." She stopped walking, but kept her back to him as she said, "They've appointed Roman as my liaison."

"Wait a minute," this caught his attention and wiped the smile right off of his face. She turned to look at him and he said, "What?"

"Probably because of our prior relationship-"

"_Probably?"_ Han asked incredulously. "So you've been seeing Roman?" Han tried to reel in his anger and jealousy.

"_Professionally_, yes."

"Since when is a comptroller a liaison to a rogue Jedi?"

She glared at him and said, "I said they _think_ I'm rogue. I am neither rogue, nor a Jedi. I thought I had made that clear already."

"You've only made clear what you have _allowed_ to make clear. Don't act like you weren't hiding this from me. Like you had no idea I would react this way or that I have no _right_ to react this way."

"Just what _rights_ do you think sleeping with me has gotten you?"

"Don't even. Maybe we've never talked about our expectations of monogamy since we started sleeping together but I would wager that you would take offense if I brought another woman to my bed."

"Since _your_ bed is in _my_ apartment, then yes, I guess I would."

His head ticked to the side in the only sign of rage he would allow her to see. He answered her calmly, "I can see that one of us should get this conversation back on track."

He took a step toward her and she flinched.

"I wouldn't call it a _right_, but I certainly had an expectation that neither of us would sleep with anyone else while our relationship is what it is right now."

"I am not sleeping with-"

He took another step toward her so that he now looked down at her. "Another unspoken expectation of two people in a relationship usually involves full disclosure of any activity concerning ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends of any kind."

She didn't say anything, her wide eyes darting back and forth between his. And for the first time Han remembered just how much younger she was than him. Her maturity and life experience acted as a mask of seasoned adulthood that made the nearly ten years between them seemingly vanish. But she was still very young and her experience and maturity were gained by anything but sexual relationships.

His anger dropped one notch but he still voiced his next words with the intensity he thought they deserved. "I am sorry, about how I reacted to your news. But don't lie to me and tell me that you didn't think twice about telling me because you _knew_ that I should know and that _maybe_, with valid reason, I wouldn't approve."

"You have no valid reason not to trust me."

He shook his head at her as if she had lost her mind. There was no creature on earth that held more secrets at bay from him than this woman. Yet, for reasons that certainly escaped him at this very moment, he did trust her. "Tone it down, Leia. I am trying here."

Her eyes fell guiltily. "I knew I should've told you."

"How long?"

He watched her eyebrows lift up as she slowly forced herself to look at him.

"How long has Roman been your liaison?"

She held her bottom lip between her teeth, slowly freeing it and leaving a trail of white skin that her blood rushed to fill. And then she whispered, "Well over a month."

"Would that mean almost two months?"

There wasn't a nod of her head or any clear reaction, but Han took it as a yes.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. When he looked at her again, her face had softened. Keeping his tone even, he said, "Are we not on the same page about the expectations that I just mentioned? Because, if any of that sounded out of line to you…"

She had begun to shake her head almost immediately and as his voice trailed off she took a moment before she responded. "No. Nothing you said sounded unreasonable."

"What does Roman know about us?"

"Nothing."

"After your words to me today. After your claim that you are not ashamed of our relationship-"

"What does one have to do with the other?"

"Leia, why do you think Roman agreed to be your liaison or that the New Republic chose him as such? I know you are not that naïve."

"Whatever Roman thinks doesn't matter."

"You have never been more wrong, sweetheart. You are not a man. You don't know how men think. You may think that you have us figured out. You may think that you are intelligent enough to predict our motives and arm yourself against us, but if you ever meet the man that intends to harm you, you will find out how sorely you are mistaken."

"I _let_ you have me."

Han's voice cracked as he cried out incredulously, "Don't you think I know that?" He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration as he whirled away from her, millions of thoughts raining down on his mind. "Leia," he said as he started back toward her, "I know you don't want to hear this-"

"Roman isn't that kind of man, Han."

"You'd been surprised what the right woman can drive a man, _any man_, to do." His eyes raked down the length of her body as his anger rose again. "And if there was any woman that could do it, it would be you. The way you hold yourself as if you don't even know…the way you…"

"The way I what?"

"Just trust me on this, Leia."

She let her arms fall down to her sides as if she had given up trying to argue or understand him. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to make it clear to Roman that you are in a relationship. I want you to watch for his reaction. I want you to use whatever scraps of Jedi training you have to judge for yourself why he took that role."

"Alright." She smiled at him, like a mother easing the fears of a child. "I will."

"This is not just me being jealous," he told her as he grabbed her gently at the shoulders. He ran his hands down her arms and back up again. He spoke slowly as his eyes studied every centim of her body like a landowner surveying his property. "Even though…I am…jealous."

She ran her hand along his jaw and smiled at him. "It's actually quite endearing on you."

"I don't trust the New Republic…or Roman."

"Do you trust me?"

The words were heavy and thick with emotion and Han felt them wrap around him like a warm blanket. Taking a deep breath he leaned into her and kissed her, quickly, lips just barely brushing. Lingering in front of her, his breath mixing with hers, he whispered not only the word that he had wanted to say, but the word that he knew she most wanted to hear, "Implicitly."


	17. Chapter 17

From a Certain Point of View

Han always had an uncanny ability to sense things about to happen. Often described as good luck or superb timing, it was something that he had grown to count on and trust in his life. He wore this ability as a badge of distinction, as something that not all beings were granted at birth yet he had been well-endowed with.

His life, as of late, hadn't brought that specific talent to the forefront. Princess Leia had been exercising a few different endowments of the ship-less pilot. But he found on one particular morning that lack of use had not caused these inert skills to fade. A prickling at the back of his neck and an overall sense of something amiss woke Han up one morning, as good as a cold bucket of water and the roar of a mad Wookiee would have.

The first thing he noticed was that the bed was empty. Waking up to the warmth of Leia's body had been something else he had become accustomed to. Just what dance their bodies played during the night, Han could not be sure, but by the time he woke in the morning it was usually to a pile of hair tickling his nose and to the back of his knee pressed up against the back of her thigh. On rare occasions he woke to the sight of her face, eyes open, mouth curled up in a smile, which always made him wonder if he had been snoring or drooling or any other such embarrassment.

It was not unusual for them to make love in the morning, as if the mere fact that they woke up together in the same bed was cause for a celebration. These were the moments they shared without a day's history behind them, of work or hours of separation, of conversations, arguments or any other such interactions. It was painting the clean slate of morning with their want for one another and setting the tone for the day ahead. It was their version of a sunrise.

They never spoke during that particular morning ritual, knowing that the day ahead would be filled with sounds and voices and noises of all kinds. It was almost as if they could pretend that this was all there was in the universe, him loving her and her loving him and there was no need for words because there was nothing else as important as that moment and nothing else to come after it. If Han allowed himself to admit that he had fallen in love with Leia, it was during those times. Maybe it was because he felt safe to fill his mind with thoughts he was not ready to voice during a time where they had mutually agreed to remain silent.

Han picked his head up and glanced at the chrono on Leia's nightstand across the other side of the room. It was early, very early. He rolled onto his back and over to his own nightstand, extending his long, naked arm and flicking on the table lamp.

His eyes protested to the sudden brightness and as he blinked and propped himself up against the headboard behind him, her image slowly came into focus. She was sitting in a chair near the window on the other side of the room. Fully dressed in slacks and a blouse, she sat crossways with her legs swung over the arms of the chair. She was staring at him. In the millisecond it took for him to grasp the situation, he recognized the sensation that had caused the back of his neck to quiver. It was tension.

"They aren't coming to you anymore."

He blinked his eyes trying to get both her and her words into focus.

She spoke into his silence, "It's been almost two weeks."

Finally following her meaning, he ran his fingers through his hair and twisting his body to face her, he rested on an elbow as he sighed and said, "That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"You would think."

He was confused; by the empty bed, the conversation and the violent undertone of her words. "What does that mean?"

She sighed heavily as her eyes dropped down to her hands. "I don't know."

"Are you angry with me?"

She brought her eyes back up to meet his and said, "No." She stood and walked towards him, slowly, cautiously as if approaching a prisoner behind a plate of transparisteel.

Han turned his body as she walked around the room and sat on the bed next to him, he lay on his side, his legs bent and her hip pressing up against the tops of his thighs. He recognized the signs of the woman that he had not seen in months, the woman that would rather chop her own head off than say what she knew she had to say.

She let him take her hand in his and he was looking down at her fingers when he heard her say, "I spoke to Roman."

His eyes darted up to find her looking at him. "And?"

"And…some of what you said may have been true. But I certainly don't think that it could've ever gotten dangerous."

He wanted to ask for every sordid detail. He wanted to hear what Roman had said. He wanted to ask her if she had told Roman _who_ she was in a relationship with. But he refrained.

Her body flinched and she whispered, "I have to go," as she tried to pull her hand from his.

"To see Roman?" He wished to take them back as soon as he said them, to take not only the words that had left his lips but the tone of their deliverance. He tightened his grip on her hand, preparing to fight for her presence next to him.

Her body slumped in a tired exhaustion and she left her hand in his, limp and lifeless as if voiding the fact that he held anything of value to her. "I can't have this conversation with you. Not today."

He studied her hand in his, unable to meet her in the eye. "I'm sorry I said that. I just…care about you."

After everything that had been said and done between them, the teasing questions, the smug answers, this was the closest he had ever come to telling her how much he loved her. The words ringing in his head sounded pathetic. They hit him like a slap in the face, a dismal representation of his feelings for her. If he had screamed at the top of his lungs that he had never known love or life until he met her, it would still not be sufficient enough to express his feelings. So to whisper something so meager and commonplace, seemed like offering spit in place of a well of never-ending, pure, clean water.

"Well, your caring about me has complicated everything."

Her tone was soft and sweet and perhaps even sad. The words hit him, however, with a more ferocious slap than his own and they brought his eyes right in line with hers. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Her face was cut in stone, her eyes the only sign of shimmering life. "Leia, what's going on?"

"That's what I intend to find out." This response was cool and calm as if on the other end of an entirely different conversation.

He fought to catch up with her, replying as calmly as possible, "You're not making any sense."

"I know. And I'm sorry. But…"

He saw the first sign of a crack in her demeanor as she forced herself to swallow whatever words she had intended to say. She took her hand from within his and he let it slide out from within his grasp. The fisting of his now empty palm was his only response.

She continued, "I'll explain it to you as soon as I understand what it is that I have to explain. Until then…and I know I've asked this of you far too much. But, until then, you'll just have to trust me." And then she stood and looked down at him. "Like I trust you." She said the words like an accusation, hurled them at him as if they had pointed edges.

"Leia." He flung the covers off his body and swung his legs over the side of the bed as he sat up. Whatever he had wanted to say dissipated at the tip of his tongue as he looked at her. She was angry and confused and defiant but above all that, she was scared. He drew in a deep breath and grabbing both of her hands, he said, "Sweetheart, I don't know what's going on, but having someone in your life that cares about you isn't or shouldn't be a complication."

"I know." She took a hand and laid it on his shoulder, the heat from her palm burning into his skin. Supporting her weight, she leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek. He felt her breath on his ear as she said, "And I'm sorry." They were the first words she had spoken this morning that weren't laced with a cool, detached anger. Straightening up, she took her hand away and said, "But I really do have to go."

And she left. Every muscle in his body had wanted to stand up and stop her. But he sat on the side of the bed, his head in some distant fog of thought that refused to clear until the sunlight poured through the bedroom window behind him and Leia's presence and her words and the intractable tone of her voice, were all a distant memory.

* * *

Han found it hard to keep his mind on work that day, as if he had left his consciousness sitting on the side of the bed staring at the walls of the apartment waiting for her to return and finish their conversation. He replayed their exchange over and over in his mind and her every word seemed to become more and more ominous as the day wore on.

By the time he returned to the apartment that evening, his mind was in a frenzy. Bolting through the door, his eyes quickly searched for her waiting for him at the dining room table, or walking towards him from the bedroom or lying on the lounger, but she was not. Then he stood in the foyer and listened for the sounds of her, arguing with Artoo in the study or pouring herself some wine in the kitchen, but there was only silence. He glanced at the table for her satchel. It was not there.

This was the first time she had not been home waiting for him since she had come home that day all beaten and bruised. His heart was still pumping from the hasty trek home and his steps towards the dining room were the first since he left the hangar that were slow and deliberate. He caught sight of it as soon as he rounded the corner of the foyer and saw the full length of the table before him and his heart slid down to his toes.

In his mind a voice was screaming, 'No!', as he numbly approached the table and reached his shaky hand out to pick up a small note. It was written on old-fashioned paper, creased in the middle so that it sat tented on the table waiting for him. There was nothing written on the outside of it, not his name or any indication who it was for. He lifted it up to his eyes, turning it over as he drew it nearer. The lines of her handwriting coming into focus as he held it in front of his face.

It was the name of a small, private docking facility on the other side of town, its address and presumably, the number of a hangar bay. His recent fear and dread slid quickly into intrigue and caution. Had something happened to her? Would they need to flee the planet? He shoved the note into the pocket of his trousers and bolted out of the apartment.

* * *

Han sat in the back of the hover cab impatiently, leaning his body forward as if his own weight or intense concentration could make the vehicle move faster. Every traffic light or deceleration, for whatever reason, made him want to jump out of the cab and run on his own two feet. But he fought the urge, knowing that his own legs could get him there no faster.

When he arrived at the hangar, he paid the cab driver and pulled the note out of his pocket. Following the signs and fighting to remain calm, he walked past personal vehicles and pleasure crafts of all kinds, his head hitched up nervously as the number of the bay grew closer with his every step.

The small hangar was deserted, the only sound was the buzzing of the overhead lighting that came in waves as Han walked between the large, hanging fixtures. Most of the vehicles were yachts, playthings of the bored and wealthy. Han admired their clean lines and polished hulls as he watched his reflection pass quickly from one to another, all elongated and distorted as if he were of an alien race.

And then his legs stopped moving and his feet felt as if the ground were magnetized and his shoes forged of pure metal. Up ahead in the distance he saw her. The liquid heart that had slid down to his toes back in the apartment shot back up his body like volcanic lava. She looked different, but he would recognize her diminutive stature anywhere. No matter the setting, no matter the changes she may have endured or the disguises she may try to wear, he knew her as he knew himself.

It was the _Falcon_. And she was as beautiful and breathtaking as the first time he had laid eyes on her.

His legs began moving again, taking him closer to her, but they were slow and sluggish like the thick blood that now thumped through his veins. He noted subtle differences about her as if she had been worked on, as if someone else's hands had both harmed her and caressed her in his absence. She had a new sensor dish and there were new shiny pieces of durasteel spread across her hull like a patchwork quilt.

Her left mandible seemed totally rebuilt and his hand went up to caress her underbelly when he walked underneath her shadow, closing his eyes as if accepting an embrace. He walked in circles beneath her, staring up at her, inhaling the scent of her and allowing the trail of tears to escape from the corner of his eyes unhindered.

When he found himself at her entrance he wiped his eyes and took a long, deep breath. He pressed his palm against the scan grid and his body jumped at the sound of the boarding ramp hissing open and lowering to the ground. He stood staring for a long while, unable to comprehend the enormity of the moment.

And then his mind jumped to Leia for the first time since he had caught sight of his ship. Visions of her waiting for him, scantily dressed and ready to re-christen his ship as his own flashed furiously through his mind. He bounded up the ramp and trailed his hand lovingly along the bulkhead as he made his way into the main lounge.

He was met by a sight that was not Leia's naked body or beaming smile, but another note. Folded and tented like the one he found in the apartment, sitting on the holochess table waiting for him. Like the other note, there were no words on the outside of it, it laid naked waiting for him like his dream come true in an entirely different and disappointing way.

He looked around the room, as if she would appear at any moment and tell him the words in person that she had written down for him to read. After a long moment, he walked towards the table and picked up the note.

_Han,_

_I never got to tell you what I was looking for, but I guess this will answer that question. I only hope that returning your first love will be enough to repay you for all that I have put you through. _

_Please don't try to find me. It wouldn't be me that you would find anyway. _

_Leia_

He let his body slump down onto the banquette, his every muscle turning liquid inside of him. Grasping her letter in his hand as it rested on the holochess table, he read the words over and over as if maybe their meaning would somehow change with time and repetition and by the sheer will of his heart and mind.

He separated his fingers and watched the note tumble out of his hand and fall innocuously against the table, no longer standing as a tent but sprawled out and exposed. His eyes moved along the perimeter of the room, at the ship that was the piece of him that he had been missing. He had dreamt of this day, of finding her. But in his dreams his ship made him whole again. It symbolized his life and his freedom and all that he was or ever wanted to be.

But like the patchwork of her outer hull or the new paint on her bulkhead, he too had been torn apart and put together differently. Someone else had both harmed him and caressed him during their absence and his ship and his freedom no longer defined him. They were a part of him, no doubt, but they were no longer all of him.

He gathered up his strength and lifted himself up onto his feet. Walking along the corridors of his ship, he took inventory of every new relay switch, every fresh patch of upholstery or shiny splash of paint. He walked calmly into the cockpit and slid into the pilot's seat, caressing her controls with a gentle touch he hadn't afforded her since he won her in a game of Sabacc all those years ago.

With the press of a button, he warmed her up, his heart thumping in line with the whine of her engines. He sat there and listened to the hum of his ship as she waited for him to take her and guide her wherever he wanted to go, anywhere in the universe with their dreams and wishes as their only limitation.

Closing his eyes and shaking his head, he started the shut down sequence. There was nowhere he wanted to go.


	18. Chapter 18

From a Certain Point of View

Two months later, on a day like any other, Han rolled out of his bunk on the _Falcon_ and walked straight to the cockpit. Sliding into the captain's chair, he slipped his headset on and comm'ed hangar control.

"New Republic Control," the voice on the intercom crackled in response.

"This is Han Solo of the _Millennium Falcon_. Get me General Antilles. Please."

Han had continued with his life after Leia left. He had moved the _Falcon_ over to the military hangar and had never slept another night in Leia's apartment. He literally lived at work, submersing himself in his everyday routine.

Sometimes in the middle of the night he would go back to her apartment in hopes of finding her there asleep or waiting for him, but she never was. He had spoken to Wedge, Carlist Rieekan and any other contact he thought might help him. He had even paid a visit to Roman. But no one knew or no one claimed to know where she was and there was no record of her ever leaving the planet.

Han flipped switches and turned knobs and felt his own being coming to life along with his ship. He had no idea where he was going, no reason why this day seemed different than any other, other than it just felt right.

"Antilles," Wedge's voice came through Han's headset.

"I've got to go, Wedge. I can't stay anymore."

There was a short silence, and then Wedge replied, "Honestly, I'm surprised you've stayed this long. Good luck, Solo."

"Thank you, General."

"If there's anything you need, you know where to find me."

"I appreciate that. Solo out."

When the _Falcon's_ repulsorlifts engaged and Han lifted off the duracrete earth of Coruscant, it felt like a piece of him slid back into place. He had been planet bound since Leia brought him back from his ordeal. The novel sensation of flight, the physical rush it afforded him, the comforting familiarity of him and his ship and the vast universe ahead of them seemed to swell inside his every blood cell until his veins would burst from the pressure.

The _Falcon_ slid out of Coruscant's atmosphere and patiently waited for her next instructions. Han stood and walked over to the navicomputer, stared at its complex controls for a long moment and then punched in a course and vector that was committed to his memory like his home planet of Corellia. There was no doubt that this was where he needed to go.

* * *

When the _Falcon_ touched down on Kashyyyk three days later, there was one, lone, familiar figure standing on the platform waiting to greet him.

[What happened to the _Falcon_?] Chewie roared as soon as Han began to descend the boarding ramp.

"She was out of my hands for a little bit," Han replied as he ran his hands along the support strut. "You'll have to pry the story out of her."

Chewie walked along the ship, raising his paw and caressing each new, welded piece of skin. [They did a good job at least.]

"Yeah. I think I have Leia to thank for that."

[You met back up with the Princess?]

"In so many words, yeah."

Chewie did not respond but continued to intimately survey the battered freighter.

"How's the family?"

[Everyone is well. They'll be glad to see you.]

Han didn't respond.

[If you are staying long enough to visit.]

"Of course," Han replied quickly. "Of course, I'll make time to see them."

[You did not last time you were here.]

Again, Han was silent. This time Chewie turned his attention away from surveying the _Falcon_ and looked directly at Han, waiting for his reply.

"I was in a hurry to run away last time I was here," Han stood tall and spoke the words as if they were his own punishment to say them and hear them being said. "I'm not running anywhere…anymore."

The fur on the side of Chewie's face moved as if from a light breeze that wasn't there. Han knew that it was a smile. [Good. Then let's go have dinner. I can smell Malla's cooking from here.]

Han received a warm welcome into Chewie's home and attracted the attention of the surrounding families. Human visitors were rare on Kashyyyk and humans that could speak and understand Shyriwook as fluently as Han, even more so. It was late in the evening by the time all of the visitors had gone home and Malla and Chewie were wrestling to get an excited little Wookiee to bed.

Han walked along the perimeter of Chewie's house, nestled on the strong branches of a wroshyr tree. The lights of neighboring houses twinkled amidst the branches for as far as he could see and the strong scent of the forest complimented the towering masses of trees and limbs.

The evening had brought with it a strong, cool wind and the floor beneath his feet creaked and moaned with the subtle movement. There were the sounds of lost birds cawing to find their nest mates and the growl of unknown dangers wafting up from the dark nether regions far below. It was nature's conversation and no translation was needed.

One by one, the twinkling lights from houses were snuffed out making it seem as if the darkness were winning some sort of primordial fight. The caw of the birds ceased and the growling droned down to a purr as everyone found their way home. Han stood alone and watched and listened to it all, his hands curled around the rough edge of the safety railing.

[I had to promise him that you would be here in the morning.]

Han turned at the sound of Chewie's voice. Instead of responding right away, he opted to hold his gaze for a long moment. There were many things that needed to be said between them, but Chewie was like the wind and Han was the moving branch. "I will be," he finally replied, with more conviction then the response reasonably required.

Chewie stood tall and watched Han as one watches a candle burn down to its wick. It was a mesmerizing stare full of patience and years of silent understanding, always knowing that the day would someday come but unable to hurry it or force it for fear of snuffing the flame that made it all possible.

"I should've stayed with the Rebellion…," Han began out of nowhere and Chewie did not react but continued to listen. "You were right about that. And, really, I've known that for a long time, maybe since the day we lifted off of Yavin four. But I've only recently realized _why_ I should've stayed." Han paused, the words coming to his mind unbidden and unrehearsed and Chewie's silence acted as the only encouragement they needed. "I thought you wanted to stay to smash the Empire for all that it had done to you and your people. And that should've been enough of a reason for me to stay, I know that, pal."

Chewie tilted his head in a gesture of understanding and forgiveness.

"But you didn't want me to stay for you at all."

Chewie's head jerked up and for the first time he looked stunned by Han's words, as if everything else he had said had been expected and not very revolutionary or surprising. But that this was.

Han wanted to look down at his feet, or up at the bits of dark sky above, or over to the trees in the distance, anywhere but at the piercing blue eyes that were watching him. But he kept Chewie's gaze as he said, "You wanted me to stay for me. For Luke and for Leia and for letting myself belong to something again, like I haven't let myself do since…since I had a family…since I had a home."

Chewie moved as if to say something and Han stopped him, "I ain't done."

Again, the Wookiee tilted his head and remained silent.

Han continued, "I can't take credit for this, but I told Leia that you left me because you finally gave up on me and I thought that, I really did. But she said that it was maybe because I gave up on myself and…now I know that she was right."

Han felt like a son that had just pleaded for amends from his estranged father. He had no idea he had wanted to say those things to Chewie. No preconceived notion that this was the reason for his visit, but now that the words were out of his mouth he knew that this was exactly what he was supposed to be doing with his life at this very moment. It was a very foreign but comforting feeling.

Chewie threw his head back and guffawed as he released one of the worst curse words in Shyriiwook. The sound of his exclamation seemed to travel as far as the twinkling stars overhead.

Han's mouth dropped. "What was that for?"

Chewie shook his head and stared at Han for a moment before he said, [She did in less than a year, what I couldn't do in nearly a decade.]

Running his fingers through his hair and tilting his head down towards the ground, Han eyed Chewie from under his brow as he said sheepishly, "Yeah, well she had some things in her arsenal that you…that you just don't have."

[I guess so,] Chewie agreed and then paused a moment before he asked, [So, where is she?]

"I don't know. She left."

Chewie shook his head.

"Not like that. Well, I guess it was like that. But..."

[Is she Vader's daughter?]

"Yes."

[She told you that?]

"Yeah."

[How did she know for sure?]

"Some ancient Jedi named Yoda."

Chewie didn't respond.

"I'm gonna find her," Han finally spoke into his silence. "I'm tired of running, and I think she is, too."

[You want me to help you?]

"No." Han shook his head and spoke softly. "I came to here to say what I've said and that's it."

Chewie was silent for a while until he said, [I would like to help.]

Han fought back on both a wide grin and an onslaught of tears. He swallowed any further attempts at empty refusals and simply replied, "I'd like that."

* * *

Chewie described to Han how a task force had landed on Kashyyyk and tested several pre-selected Wookiees for Force sensitivity. A few Wookiees, presumably those who had tested positive, had disappeared without a trace. The pair spent several days speaking to the families of those Wookiees who had disappeared and even to some Wookiees who had been tested and left behind. The whereabouts of the missing Wookiees remained a mystery, but that they were rounding up Force sensitives for some sort of academy became very clear.

Han felt certain that he would find Leia at wherever this academy was. And after exhausting all leads on Kashyyyk, Han and Chewie boarded the _Falcon_ and began a planet hop tour of the mid rim planets surrounding Kashyyyk. Evidence of the same type of testing and disappearances were found amongst nearly all of the neighboring planets.

It took the pair nearly two months to establish that they were finally on the heels of their prey, utilizing the timeline of the reported disappearances. Certain that they had determined their probable direction and path by the time they reached the Outer Rim, Han and Chewie sat on the planet of Barabl and plotted a jump that would hopefully put them ahead of their target and place them on-planet both well before and during the testing.

From all the intel they had gathered, it seemed a forward group would hit the planet first to meet with the heads of state and discreetly put a call out for Force sensitives. By the time the candidates had been gathered and tested, a second crew arrived to shuttle the successful candidates off-planet.

In order to jump ahead of the forward crew, Han and Chewie looked two to three months down the potential path for a planet where they might have some luck to get on the inside.

Pouring over planetary data and fighting over who were actually friends or foes, the two had just about given up for the day when Han stood up and jabbed his finger near the tail end of the Corellian Trade Spine and shouted out, "Lando!"

[Calrissian?] Chewie roared the word like an expletive. [You think he'll help us?]

Han shrugged his shoulders and sat back down while he moved his finger away from the star map. "Sure, why not? Lando's always been a romantic at heart. Bespin's perfect, it's a good two months out for the speed they're traveling and from what I hear, Lando's the kingpin over there. We won't find any of our other contacts with that much clout."

Chewie refused to look at the map but stared at Han instead.

Han finally looked at Chewie and smirked, as if admitting that he didn't believe a word he just said but still felt confident that he held some sort of trump card. Heaving his chest back, he took a deep breath and offered, "Plus...I have a lot of money saved."

[_You_ have money saved?] Chewie exclaimed. And then, shaking his head, said, [Now I have no doubt that woman is a Jedi!]

"Can it," Han replied without amusement as he turned his attention back to the star map.


	19. Chapter 19

From a Certain Point of View

They arrived on Cloud City with a few new blaster scorches on the _Falcon's_ patched up hull. But they were eventually welcomed and greeted by the infamous Lando Calrissian who seemed to take much pleasure in reminding Han that the _Falcon_ was rightfully his property. After some good-natured teasing, Lando showed Han and Chewie to a penthouse guest suite and invited them for dinner later that evening at his home.

Lando's apartment was the perfect reflection of the man that he was or at least the man that he wanted to be, Han thought upon surveying Lando's home. The windows dripped with heavy, fabric curtains in dark-jeweled tones that puddled onto the polished floors which mirrored the scenery in perfect reflection. The walls were dressed with oil paintings and hand-painted filigrees. Stone statues, taller than Chewbacca, occupied each room like permanent party guests.

The ceilings were painted dark and the apartment's lighting was sparse and indirect, lending an exalted importance to the fading, orange glow of sunlight pouring through the tall windows. Han and Chewie sat across from Lando at a long dining table that was capable of seating over a dozen beings. The color on the walls matched the underside of Lando's cape and Han wondered if he had the room painted each day to match his outfit.

The trio enjoyed a five course meal and as Kasha - a sinewy brunette with skin just a shade darker than Lando's and legs longer than Han's - cleared their dessert dishes and presented a vintage bottle of Corellian brandy, the old friends had just about made it to the end of memory lane.

For those that think that scoundrels and outlaws don't have their own etiquette and honor, they most certainly do. And although Han was fully aware that Lando knew that this was more than a mere social visit, it was part of the code to act as if scoundrels visited scoundrels for the pleasure of their company and not for any ulterior motives, that is until you've at least had a drink or two.

Han being more of the refined kind of scoundrel, had waited until the second bottle of brandy began to pour before he got down to business with Lando. "So, I know you're wondering why we're here," Han began.

"Not him," Lando replied with a pointed finger in Chewie's direction. "But you, yes. I'm on pins and needles, as a matter of fact."

"I bet. Well, just to put your mind at ease, I don't need money and I ain't on the run."

"_That _has only piqued my curiosity."

Han leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "There's some sort of Jedi roundup going on and we're fairly certain they'll be hitting Bespin in the next few weeks. We need to either get a track on where they're going with the selected candidates or we need to get me selected somehow, rig the test or something."

"Oh," Lando replied as he rested back in his chair, elbows resting on the arm rests and steepling his fingers together. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, have you heard anything about anything like that?"

Lando leaned forward and took a sip of his drink, a sly smile slowly crawling across his face. "I have been forewarned of such a visit," he replied and as he set his drink down he pointed at Han and added, "Under the strictest of confidence, orders signed by the New Republic Chief of State, no less. Now, why in the nine hells of Corellia doesn't it surprise me that you know about it?"

Han leaned back in his chair and grinned. Half the battle had been won; they had placed themselves ahead of their prey. He took a slow sip from his whiskey and then asked, "So, will you help us?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On what I'm helping you do," Lando replied and then raised his voice for emphasis as he added, "And I mean full disclosure, remember I know most all of your tells."

Han raised his hands up in surrender. "Full disclosure, buddy. I'll tell you everything."

Another bottle of Corellian brandy later and Han had finished his true, yet very truncated story.

"Let me get this straight," Lando said as he straightened himself up in his chair. "_The_ Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. _You_ and Princess Leia?" When he finished speaking he was not looking at Han, but at Chewie.

Chewie cooed in a deep, Wookiee-like chuckle and raised his empty paws to Lando as he shook his head repeatedly.

"Don't look at him," Han roared at Lando. "I'm telling you the truth. And what's so hard to believe about it?"

Lando laughed. "You're right. I'm sorry, old buddy. That's all perfectly believable." When he finished, he pressed his palms against the table and pushed himself to a standing position. "I really have to thank you for the entertainment. I had forgotten how delusional you could get when you're drinking."

Han slapped his hand against the table and shook his head in disgust.

"Like, remember the time you thought that high society dame was giving you the eye all night?" Lando offered, his cape swinging forward as he leaned against the table in Han's direction. "And it turned out that she-"

Han stood up and growled, "I remember." He leaned on the table so his face was close to Lando's. "Are you going to help us or not?"

Lando straightened up and gave Han an easy smile. Flinging his cape off of his shoulder regally, he replied, "I'll help you. If only for the sheer amusement." And then Lando walked toward the exit, whirling around in the doorway as if he had just remembered something. "Oh, and be sure to have your credit chips ready, _old buddy_. My amusement doesn't come cheap." And then he left.

Chewie and Han looked at one another and then around the room they had been left in. It was a surprise to neither of them that Lando had opted for the dramatic exit over polite manners. Han shrugged his shoulders and swigged the last of the brandy left in his glass as he waited for Chewie to do the same. Chewie stood and Han looked down at the newly opened bottle of brandy left sitting on the table.

Taking one more look around the room, Han swept his arm out casually, almost fluidly with one, slow, deliberate motion and swiped the bottle off of the table. Nodding his head to Chewie, the pair strode out of Lando's apartment in no particular hurry. Han taking a long drag from the brandy bottle and Chewie with his paw not-so-discreetly resting on his bowcaster.

* * *

Han and Chewie spent over a month on Cloud City waiting for the first crew to arrive. The plans were to let Lando scout out the logistics looking for any chinks in their armor. Their hope was to get Han into the testing and forge his paperwork somehow so that he would be delivered to wherever they were taking everyone.

The forward crew had arrived and Han and Chewie were waiting for Lando to arrive and discuss their options. It was nearly midnight when the front door of their suite finally swooshed open and Lando glided in.

"Sorry I'm so late," Lando said sincerely and to Han's disappointment, very gravely. "These guys aren't messing around."

The group walked over to the dining table and sat down around it. Han and Chewie waiting silently for Lando to elaborate.

"The good news is that the testing and seclusion has already started so I know exactly what we're dealing with," Lando began calmly, pressing his fingers against the table for emphasis.

"But the bad news?" Han asked, skeptically.

"But the bad news is, it isn't some puffed up band of bureaucrats where you're sure to find one rotten apple amongst twenty. It's two people and they were not at all responsive to my charms."

Chewie woofed something that needed no translation for either man and Han said, "You're right, Chewie. There's always a first time for everything."

"Yeah, well, it gets worse," Lando replied, not amused.

"Worse, how?"

"The testing. There's no way I can help you pass it."

"Why not?"

"They take a vial of your blood and test it for something called midi-chlorians. Once the blood passes the vial is destroyed and that candidate is sequestered. The vial never leaves the guy's hands; I watched, believe me. And I can't switch you with another candidate, I don't know who's gonna pass or fail, it'd be blind luck that you would ever get swapped with a successful vial. They're only getting about one in every fifty candidates with the right count."

"Great. I can't fake a blood test." Han's face fell and there was no trace of amusement left in his demeanor.

The room fell silent as the three contemplated their situation. Both Lando and Han would occasionally throw out ideas that were quickly shot down by the other if not by themselves upon hearing them out loud. Lando reclined in his chair and exhaled in defeat as he watched Han stand up and begin to pace the room.

[Let me be tested.]

Han stopped walking and turned to look at Chewie. "What good will that do, buddy? I don't think you can fake a blood test either."

[I won't have to fake anything. I am Force sensitive.]

"What?" Han and Lando replied in unison.

[What?] Chewie shrugged his shoulders and woofed.

Han folded his arms across his chest. "Well, a few important Sabacc games come to mind for one thing."

[I would not use the Force to win a card game.]

"What? So, now you're philosophical?"

[I think we are losing sight of the mission. But to answer your question, I haven't ever been anything but.]

Han shot Chewie a double-take and then looked to Lando.

"I can get him in the test group. If he's telling the truth-"

[What is that supposed to mean?] Chewie roared.

"Alright. Alright," Lando sat up in his chair and raised his hands at Chewie. "_When_ he passes the test, he'll be put into immediate seclusion. He'll be taken on their ship and searched for any transmitters or communicators of any kind."

[Good luck.]

"Chewie's right. I doubt any one of them has the stones to do a regulation search of a full-grown Wookiee."

[A full-grown, Force sensitive Wookiee.] Chewie added with puffed up pride.

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Han eyed him doubtfully.

"They'll have electronic sweeps as well," Lando warned.

"Not a problem. Chewie can have the transponder switched off until he gets where he's going. It may put us a few days behind him, depending on where they go in the galaxy, but at least we'll be able to find him."

"I can't help but notice that you are using the pronouns of 'we' and 'us'," Lando pointed out lightly.

"It's okay, buddy. Just habit. I know you have your responsibilities here. You get Chewie tested and I can handle the rest on my own."

"I would love to come, especially on anything involving a beautiful damsel in distress," he replied with a flashy grin. "But, as you say, I have responsibilities here."

* * *

It was the sound of Chewie's transponder that woke Han up one morning. He had to stare at it for several moments before the reality of the situation hit him. Coming to his senses, he flipped a few switches and hit a few buttons and locked in on the coordinates that were being sent to him through space.

"I'll be a son-of-a-Sith," Han grumbled as he looked at the readout. "Yavin four."


	20. Chapter 20

From a Certain Point of View

Han approached the fourth moon of Yavin on the direct opposite side from where the old Rebel Base had been located. From what he remembered, the moon did not have any type of planetary shield but was only protected surrounding the ancient temples that had served as the makeshift Rebel headquarters. He doubted that an entire planetary defense system had been erected since he had been there last.

After entering the atmosphere without incident and having his hunch proven correct, Han set the _Millennium Falcon_ on a low and slow orbit that had her skimming along the forest tree tops as she approached the ancient temple. He debated on whether or not he should try to land her at a discreet enough distance so as not to be detected by the limited radar capability he figured they had or if he should just approach and let the _Falcon's_ shields and his flying ability take care of whatever resistance, if any, he would encounter.

Two things made his decision easy for him. First was the virtual non-existence of any clearing large enough to set the _Falcon_ down safely and second was Han's aversion to the potential two-day forest hike he would have ahead of him if he landed at that safe of a distance. And if there was a third, it would have been his itchy trigger finger and a general longing for some viable reason to fly his ship in a couple of tight corkscrews.

Han caught sight of the first stone outpost off in the distance jutting out above the tree tops and his fingers curled tightly around the _Falcon's_ control yoke. He had felt something when he had first exited hyperspace and recognized the orange gas giant that was Yavin and then it grew stronger with the sight of the forest moon of Yavin 4. It was an empty, shapeless feeling that he could not put a name to, like trying to remember a word that sits at the back of your mind and refuses to come forward.

Han glanced at a few choice readouts and tried to shake off the persistent sensation. But it was the white stone of the ancient temples that brought the feeling forward violently, as Han recalled Leia's words regarding her visit to the second Death Star. It was a feeling of coming full circle, a sense of reckoning. He pressed his body back into his pilot's seat and worked at forcing himself to relax.

As the _Falcon_ skimmed passed the first outpost, Han noted that it was empty of any guards and as more cropped into Han's view he found them all similarly deserted. With the large temples rising in the distance, Han began to scout out the clearings that were beginning to present themselves, like open arms from an old friend or a snide invitation from an unknown enemy.

By the time Han had chosen a clearing and the _Falcon_ was lowering to the forest floor by the power of her repulsorlifts, there was a crowd of over a dozen sentient beings standing in a semicircle and patiently watching his approach. They were a myriad of species, male and female, old and young and if they were armed, their weapons were not at the ready.

Han set the _Falcon_ down and performed her shutdown sequence without any haste of movement. When he was done, he stood and leaned over to look out of the viewport. There was no one in plain sight, only the dense forest of trees stood at attention in the distance. Not a single leaf shuddered in recognition of his presence, the air was so thick that Han could almost see the moisture suspended like a curtain of frozen rain. He walked to the nav panel and flipped the exterior cams to life and found his welcome committee.

Most of the older beings were standing near the boarding ramp while some of the younger ones were exploring under the _Falcon's_ hull. He noted that every single one of the older ones was sporting a lightsaber, but none were drawn. Absent was any familiar face, neither Chewie nor Leia were present. They held themselves at ease, with the casualness of someone who did not mind waiting forever. His presence did not seem as either a surprise or an expectation, but just something that was.

Han shut the cams down and checked his blaster. Switching it to 'stun' he holstered it and did the same with his two holdouts. He thought of Leia, it was a blinding, white flash of a thought and it was a stab of anxiety, a fear that she might not be here and that he would find himself staring at the vast enormity of his space charts searching for her yet again. Shaking it off, he turned towards the exit, walked through the corridors of the _Falcon_ and lowered her gangway.

The musky, forest scent of the thick Yavin air hit his lungs like water and the catalog of memories from his last visit here sprung to life like a showgirl at curtain call. There was the young princess, dressed all in white and greeted by everyone as if she were a ghost. There were the desperate plans which he listened to with a cocky indifference. There was Luke's goodbye on the bustling hangar floor. And then there was a medal being draped around his neck and a different kind of pressure urging him to run. And then there was now, and the two moments met as if nothing had happened in between and the man that had escaped from this place as fast as he could, walked slowly down the ramp to the ground below as if towards everything he had left behind.

The first face he saw was that of a young boy, wide-eyed and leaning his head down and over so as to catch sight of Han first thing. The boy looked to be about ten years old with dark hair and wide, dark eyes. His skin has the olive-tanned color native to the peoples of a hot, bright, desert planet and the overcast hue of the tropical Yavin atmosphere seemed to clash with his appearance.

He was dressed in the robes of a Jedi, like those Obi-Wan Kenobi had worn, around his waist was a sash cinched tightly but noticeably empty of the traditional Jedi weapon that would normally be hitched there. As Han glanced around he saw all the others were dressed similarly, some with lightsabers and some without. He took a quick inventory of those that were armed, of the men and of any species known for their natural, brute strength.

"Wow! Is this really _the_ _Millennium Falcon_?" The young boy asked as Han walked slowly down the lowered ramp.

Han kept his eyes on the elders who seemed content to wait for him to answer the boy's question. By his count there were at least ten armed Jedi. Three were male humans, four female humans and the rest mixed species, including a Barabel and Devorian that warranted respect even without wielding any weapon of any kind. The rest, four or five counting the young boy who spoke, were unarmed younglings. One was a Wookiee who looked not much older than Chewie's son, Lumpy – also a force to be reckoned with even unarmed and at that age.

Han stepped onto the forest floor of Yavin and turned his attention to the boy. "Yes it is. Have you heard of her?"

"Have I!" The boy answered as he looked up at the underbelly of the ship in a renewed awe. "I studied all about the Rebellion against the Empire and the battle that took place right above this very moon! Can I go inside?"

Two of the male Jedi took a few steps forward.

Han looked at the boy. "I don't think that's such a good idea right now."

"Later then? Do you promise?"

"Zacari," one of the male Jedi said firmly.

The young boy turned and looked at his elder, his spine straightening automatically and his youthfulness draining from his demeanor.

"I'll see what I can do, kid," Han murmured as he entered the code that would shut the _Falcon_ and lock her tightly.

"I apologize for my young charge's excitement," the man spoke over the sound of the _Falcon's_ gangway rising. "We are not used to…unannounced visitors and now to have one with a modicum of notoriety seems to have been too much for him to remember himself."

As the man spoke, Han watched the boy walk to stand in front of him facing Han and accepting the man's hands onto his shoulders. The man was tall and of a solid build, the kind of man that people think twice about starting trouble with judging on his size alone because his face was gentle, open and trusting. He had thick, dark curls of hair piled on top of his head, a large nose and small green eyes. His mouth was small but he spoke with a smile.

"It's alright. No harm done," Han answered, looking directly at the elder man, still unsure of the exact nature of his welcome committee.

"To what do we owe this unexpected visit? Engine trouble, perhaps?" The man inquired as he tilted his head up and surveyed the battered hull of the _Millennium Falcon_ questioningly.

Han was unsure how much of his true purpose he should reveal, especially without having seen or spoken to Chewie yet. "Something like that, yeah," he replied, biting back on the defensive reply he would usually fling at anyone who took pot shots at his ship. "I don't suppose you have any spare parts around here?"

"Spare parts?" The older man repeated questioningly. "We may have some such items, we do have transports that land here frequently." The man took a cautious glance around the circle of his comrades and then added, "We thought perhaps you were more likely searching for an old friend."

Han stopped short of responding right away. Chewie had tested under a false name and they had agreed to keep his identity secret for as long as necessary and possible. Unsure who the man was referring to, Han answered evasively, "That depends. Will I find any old friends here?"

The elder Jedi let out a rush of breath that resembled a chuckle, his small mouth spread into a smile, revealing his teeth for the first time. "I guess there's only one way to find out. You've landed during our evening meal time, would you care to join us and perhaps afterward we can search for both your…_spare parts_ and any old friends you might have here?"

"Lead the way," Han replied with a sweep of his arm toward the temples in the distance.

The man stood motionless for a moment while Han let his arm drop down to his side. Then holding his own arm out, his hand extended to Han, the man said, "My name is Seth."

"Right," Han said sheepishly, shaking the man's hand. "Han Solo."

Seth began to introduce Han's welcome committee starting with the youngling, Zacari. The other man that had approached with Seth was Orren, the Barabel was named Tivian and the Devorian, Jomo. There was a set of female twins, humanoids that said hello to Han in unison, their names were Meisha and Shanel and they looked like any number of cocktail waitresses that Han had met in his past.

The Wookiee was called Tanraawuk, but Han did not recognize that particular tribe name and he was told that he answered to Tan for short. There was a young man named Tae and a girl younger than Zacari, named Sibil. Han lost track of the remaining names; there were three or four more children introduced.

As they walked back towards the temple ruins, a few members walked ahead, many strolled along behind, but Han was flanked on either side by the two elder gentlemen, Orren and Seth.

"You guys don't have any sentinels in place?" Han observed as they passed under an empty outpost.

"It is impossible to enter this atmosphere without being sensed…by other means," Orren offered.

"We felt your presence three and half timeparts ago," Seth added as if to add weight to his friend's assertion.

"I've climbed up in one of those," Zacari interjected as he pointed up to the outpost and wriggled in between Han and Orren.

"Is that right?" Han asked with a smile as he ruffled the young boy's hair.

"It isn't very scary," he assured Han quite seriously.

"That's good to know," Han replied.

They approached the yawing mouth of the ancient temple, its steps and parapets devoid of any signs of life. Han saw the ghost of the girl arriving on a hover car.

"Everyone must be at the dining hall already, we should go there directly," Seth stated, his pace quickening slightly.

Han walked the familiar path up the steps and down the long corridor toward the massive dining hall. Upon entering, he found that not much had changed in the years he had been gone. Long tables were scattered throughout the massive hall with groups of beings seated around each. The droning hum of conversation ground to halt as the group entered and Han's eyes scanned each face looking back at him, searching for one particular pair of eyes.

Instinctively, his glance went to the table at the head of the room where High Command had sat back when this was a Rebel Base. His eyes stopped on a familiar figure.

The first thing he noticed about her was her hair. It was cut short, the edges rounded under hugging her chin on one side of her face and tucked neatly behind her ear on the other. Her face healthy and plump, she looked more like the girl he remembered the last time he saw her on this planet. Her eyes were waiting for him when he found her, they were serious, somehow they seemed more mature and guarded.

Sitting at the head table, she wore a black tunic that crawled halfway up her neck, its long sleeves left only her hands and her face exposed. She was poised, as if she had sent him an engraved invitation and she had the table set and waiting for him. Her lips were a line, neither a smile nor a frown and her eyes watched him intently as if he were the only person on the planet.

The second person he recognized was seated to Leia's left. It was Roman.

"You can sit with me, there are empty spots at my table."

Zacari was pulling on Han's arm and the remaining members of his welcome committee dispersed silently throughout the room, filling empty chairs like raindrops finding the nearest puddle. The hum of conversation perked back to life. Han's eyes scanned the room for Chewie, but could not find him. The three seats at Leia's table that had been vacant were surreptitiously filled by Orren, Seth and Tivian.

Finally succumbing to the child's insistent tugging, Han followed Zacari to a table in the back of the room. Not very much unlike his days as an un-enlisted soldier in her Rebellion, Han found the younglings table uncomfortably familiar.

Han sat at his table watching her, she had not looked at him again. He was also able to spot Chewie at a table in the middle of the room. The two exchanged a quick glance, acknowledging that they had found each other but no more. Han's stomach felt as if he had swallowed burning embers and he was unable to eat any of his food. He drank the pale, red punch that was served at the youngling's table in a quest to drench the fire that threatened to consume him.

Han couldn't decide what was worse, the months that lay behind him when he had no idea where she was or now, this moment, with her sitting in the same room with him yet still out of his reach. He thought he knew all this time what he had wanted to say to her, but now he felt sure that he had lost the ability to not only form words but to string a set of words together that would make any kind of sense, much less convey what he was feeling.

Several of the younglings, including Zacari, were asking him questions and he answered them absently. It seemed to Han that most everyone had finished eating, although he had not touched his plate. The muscles in his legs twitched as he fought back on the urge to stand and approach her. But he waited.

Roman was the first to stand up and Han watched as he walked behind Leia's chair and pulled it out for her. Leia rose to her feet and the sight that was revealed to him caused the simmering fire inside of him to erupt, violently. The old wounds under his fingernails burned as if flames were shooting out from the tips of his fingers. He gripped the edge of the table as it felt like the entire moon had tilted on its axis and he would slide right off into space if he let go.

He wanted to blink his eyes to convince himself that what he was seeing was real or perhaps not real, but he found that he had lost all control of his body. The blood drained from his scalp down into his toes leaving a cool burst of perspiration bubbling out of every pore in its path. He swallowed, it being the only muscular function currently available to him.

At the front of the room, Leia stood, the black tunic that had crawled up her neck and down her slender arms hugged her body snugly down her torso, revealing a large, swollen belly.


	21. Chapter 21

From a Certain Point of View

Han shot up out of his chair and every single Jedi at the head table mirrored his movement. He noticed Chewie, back ramrod straight, remained seated. Every single eye in the room was watching him and he could only see one thing. She stood, staring at him while his blood, just remembering how to circulate, pounded in his ears.

He felt someone tugging at his hand. He heard the muffled silence of people waiting for something to happen. He heard the occasional clang of utensils and someone clearing their throat. He was unable to make sense of any of it.

"You'll get to see her," Zacari stated matter-of-factly as he pulled harder on Han's hand.

Han's eyes fell slowly down to the boy.

"They'll take you to her when it's time. She's the one that told us to expect you."

Han stood frozen, his knees locked straight, his heart pounding inside of his chest.

"It'll be better if you wait until you're invited," Zacari said softly, as if speaking to a child much younger than himself.

Han sunk heavily back down into his chair, his eyes on Leia as she turned and left the room.

* * *

It was Orren that finally approached him and led him down to an open breezeway. On their left, as they walked, was a tall stone wall curving up into an expansive rounded ceiling. On the right was a row of arches and stone pillars in a long procession, the arches leaping up toward the ceiling and the pillars piercing down to the stone floor below. They reminded Han of a series of hyperspace jumps on a space chart.

He was unable to focus on his current situation, concentrating instead of the movement of his legs as they carried him forward and the sound of his feet as they clicked against the stone floor. There were three words resounding in his mind and he felt certain that he could not think of anything else until he had said them. Each word echoed in his mind with each step, rising in a crescendo as they bounced off of the stone wall climbing to their freedom in the heavy air of Yavin Four. The three words were: Is, it, mine.

Han walked slowly with Orren beside him, the two did not speak. Lining the corridor were large, ornate stone planters brimming with lush vegetation, some of it creeping up the walls or down onto the floor as if trying to escape. Past the archways, a few steps down, was a large garden. They turned a corner and then stopped.

Leia stood on the cool, square tiles at the end of the long breezeway. She was flanked by two large humanoids that looked to be as tall as Chewbacca and as crazy as Han. Han walked forward unsure if Orren followed him or not, he came to a stop several paces away from her.

"Leave us," Leia spoke, her eyes on Han, her words directed to everyone else but him. The lines of her shoulders were sharp and she held herself sternly as if she would crumble to the ground if she relaxed.

"But, Your Highness," it was one of the tall humanoids, he tilted his head toward her when he spoke. Nobody else moved.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, in a show of patient exhaustion. "Leave us, please." When she spoke she turned to the humanoid, her tone was anything but pleading.

Not another word was spoken. The pair of humanoids walked away from Leia and towards Han. They paused, ever so slightly in front of him and then walked on. The sound of their footsteps faded behind him, and then there was nothing but the two of them and the sound of those three words echoing in his mind in time with the beating of his heart.

There was a firm breeze that whipped the edges of Leia's long cloak around her ankles, pressing it against her swollen belly. He watched as her hand landed on her stomach almost protectively. Unable to move, he watched her begin to walk toward him instead.

When she stopped a few paces away from him, he shook his head in disbelief and asked, "Is it mine?"

"You know that isn't possible, you told me so yourself."

The words hit him like a physical blow and he responded as if he had been attacked. "Is this why you left? Because you were carrying another man's child? Is _that_ where you were going during the day?"

"Calm down, Han," she replied calmly, dismissively as if his anger was unjust or incongruent to the situation at hand, as if they were discussing a minor difference of opinion like whether or not it would rain that evening. She walked toward him, turning to stand next to him. He felt her hand slide inside of his arm, grasping him on his bicep. "Walk with me."

She led him through an archway and down three, long steps to the grounds below. He followed, passively, utilizing the time to allow his brain to catch up to itself. Han noticed immediately that they were not alone, the garden having become full of people. They walked slowly together, passing several curious onlookers as they meandered out into the garden. His mind raced, if only in circles, passing back over and over again on the question that she hadn't really answered.

Having her on his arm, holding onto him as they walked seemed incredible and surreal. He could smell her and feel her yet he felt oddly detached from all sensations that he would normally have associated with her presence. After months of longing, of visualizing their reunion, nothing could have prepared him for what he had found. Of all his thoughts of betrayal and of abandonment, everything seemed inconsequential now. The true nature of her betrayal and abandonment eclipsing anything he had dared to imagine.

During space travel, there is no up and down, there is no earth and sky. Not until you enter the atmosphere of a planet do any of those things matter. Most spacecrafts automatically "right" themselves during re-entry, but more than once in Han's experience, a ship had failed to right itself by some mechanical failure or another, leaving the pilot to struggle to find his bearings. This phenomenon could prove to be disastrous if the pilot didn't act quickly while keeping a level head, quite literally. Han decided that that's what this felt like, unable to shake the feeling that he was careening out of control towards an imminent disaster.

The garden was made up of a set of intricate paths lined with low-lying foliage and sprinkled with fountains, ponds and benches along the way, the paths crossing each other in a serpentine pattern. Leia spoke softly, "It's part of Jedi history that _my_ father, Anakin Skywalker, was conceived without a father. That his life force was so strong that the midi-chlorians themselves saw to it that he came to be."

He understood, on some level, that she was making idle conversation in a way one does until they can find the privacy to speak what is truly on their mind. But he did not understand why she chose this particular subject. Regardless, he walked silently next to her and half-listened; it was either that or screaming, he thought.

"Of course, the Jedi Council of that time had foreseen such a prophecy, of a Jedi that would be born in such a way. Of a Jedi that would bring peace and balance to the Force. On that they all agreed." She tugged on his arm and turned him sharply to the right, down a much less worn path. "They did not agree, however, on whether or not my father was, in fact, that prophecy."

Like the serpentine path that she led him through, he followed her conversation without much interest. He didn't care where she was leading him to, he only hoped that they would be alone once they got there. He didn't understand what point she was trying to make with her story, he only wished it would answer the one question he wanted to know about. So, he kept his lips pressed together tightly and listened and followed and waited.

"Probably through some fault of my own, the way I showed up here and then…began to show, there are rumors that this child was conceived in the same way."

His arm flinched and pressed her hand up against his rib cage. He let a wave of anger wash over him and run its course down his throat, through his stomach to his thighs until it dissipated somewhere around his kneecaps. Was this her answer? Had she been so thoroughly brainwashed as to believe such nonsense?

She remained silent as they passed a group of girls seated around a stone table. After a few paces, she continued, "I tried my best to dispel the rumors, because I know that isn't what happened here."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her free hand laid to rest on her stomach. Han breathed out.

She added, matter-of-factly, "But the rumors still persist…among some."

She turned them again towards a point in the distance where two trees had reached out to each other with their limbs and formed a natural archway. The path of the garden was lined with fallen leaves and forest needles that muted their footsteps to quiet thuds. Each time one of his feet fell upon the padded path Han heard the same words again: _Is_, footstep, _It_, footstep, _Mine_, footstep.

They walked underneath the natural archway and onto a well-worn forest path where the long, trodden grass slumped over as if it were bent down in worship. No longer in the manicured protection of the garden, the trees towered above them, their limbs providing a canopy from the light mist that had begun to fall from the dark, grey sky.

Forest sounds of scattering insects, the flapping of feathered wings and the song of rushing water in the distance replaced the sound of hushed conversations and bursts of laughter that had filled the garden. They were finally alone, but neither one of them spoke.

As they came upon a clearing, a lone tree stood at the end of the path, its moss-covered limbs, long and heavy with foliage, dropped to the ground and bent up toward the sky again. The forest floor was covered with the drab red, orange and brown leaves sacrificed over several subsequent seasons. A primitive table made of the same stone of the temple sat beneath the tree, two rounded benches flanking it.

Leia disengaged herself from Han's arm and walked straight to the tree. Han had to duck under several branches to follow her. A few paces before she reached the table, she spun around and looked at him, her face flushed from the long walk. He stopped and waited.

"I've been expecting you." Her hand still rested on her stomach as she spoke.

Han had to force himself to take his eyes off of her swollen belly. Fighting to control the urge to touch her, to feel what he hoped, what he knew was _his _child growing inside of her. Fighting the urge to shout out the three words that rallied once again to break free: _Is it mine?_

"Ever since I recognized Chewie." She shook her head and smiled for the first time since he had arrived. "Honestly, I've been expecting you since the day I arrived."

"Why did you leave like that, Leia?"

"There were things I had to work out. Just like I told you that morning."

"You also told me to trust you that morning. Did you know you were leaving when you kissed me goodbye?"

"No."

"Then what happened?"

"I found out-" She stopped, her eyes falling to the ground in between them. "You know what?" She looked back at him. "It doesn't matter."

"I think I can guess what you found out."

She took her hand off of her belly.

"Is it Roman's?"

Her face registered shock and her head flinched back as if she had been hit. "Is that what you think of me?"

"What do you want me to think? You disappear and I have to scour the galaxy to find you, only to find you here with _him_? Carrying a child that you prefer to act as if you would rather it to be anyone else's _but_ mine."

"Fine, of course that's what you think of me." She pulled her cloak tightly around her. "You'll always wonder who I am and what I am. What this child will be. What I can turn into, what _it_ could turn into."

Han watched her for a moment, absorbing her words. "You know what? That sounds like all the things that _you're_ worried about."

One of her eyebrows ticked up and she pressed her lips together in a tight line.

"Is it mine?"

She shook her head at him. "Please, don't be so angry."

He took a step towards her. "Leia, you either left Coruscant knowing you were carrying my child or you left Coruscant knowing you were carrying another man's child. Which scenario would you like me to find happiness with?"

She did not respond.

"Is. It. Mine?"

She tilted her chin up in defiance and then spat the words at him. "There's no one else's it could be."

He stared at her, confused by her anger, elated by her answer, terrified by his elation and finally enraged at what it all meant. "And you left…knowing…"

She upheld her defiant demeanor and answered coldly, "I am sorry I left like I did."

"But you're not sorry you left."

She held his gaze for a long moment. A low, rolling thunder grumbled in the distance. "We should get back."

He was overcome with emotion, unsure if he should be fighting with her, shouting at her, or grabbing and shaking her until this icy façade shattered in his hands. Not knowing if he could touch her if he wanted to, knowing that he wanted to but not knowing if he _should_ want to.

He shook his head at first, preparing to fight for more time, there was so much more to say. But then he looked at her and noticed her hair, damp and heavy pressing against her skin and he saw the slight tremble of her shoulders in the cool, evening breeze and he slowly nodded a silent consent. She began to walk back toward the path to the garden and he fell in line alongside of her.

They walked through the thick, heavy mist made of large raindrops suspended in midair. Han's clothes began to cling to him and he felt the sensation of drowning. It wasn't lack of oxygen that caused the sensation, but lack of a single free brain cell. Every one was eaten up with jumbled thoughts and violent emotions, without a single one left to help him sort the others out, put them into place and provide them direction.

Leia pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and said, "You can stay the night on the _Falcon_. We can talk more tomorrow. I'll make sure we have time."

He had no intention of ending their conversation here, but then he had no idea what he wanted to say. So, he said nothing.

As they approached the archway leading to the garden Han caught sight of Roman standing at the entrance as if waiting for them. His thoughts finally seemed to coalesce into one single, focused emotion: fury.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Han asked through gritted teeth.

"You're the one that said having someone in my life that cares about me shouldn't be a complication."

Her words stung. He replied bitingly, "I did, didn't I?" And then added as they neared Roman. "Maybe that was before I knew just how complicated caring for you could be."

Leia said nothing, but kept her eyes forward as they both came to a stop in front of Roman.

"Captain Solo, always a pleasure," Roman spoke the words lightly as if they were said with a smile, but his face was hard and cold.

Han glanced at the lightsaber hitched on Roman's belt. "So, you're a Jedi now?"

"In training, yes. It's a long journey before one can answer to the title of Jedi."

"Roman was just recently tested, he didn't know before then," Leia offered, her eyes on Roman.

"How convenient," Han answered.

"Leia told me of some of your trials following your return to Coruscant. I'm sorry I had no idea you had been through so much."

"Did she tell you that we were sleeping together?"

"Han!"

"Did she tell you that that child," Han said angrily, pointing at Leia's stomach, "is something _we_ created while you were busy not knowing you were a Jedi?"

"Han, please!"

"I don't believe Leia has named the father of her child." He took a step forward to stand next to Leia. "Regardless, we prefer to believe that this child was conceived for greatness and not by some _mistake _she made while she was feeling sorry for someone from her past."

Leia spun around and sidestepped in front of Roman before he finished speaking and Han left his arm hitched back as he glared over Leia's head and into Roman's eyes.

"Roman," she said sharply. "I'll be walking Captain Solo back to his ship." She never took her eyes off of Han as she spoke.

Roman's eyes fell down to look at the back of Leia's head for a long moment, his eyes on her, her eyes still on Han and Han's on Roman. Roman swallowed and said, "I would rather you didn't."

"Consider your opinion duly noted," Leia responded as she spun around to face Roman and then sidestepped around him and walked toward the forest path that lead to the clearing where the _Millennium Falcon_ had landed.

Han watched as Leia's figure faded behind Roman's shoulder and then his eyes locked on Roman's in a deadly silence.

It was Roman who finally spoke when he said, "You should know that she will not wait for you, and that it is not safe for her to be on the grounds alone."

Han blinked and then brushed past Roman to catch up to Leia.

The rush of emotions that broke free inside of him pushed his legs faster and tightened the muscles of this throat. The countless nights he had slept alone after she left flooded past him in a haunting procession while every single word that he regretted never saying to her popped in his mind like rocks in a fire.

A desperate battle waged on inside of him with his every single step, a battle between finally saying the things that he had waited all of this time to say or flinging the angry insults that he felt she deserved to hear, an epic struggle between damnation and exaltation. A choice between confessing his feelings to the woman that had left him or chastising the traitor that he had found in her stead.

He caught sight of her walking ahead of him and he slowed his pace, his mind slowing down with the movement of his legs. There was no answer that she could give that would quench the anger inside of him for what she had done. He could not hope to understand, in the next few moments, what had driven her to it. There was nothing more to expect from any violent accusations than defensive remarks in return. His anger flickered.

The _Falcon_ rose into view and he watched as she stopped in front of it and turned around to watch him approach. His only thought remaining as he took the last few steps to stand in front of her was that of a card table and a game of Sabacc. Han knew, as any decent gambler knows, that he would have to bet high to win high and if he wanted to walk away with the pot then he had better be prepared to leave everything on the table.

As he drew nearer to her, he reigned in his emotions. If he left this planet tomorrow without her, it would be without one single regret over the things that he did not say. Would he be swallowing his pride to say these things to her? He did not think so. He would be proud to say them. He would say them in front of everyone and anyone that would listen. Would he be embarrassed if she rejected him? He would not, although he did refuse to actually entertain that possibility.

He stopped in front of her and looked down at her. She was looking up at him obediently, like a child bravely awaiting punishment. He grabbed her at the shoulders. "Leia, I don't care who the hell your parents were or what the hell your midi-chlorian count is-"

"You say that now-"

"I'll say it for the rest of my life." The words choked out of him, he was breathing heavy and his tongue felt as if it had swollen inside of his mouth. She looked calm and beautiful and he drew his strength from her. "I love you, Leia."

He had never said those words to anyone like that before, in such an exact, fierce manner as if stating a cold, hard fact with scientific proof to back it. They had never felt so right on his lips, to his ears and in the face of the person he was staring at, even though she was shaking her head at him in denial of it. It didn't matter.

She whispered, "No."

He took a step towards her, his elbows collapsing with the diminished distance. A pressure that was pure emotion surged inside of his chest in anticipation of saying those same words again. "Yes, I love you." They sounded sweeter the second time and they rolled off his lips as if their predecessors had blazed a path for them. "How many times do I have to say it until you'll believe that it's true?"

He placed a hand on the side of her face and smiled, making light of the way her face was contorting painfully in response. He knew that he was bearing witness to her own internal battle and the rest of his anger melted at the sight of it. "Tell me and I'll do it."

Shaking her head again, she said more forcefully, "You're making a mistake."

"No. I know you're doing your best to convince me of that. But, I've made enough mistakes in my life to know one when I see one." Lowering his face down to hers he whispered, "And what's standing right in front of me, is no mistake."

Her head was shaking frantically now and her eyes shut down on heavy tears. He caught her lips with his and she jerked back and pushed him away.

"Please, Han." She stood with her hands against his chest, her straight arms in between them. She held her head steady and said, firmly, "Let's talk more tomorrow."

He shook his head repeatedly, the lightness he had been feeling becoming heavy like the damp air surrounding him. For him tomorrow was too fluid. Today, right now, was concrete. Here in the present with her standing before him, he could take anything. She could reject him all night, so long as she didn't leave him.

But he drew back and looked at her, and as he saw the sag of her shoulders, the red blotchy skin on her face and the heavy bags under her glassy eyes, he relented. "Alright." Looking out at the darkened forest, he said, "I should walk you back."

"No," she shook her head and smiled knowingly. "I'll be alright."

"No, really-"

"Come out, Jomo," Leia shouted over his shoulder, her eyes still on Han.

Han turned and watched as the Devorian slinked from behind a large tree trunk several meters away. He turned back to Leia.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said with a tight, pained smile.

"Tomorrow." He nodded.

Leia turned and took one step before she slowly turned back and said, "And, Han?"

"Yes?"

Her mouth opened and she hesitated. Shaking her head, she said, "It was never about you."

He shook his head, her words revealing much more than she realized. He said, "I think that's where you're wrong."

She gave him a half-smile and then turned and walked away.


	22. Chapter 22

From a Certain Point of View

Han stood in the main hold of the _Falcon,_ his body frozen in place. If his ship had looked different to him when he had finally gotten her back, he was sure that he must look different to her now. Several hours ago he had left in search of answers, and an elusive woman that drove him crazy in ways both good and relentlessly frustrating. He returned a father-to-be. Something he had never given much thought to becoming. Something he had only given thought of not becoming. And the woman that he found, in her Jedi robes and detached demeanor left him jumbled up and rearranged on the inside.

He found it nearly impossible to get angry or attempt to yell at a pregnant woman, much less the mother of his child. The mother of his child, the phrase was nearly comical to him if he wouldn't have found it so damn terrifying. He wished Chewie was there to talk to, the fur ball philosopher would know exactly what to say. Of course, he would make light of the situation, forcing Han to laugh at himself for taking it all so seriously. He would probably point out that only humans inherit a god complex when they find out that they can procreate like every other animal in the damn universe, or something along those lines.

Han smiled and ran his fingers through his hair. He thought of how beautiful Leia looked carrying _his_ child. He did feel godlike. He chuckled. He felt a euphoria that he could only compare to his random experimentation with spice. Han Solo, a father. It was all that he could think about.

He walked into the galley and fixed himself a quick meal. Sitting at the holochess table he fed the ravenous hunger that roared inside of his empty stomach. The events of his day replayed through his mind, from the moment he had recognized Yavin's moon to watching Leia walk away from him just moments ago, to everything in between. He recalled his run-in with Roman and felt a stab of anger punch through his euphoria. The sense of reckoning that had greeted him earlier shot forward again and something made him think of Luke and the innocent words of a farm boy about a princess and a guy like him. He set his fork down.

Like the fabricated high of spice, he felt himself deflating rapidly at the onslaught of memories that went as far back as his childhood. Memories of his father and of not having a father, forcing him to face the reality of why he had never wanted to become a father himself. Then visions of Leia, naked in his arms, underneath him and on top of him, of the reunion that he had imagined between them, hit him like slaps in his face. The sound of his declaration of love and the painful rejection on her face dragged him right back down to the depths of those emotions that he thought he had outrun.

He stood, picked up his plate and headed to the galley. The night had brought with it a driving rainstorm and as he stood in the galley the sound of rain pelting down on the _Falcon's_ hull waxed and waned as the wind pushed it down in sheets. He gripped the edge of the sink trying to steady himself, feeling as though he was drunk but knowing that he was simply exhausted.

The highs and lows of the day's events had left him emotionally drained and he walked slowly toward his cabin, trailing his hand along the bulkhead for support along the way. When he reached his cabin he stood in its center and stared at nothing in particular. Finally, he spun around and headed back to the lounge; he could not think of sleeping.

He sunk into the conformed chair at the engineering console and began to randomly press buttons and flip levers. Ever since he had gotten the _Falcon_ back he had had to painstakingly review all of her _innovative_ programming, ensuring that the random buttons and dials that he flipped and turned would do exactly what he expected them to do.

As the words flashed before him on the screen he knew that he would have to redo anything he did tonight while in this state of mind, but he did it anyway. There was a comfort in the steady flow of figures and in the confidence of knowing that he could make them do anything he wanted them to. There was no emotion involved in the flipping of a switch that would engage the hyperdrive system. As long as her parts were in good working order, he would always get the expected response.

He thought of Leia. He couldn't help it. If anyone thought that the _Falcon_ had a complex system of creative engineering he felt sure the inner workings of that woman would make their head spin. There wasn't a consistent formula in the galaxy that could predict her actions. If he thought he was engaging her sublight engines, her laser cannons hummed to life, if he pressed forward on her hyperdrive modulator, her shields shot up. And if he did it all again, something different would happen entirely.

He slumped back in the chair and closed his eyes. He was finally spent. His arms pressed against the armrests, his thighs melted into the seat of the chair, his feet pushed down on the metal grating of the floor as his entire body felt the extreme heaviness of pure exhaustion. His muscles quivered like a space slug on hot duracrete and his eyelids jumped in a final stand against the erotic pull of sleep.

* * *

It was the sound of the _Falcon's_ proximity alarms that bolted him out of his seat. His head spun around, claiming his bearings as he stumbled through the lounge and towards the closed gangway. He didn't bother checking the cams, but lowered the ramp and waited, blinking away the fog of interrupted sleep.

A black figure ascended the ramp, the dark sound of the pounding rain its only backdrop. A stream of artificial light sliced diagonally through the darkness and as the figure crossed its plane, the familiar wide, brown eyes came into focus before him and he snapped awake.

He grabbed her hand. It was a frozen, bony skeleton engulfed by the warmth of his grip. He pulled her along the corridor, through the lounge and into his cabin. Turning to face her she stood stiff and stationary, her mouth clamped shut. He unhooked the fastener of her hood and pushed it off of her head and body. Turning to the 'fresher, he threw her rain-soaked cloak into the autovalet and grabbed two large towels. He wrapped one over her shoulders on top of her damp tunic, he took the other and dried her hair.

When he pulled the towel away from her head, her short hair stuck out like a pixie's and he couldn't help but smile at the sight of her. She didn't move. He turned her around by the shoulders and led her to the lounge, lowered her down to the banquette and disappeared into the galley.

As he heated up the water for tea, he shook the cobwebs out of his head, dragging his hand over his face. Walking back towards her, a mug of hot tea in his hands, he approached her as one would a wild animal unsure of its intentions. She took the mug from him and wrapped her tiny hands around it, holding its warmth for a moment before bringing it to her lips and taking a tentative sip.

He turned toward the sound of the driving rain from outside and walked over to raise the _Falcon's_ gangway. When he returned she had kicked her wet shoes off and tucked her feet underneath her. Her stomach stuck out uncomfortably and she rested the mug of tea on top of it. He had no idea what to make of her.

"Remember when I told you that it all started when Luke died?"

She looked at him questioningly and he nodded his head in response.

"Well, if that was the start…it was the beginning of the end."

He shook his head in confusion. She held the mug out, lifting it slightly for him to take. He approached her, keeping the distance of their outstretched arms between them. He grabbed the mug and set it down the holochess table. Leia arched her back and rubbed her stomach. When she shut her eyes he took the opportunity to turn away from her, walking toward the middle of the lounge.

He heard her exhale. "You don't have a contrachip."

He spun around, she was watching him intently. "What?"

"That day. I realized I was pregnant and I went to the med center. You don't have a contrachip…according to your medical records."

He rubbed his arm where the chip should have been, he hadn't even thought of how he could've possibly been the father with a contrachip in place. "Is that what this is about? You think I did this on purpose?"

"What were my other options _to_ think?"

"Leia, I have had a contrachip since…since as long as I care to remember."

"Well, somewhere along the way you lost it."

Han thought back, his mind tumbling over his recent past. "When they tortured me…?"

She nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. That's exactly what I think."

"What do you mean _unfortunately_?"

"Your capture, and rescue. The dreams that kept us together. The dreams that miraculously stopped at what could only have been the conception of this child."

He let her words sink in and then said, "And you think _I_ would've been a part of something like that? Setting aside the fact that I was _tortured_ and _beaten_ to near death."

"Weren't you the one that told me that I would be surprised at what a man, _any man_, would be capable of doing?"

He stared at her as everything clicked into place. "And is _that_ the kind of man you think I am?"

"No." She looked down at her belly and at the hand that rested on it. "But it's made me realize…it's made me see things more clearly…" She looked back up at him. "Concerning us."

"And what would that be?"

She exhaled. "That whatever _was_ between us, was just another manipulation. Like my entire life before it."

"What is that supposed to mean?" He took a step towards her.

"It means, whatever feelings you think you have…they've been orchestrated. This entire ordeal was an orchestration. They made _me_ want to protect you, they made _you_ think you felt something for me. So this baby was created out of that illusion. Created out of…" She stopped, hesitated and then said, "Nothing."

His heart skipped a beat.

"So, you see? What they believe…" Her hand swept out toward someplace in the distance. "The rumors…they're not entirely untrue…from a certain point of view."

He stood watching her, unable to comprehend…to make the leap from her convoluted story to the facts set out before him now.

She sighed, moved uncomfortably to free one of her legs from beneath her and let it hang over the side of the banquette, her foot not quite making it to the floor. "I've been manipulated my entire life, Han. Every corner I turn, I find nothing but lies. And now this." Rubbing her belly she swallowed and continued, "This is the greatest manipulation of all."

Han thought he heard himself screaming, but it was the beep of the autovalet.

She let her other leg fall from beneath her. "I should go."

"No." He was standing over her in an instant, looking down at her. He knelt in front of her, placing his hands on her thighs. "I don't care what happened. I don't care what kind of games anybody else was playing. What you and I have is not an illusion. My love for you is not someone's orchestration."

She pushed her shoulders back against the cushions behind her. "If we consider that for a moment. If we…believe that there is something between us-"

"There-"

"Let me finish." She placed a hand on top of one of his. "Would you be willing to stay here, at the academy? While I rebuild the Jedi council?"

"You didn't want to do that before, why do you want to do it now?"

"I was…in denial before. In shock. I realize now that this is my responsibility. My destiny."

"Why is it your responsibility?" He took her hand in his. "I mean, look around this place, you aren't the only Force sensitive person left in the galaxy. Let someone else rebuild the Jedi council. I know this isn't what you want."

She shook her head, not as though his words were wrong, but as if they were futile.

He stood, turned away from her and ran his fingers through his hair. Turning around to look down at her, he asked, "Will anything in your life ever be about you? About _your_ wants? _Your_ needs and not everybody damn else's?"

"No, Han," she answered coldly. "You've got the corner on that market covered."

His face registered the hurt that her words shot through him and he didn't care to try and hide it.

She looked down guiltily. "I'm sorry." She studied her hands for a moment and then looked up at him and said, "Luke was my brother."

The hurt on his face turned to shock and his mouth dropped open as his eyes shot to the side while he tried to comprehend the meaning of her words.

"This," she swept her hand around the expanse surrounding them. "This was supposed to be _his_ destiny…" She exhaled. "And now it's mine."

His eyebrows furrowed at her, but he stood and said nothing.

"Before I slept with you, I told you that you didn't know me and you told me that you did. That you knew me and that you wanted all of me. But if you think I can walk away from this responsibility. If you think I can let the Jedi legacy die by my neglect. If you so _loathe_ a person who is willing to sacrifice their happiness for the greater good of humanity. Then you don't know me at all."

He studied her for a moment, at the exhaustion in her eyes, at the sag of her shoulders and the nervous way she continued to study the hand that rested on her swollen belly. He took a step towards her and said, "I don't expect you to walk away from something that you see as a responsibility. But I need you to be honest with me. Pull out all the stops, Leia. For once in your life, open up to me and trust me."

She held his gaze, purposefully as if she knew exactly what he was talking about but preferred to act as if she did not.

"You are not telling me everything," he said firmly.

She clamped her mouth down and Han could see that she was biting on the inside of her bottom lip. Whatever button he had pressed, he knew that her shields had just shot up.

"I've realized something." He knelt down before her again, resting back on his heels, placing his hands, not on her knees but on the banquette on either side of her. "You have told me things that you may not have told anyone else. And I know how hard that has been for you." He looked down at her hand resting on her thigh and took it in his, rubbing his thumb tenderly on the inside of her palm. "But they're…they've only been an historical account, a series of incidents, facts and events."

She said nothing.

He continued, "What I want to know, is how they made you _feel_. What are the things that you're _afraid_ to say, the things that are terrifying you?" He took her other hand off of her belly and squeezed both of her hands in his. "The things that are making you run. And I know they're in there." She shook her head and he pressed, "Leia, burden me with _them_, and not your empty rejections."

Her eyes narrowed. "I've told you everything. I am _facing_ my destiny. I am _doing_ what I feel is right." She shook her head again. "There isn't anything that I haven't told you."

"I hear you answering me, but I know…" He drew his body up off of his heels and knelt before her, his stomach pressing into her knees. "I may not have the Force, but I can tell when someone is lying to me. I worked really hard back on Coruscant to convince myself otherwise." He pushed a lock of hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. "Leia…I'm asking you to trust me, _really_ trust me. Trust _someone_, for once in your life."

She inhaled a deep breath through flared nostrils and replied tightly, "It would not be for _once_. It would _not_ be the first time. The only man I ever trusted died with Alderaan. And _that_ man lied to me my entire life."

He paused, giving her words a wide berth before he leaned closer in to her and stated firmly, "_I…_am not that man."

Her composure cracked and her eyes softened.

"Aren't you tired of running, Leia? Always running?" He rested his hand on her stomach feeling it for the first time. He looked down at his fingers splayed against the curved extension of the body that he had memorized. "You've been running since your feet last touched the earth of Alderaan, haven't you?"

Her features relaxed into a child's on the verge of a breakdown and he knew that he as getting close. He moved his hand down her side and then leaned down and pressed his lips against her stomach. He heard a sharp intake of breath from her and he felt her fingers slip into his hair.

He lifted his face to hers. "Talk to me, Leia. Stop running and trust me."

Her mouth fell open as her hands fell down to her sides. He watched her face contort in a silent struggle of emotion. She looked mangled, wrecked by the internal battle raging inside of her. She started as if to speak, but then stopped. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

"Luke wasn't just my brother. He was my twin." She exhaled and looked in his eyes for a moment as if finding her strength somewhere inside of his dark pupils. "If the legacy of Darth…of Anakin Skywalker was to bring balance to the Force..."

She paused, searching for words and he sat back on his heels and waited.

She looked at him, an assuredness taking over her demeanor as if she had found her direction and the courage to follow it. "One can never truly understand a prophecy until it has played itself out and you can look back on it. Anakin Skywalker wasn't supposed to bring balance to the Force. He fell to the Dark Side. If we believe in destiny we have to believe _that_ was his. But he brought…a set of twins." She held her hands out in imitation of a scale. "Was it those twins that were supposed to fulfill the prophecy? Was it those _twins_ that were to bring that balance to the Force?"

She paused and he remained silent.

"Luke," she said as she looked at one of her hands and crumpled it into a fist. Shaking that fist slowly she said, "Luke _wanted_ to be a Jedi. Luke _would've_ been able to rebuild the Jedi council." And then she looked at her other hand, the fingers outstretched bearing the open palm symbolizing her life. She shook her head repeatedly. "I…" The tears began to fall.

He placed his hands on her thighs and squeezed them, trying to offer her his strength.

"I…" she began again as she took the fist that was Luke's crumpled life and she began to pound it down on Han's shoulder. She looked at him as if a blinding pain was ripping through her soul and she whispered, a low painful whisper, "I…can't."

The words sounded as if they were made of shattered glass ripping a path up out of her throat. She closed her eyes, still shaking her head taking both of her hands now and pounding them against Han's shoulders and repeating the words. "I can't. I can't. I can't." As if releasing the millions of times she held them back and she was finally letting them go.

He let her release her anger, fear and frustration on him until he finally pulled her to him and she buried her face against his neck, collapsing against him in a shuddering heap.

"_This_ wasn't my destiny," she cried as her warm tears fell against his skin. She pulled away from him and looked at him, terror and agony streaking down her face in the form of a salty liquid. "For the first time in my life, I feel _destined_ to fail."

He held her gaze for a moment and then whispered, "You won't fail."

"You don't _know_ that."

He pulled her to him again and held her as she cried. After a long while, he whispered, "Stay with me tonight."

He pulled away to look at her and she wiped her eyes and nodded slowly.

He gave her a t-shirt and she came out of the 'fresher wearing only it, the edge hitting high on her upper thighs as it stretched over her stomach. She climbed into his bunk as he walked into the 'fresher. When he exited, several moments later, she was asleep.

He stood over her and watched her for a long time. Not wanting to wake her but yearning to hold her, he sat on the side of the bunk and traced his finger along her face and then down along her belly before he stood up and left the cabin, unable to disturb her slumbering form or perhaps unable to bridge the emotional distance that he still felt stood between them. He crawled into the medical bunk and unsuccessfully fought the sweet pull of sleep.


	23. Chapter 23

From a Certain Point of View

Han awoke slowly to the drone of the _Falcon's_ ventilation system. He looked around, finding his bearings, unused to awakening in the medical bunk of his ship; at least not soberly. As he sat up, he let his legs hang over the bunk and his hands gripped its sides. He gave a moment's pause to everything that had happened the day before and then he hopped off of the bunk and headed to his cabin.

He found her in his bunk, just as he had left her, curled up on her side and deep in a peaceful slumber. A warm smile crossed his lips as his chest swelled with emotion. He walked towards her tentatively, and standing over her he silently studied her for a long moment.

His eyes traveled down her body, from her tousled hair to the outline of her legs and feet at the end of the bunk. But it was the interesting curve of her stomach that he kept coming back to. The heavy, clinging fabric of the coverlet bowed out over the new bends of her body like snowdrifts on a hillside.

The innocence of her mouth and facial features as she slept combined with that fascinating arc of the bright, white coverlet made his insides burn with the flare of a protective father. He would die a thousand deaths before he let anything happen to that face, and not to the physical appearance of it - although he did hold it dear to him - but to that pure serenity that it seemed she could only achieve in slumber. That was his sole purpose in life now, to create the world that would allow her to wear that look during her waking moments.

He watched as her eyebrows furrowed and she turned onto her back with a faint moan. One of her arms flung up and rested over her head. She was dreaming, her face rapidly losing its tranquility. A stab of anger shot through him as he watched her toss her body on its side, facing away from him now with another stifled moan. He felt the empty pang of helplessness. Gently grasping the coverlet, he pulled it over her shoulders, leaned down and kissed her tenderly on the temple and then turned around and left the room.

* * *

He returned to his cabin over an hour later, fully dressed and carrying a tray of food. She was lying on her side, facing him again and this time, when the cabin door slid open, her eyes fluttered open in response. She looked at him for a moment as he stood holding her breakfast. She smiled and he walked towards her.

She rolled onto her back and scooted her body to a seated position, her back resting against several pillows propped against the bulkhead. He sat next to her on the edge of the bunk as he had the night before while she slept. The tray of food balanced on his lap, he handed her a piece of toast and she took it. He curled his hand around the cool glass of juice and waited.

She ate in silence, her inhaling the food he offered and him devouring the very simple pleasure of merely being in her presence once again. The air surrounding them smelled, tasted and felt different inside of his lungs, everything made sweeter by her sheer existence. He wore a dopey smile, he was sure. He was also sure that he didn't care.

He held a piece of fruit out to her and she put her hand up in protest and then rubbed her belly and sighed as she stretched and slumped back against the pillows in contentment. She scooted down and rested her head against her bent arm as she curled up on her side and looked at him.

He set the tray down on the floor and then took the backs of his fingers and pressed them against her cheek and then her forehead. "Did you sleep alright?" He asked, the sound of his voice a small shock, finally breaking the silence that they had shared over her breakfast.

She shut her eyes against the feel of his skin on hers and hummed her affirmative reply while nodding her head.

He let his hand travel down to her shoulder, following her arm until it found its way to her stomach and he rested it there lightly. There was a constriction in his chest as his body responded to a knowledge that had not quite sunk in yet as his new reality.

She opened her eyes, watched him for a second and then her face grew serious. The expression mirrored the marred look he had witnessed as she dreamt, although he noted that it struck him much harder with her eyes open - the wide, brown moons a perfect barometer to her frame of mind.

"There's something wrong in the Academy, Han. I can feel it."

She spoke softly, not lifting her head. He took in a deep breath, but didn't reply.

"It has something to do with me." She placed her hand over his on her stomach and added, "With this baby. And I can't stop it. Some of those people," her glance traveled through him, straight to the temples in the distance, "know more about the Force than I do. Than I ever will." She looked down at her hand on his and she said, "Whoever was behind this is on this moon. I just know it."

He slid his hand from underneath hers and took it inside of his own. As he curled his fingers around her hand, he said, "We'll get Chewie and we'll get you out of here."

"No, I can't just leave all the others. And we can't choose who to take with us because I have no idea who's behind it. I don't even think we can fit everyone on the _Falcon_, we have so many people here now. _Younglings_, even."

She shook her head vehemently and sat back up against the pillows. "No. I know." She rubbed her stomach absently while she held his gaze. "If there's one thing I know, it's that I _will_ face this…whatever it is, before I leave this planet. One way or another."

"What about the baby? Leia, at some point we're going to have to do what's best for you and the baby, above all else."

She had never stopped shaking her head and he watched as she looked down and away from him. "It was agreed by all the elders that I would return to Coruscant to have the baby." She looked back up at him as if offering an apology or an excuse. "If things had gone differently…if you hadn't come. I would have at least found you then. I promise you that."

He shook it off. "That doesn't matter now." His mind began to race. His focus sharpening on the problem set out before them. "When were they going to let you leave for Coruscant?"

"At thirty weeks."

"How far along are you now?"

"About twenty-eight."

She kept talking but the words went through him like water through a sieve. He had only heard, 'twenty-eight'. Twenty-eight. Twenty-eight long weeks of not knowing where she was or why she had disappeared. Twenty-eight weeks of preparing himself for the worst kind of scenarios a man in love can dream of. Twenty-eight weeks to ill prepare himself for what he had finally found.

"…I have to think that whatever's going to happen, it's going to happen before they let me leave."

He exhaled, jerking his mind away from the edge of that cliff. "I'm gonna get you and this…" Placing his hand on her stomach, he corrected himself by saying, "_Our_ baby off of this planet." The words choked in his throat, he knew Leia did not suspect the true reason of why that was.

She nodded her head and fought back on the tears welling up in her eyes.

"Leia?"

She held his gaze, but said nothing.

"What about Roman?" He bit his teeth down as he finished the sentence.

She shook her head slowly, an easy smile forming on her lips. "Roman cares about me." She placed her hand on his face. "Don't fault him for that."

He kept his jaw clenched tightly, trapping several words that begged to come free. The sting of her words contrasting sharply to the tender expression on her face.

"And as for me…" She traced a finger along his chin and then dropping her hand, she added, "I don't feel for him, like…I feel for you."

His shoulders dropped a centim and he felt the muscles in his face relax.

"And I don't think Roman is involved in…whatever is going on here."

He shook his head skeptically. He had forgotten how quickly she could flip flop his emotions. "We'll have to agree to disagree on that." He paused and then added absently, "I'll have to get to Chewie…do they know who he is?"

"No."

He eyed her suspiciously. "No one?"

"No, not even Roman."

"We don't talk to _anyone else_ but the three of us, are we agreed on that?"

"Han, with all of my ability…I do think Roman can be trusted."

He swallowed, glanced down in an effort to conceal what emotions were churning inside of him and then looked back up at her. "I think it should remain between the three of us for now, Leia. We need to deal in absolutes. Are you _absolutely_ sure Roman is not involved?"

She shook her head. "No."

His mind was in overdrive now, having engaged in full problem-solving mode; enjoying the respite having a purpose gave him from facing all of his conflicting emotions. "What about the others? Is there anyone you suspect?" Every single face he had met since his arrival began to flash before his eyes.

Her expression changed. He watched it soften and she smiled and shook her head at him as if she had just remembered a funny joke. She ran her hand along his jaw, her fingers lingering against the stubble on his skin.

"What?" He asked, confused.

She leaned into him and kissed him, her hand wrapping around his neck and pulling him to her. He responded, deepening the kiss, his body reeling in response to this intimacy that they had not shared in months. She leaned back against the pillows, pulling him with her and forcing him to brace himself against the mattress with his hands.

He felt Leia tugging at his clothing. He broke away from her, struggling to regain control of all of his faculties. He looked down at her seriously. "We're not done talking."

"I'll tell you everything I know," she breathed out, her words hurried, almost blending in to one another. She was tugging at his shirt once again as she added, "_After_."

"I _knew_ you missed me." He stated soundly while she pulled him to her once again and trailed a line of kisses down his neck. "You must've been using all of your Jedi powers to play it so cool with me."

She pushed him away from her, gently so as to allow their eyes to meet for the briefest of seconds before she pulled his shirt up and over his head. Running her hands over his naked chest, she planted kisses along his collar bone and then up the side of his neck. He felt her hands trail down his torso and begin to fumble with his belt.

He chuckled in response. "A little anxious, are we?"

"And you're not?" She pulled away from him, her hands stilled and she eyed him questioningly, a hint of knowing amusement sparkling in her eyes. But it was the flicker of doubt that sparked an ache inside of his chest.

He was anxious. But his anxiousness was of a different sort, of that he was sure. His was not the heady rush that causes lovers to make love in turbolifts and on living room sofas. His was an anxiousness of the sort that slows everything down and shines a light on all that's not right with the situation.

Was it because he had never made love to a pregnant woman? It was certainly a tad bit disconcerting to see the large belly, containing a living being that they had created protruding out in between them like an obstacle. But it wasn't that. The sight of her carrying his child increased his want for her, it did not spurn it. No, it was something else entirely. Something that he didn't care to name.

Han slid off of the bunk, not answering her, and he knelt on the floor as he grabbed her legs and swung them down so that she was sitting in front of him. He sat back on his heels as the rush of emotion that had quickly erupted between them slowed back down to a crawl of tentative anticipation. She was watching him and he knew she understood him more than he cared to be understood.

He ran his hands up her thighs and pushed the material of her shirt up and over her pregnant stomach. A painful bubble of air expanded painfully inside of his lungs and he forced out a heavy breath to relieve it. The sight of the taut, stretched skin that contained his child hit him like a stiff wind on frigid winter morning, freezing his mind on one, sole thought.

His eyes dragged up to meet hers and they locked on each other in a silent exchange as if the reality of their situation was only now fully accepted and understood. Their child's heartbeat pulsated between them as if they could actually hear it and it hung between them just as real an obstacle as her belly was.

He looked back down to her stomach and ran his hand over the warm skin. Under his flattened palm, Han felt the sensation of movement and all of a sudden the enormity of everything that had happened crashed down on him with a furious ferocity that would've knocked him off of his feet if he had been standing. It was the twenty-eight weeks and everything that they contained; it was the uncertain future ahead of them and the unsettled past that lay behind them.

He swallowed and then slowly bent down and gently pressed his lips against her belly, lingering there for a long moment his eyes shut tightly. He pulled her shirt back down and sat back on his heels. She was watching him, only partly confused. He shook his head, and whispered, "I'm sorry. I can't." And then he grabbed his shirt, stood and left the room.

He slid into the pilot's chair and gazed into the morning mists of the forest in the distance. The gray, earthbound clouds hung above the forest floor in a game of hide and seek with the cutting rays of the morning light. Something about the struggle between the fog and the sunshine captivated Han and he stared at it so intently that his vision blurred, turning the entire forest into a fog of thoughts.

He felt her enter, felt her standing behind him and watching him. His eyes came into focus as he thought of her parting words the night before, that it was not about him. But it was, it was about him and he had to know that she understood that now.

"I will help you get off of this planet," he said without looking at her.

She said nothing.

He turned to face her, surprised to find her dressed. "You left instead of talking to me, not even giving me the benefit of the doubt that you knew I deserved." He spoke softly, calmly. The words were things that had to be said, but he felt no need to fling them at her viciously. "What if I wouldn't have found you? What were you going to do? What if something would've happened to you? Or the baby? _Our_ baby?"

She still did not respond.

He turned back to the viewport. "I'm not angry, Leia. I've told you how I feel and that hasn't changed. I understand what you're going through…and I'll help you fight this or whatever it is we have to do to get you out of here safely." He paused. "But, I need to know what you want from _me_, Leia." He turned to look at her. "_Specifically_, from me. Before I can…" His eyes looked toward the exit, his glance traveling down the corridor and into his cabin. "Before I can make any other decisions about us." He turned back toward the viewport. "If there is an us."

When he finished speaking, Roman walked out of the forest path, emerging through the fog like an aberration. Han turned his eyes away.

"Your bodyguard is here," he said as he stood up and left her standing in the cockpit.

Han lowered the ramp of the _Falcon_ and as he walked down the gangway he passed Roman, saying only, "She's inside."


	24. Chapter 24

From a Certain Point of View

Han walked slowly through the damp forest, his thoughts clinging to him like the morning fog hugging the forest floor. He immediately felt guilty for leaving Leia the way that he had. Not five steps down the path he had wanted to turn around, drag her to his cabin, take her into his arms and succumb to the physical desire that they both shared. But he did not, concentrating on his every step further away from her and recognizing each as both a triumph and a failure.

His footsteps stopped at the edge of the forest path. The white stone of the temple shone in the distance, illuminated by the pale morning light. The hazy fog blurred the lines of the temple and angular streaks of sunlight gave life to the sun's rays. He could hear the sound of one lone bird repeating the same lonely tune over and over again. The bird stopped and Han started walking again.

As he neared the temple, he took a very low risk gamble and headed for the dining hall in hopes of finding his co-pilot. His eyes found Chewie as soon as he entered the room and their gazes met for the briefest of pauses before Han turned and walked to the galley line. With a tray full of food, he found his way to an empty table and sat down to eat alone.

Halfway through his meal, he watched as Chewie stood and left the room. The two had been together too long for Han to worry that the Wookiee wouldn't somehow find a way for them to talk together alone. He took his time, finished his meal and left the temples, heading back for the _Falcon_.

Chewie met him halfway down the wooded path and Han followed him silently into the depths of the forest. The pair had not spoken since Bespin. Han had not fully believed Chewie's claim until Lando stood in front of him and told him that the Wookiee had passed the testing and was gone. He had taken the news with a strange mixture of disbelief and relief.

When Chewie stopped walking he held his hand up to Han to silence him while he sniffed the air and looked around. This was something Han had seen Chewie do a million times before. He had always known that Wookiees had a superlative sense of smell, he just hadn't known that Chewie was also using the Force all those years to ensure their safety. It was if all of his memories had to be rewritten.

Chewie was not wearing his bandolier and Han thought how he looked different, naked without it. He wondered if that was the only thing that made the Wookiee look different to him now. He had thought he knew everything about Chewie. But he hadn't. And Chewie's failure to share that important piece of information with him for all those years seemed to magnify the pain he was pretending not to feel over his current situation with Leia. Somehow to Han, it all seemed connected.

When the Wookiee finally gave him the all-clear grunt, a flash of hurt disguised in a flippant remark escaped Han's lips, "So, how's the Jedi training going?"

Chewie didn't bite on Han's jibe, but answered seriously, [Force sensitivity in Wookiees is much more common than you think.]

"Obviously."

[It's something else we have learned to hide.] Chewie answered with a growl.

Han thought of why Wookiees were forced to hide and let the stab of guilt ground his displaced anger and resentment. Here Chewie had come forward with a guarded secret to help him and he was using it as a point of contention between the two of them. He had run away from his altercation with Leia only to try and continue it here with the wrong person.

"I'm sorry, pal. This thing with Leia has me all turned around."

[She didn't sleep in the temple last night.]

"Yeah, well it's _progressing_. I was definitely thrown for a loop by her…condition."

[I would've paid money to see how you handled that.]

Han narrowed his eyes at his friend. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

[The cub is yours.]

Even though Chewie had said the words in a statement, Han answered them as if they were a question. "Yes."

Han watched Chewie stretch his paws out like a human would stretch their fingers, it was something the Wookiee did when his retractable claws released instinctively. It was a sign of imminent danger. [You do know that she and your cub are in danger?]

"That's about all we know. What've you seen?"

[It's only a feeling. I don't know if the others suspect anything. My bond with you has heightened my senses around your cub.]

"You sense danger when you're around Leia?"

[That's the simplest way to describe it.]

Han let out an angered breath, his thoughts racing over their situation. "My money is on Roman."

Chewie shook his head. [I can't say either way. What does the Princess think?]

Han paused for a moment, looking at his old friend as if for strength. "She trusts him."

Chewie looked back at Han thoughtfully as he tilted his head at him and grunted in a show of compassion and support. [I'll keep my eyes open.]

"Thanks, buddy."

Chewie's nose flinched and he responded, [You should go back to the _Falcon_.]

"When should we talk again?"

Chewie stepped towards Han and tousled his hair with his gigantic paw. [Don't worry, cub, I'll find you.]

Han swatted the Wookiee's paw away and said, "Hey, c'mon, that's enough." But inside he knew he was breathing a little easier since talking to his old friend and he was positive that his old friend knew it, with or without using the Force.

* * *

When the _Falcon_ came into his view he noticed that her ramp was up, indicating to him that Leia had probably left. He tried not to think about the fact that she had probably left with Roman, especially since his actions had practically thrown her right into the other man's arms.

He saw a flash of movement behind one of the _Falcon's_ landing struts and his hand rested quickly on the butt of his blaster, his fingers relaxing as soon as he recognized the familiar face.

"Hi, Captain Solo!" Zacari greeted him cheerfully as Han walked up.

"Hey, Zac," Han replied as he punched in the codes to the _Falcon_ and lowered her ramp.

"My brothers used to call me Zac," the child replied excitedly as Han began to walk up the gangway.

"Is that right?"

"Yes, uh, Captain Solo?"

Han stopped and turned towards Zacari. "Yeah, kid?"

"Can I get a tour of the _Falcon_ now?"

The only tour Han currently wanted to take was through the liquor cabinet, but as he stared into the innocent, wide eyes of the young boy, he reluctantly relented. Maybe the kid's company would take his mind off of all his problems. "Okay, sure."

Han was about to invite the boy up when Zacari brushed past him and disappearing into the main hold before Han could say one more word.

"Can I climb into the gun turret, Captain?"

As Han entered the main hold he saw the boy standing in the corridor in front of the access ladder to the guns. There was a light pouring into the hallway from the galley that illuminated Zacari's face, but the eagerness of his words and the sparkle in his eyes made it look as if the glow was coming from inside of him.

Han thought of himself as a young boy on his first space ship. "Sure, kid. Just give me one minute to set the safeties."

The boy straightened up and his face grew serious, slapping his straight arms against his sides, he replied, "Yes, sir, Captain Solo, sir."

"At ease, soldier," Han replied with a smile as he walked to the cockpit and flipped the safety switches for the guns. "Alright, Zac!" He yelled back and chuckled when he heard the instantaneous sound of small feet scampering up the access ladder to the top gun.

Han turned to the navigation panel and began to run some diagnostic checks on the hyperdrive system. After taking a quick mental note on a few anomalies he wanted to check on, he left the cockpit and headed toward the main hold. As he walked past the access ladder he heard the sounds of a make-believe space battle coming from up above.

Han stopped for a moment and listened to Zacari imitate blaster fire and radio chatter. He had named himself Rogue Leader and was calling for his squadron to check in. Han smiled when Red Leader checked in and Zacari responded with a 'Stay sharp, Solo!', but he winced and walked on when Luke Skywalker's name came up.

Standing underneath the belly of the _Millennium Falcon_, Han had hardly opened the mechanical access hatch when he heard footsteps approaching. He leaned to the side so that he could see the forest path and then stepping from behind the metal door, he said, "Orren."

"Captain Solo," Orren replied as he came to a stop right in front of the _Falcon_.

Han walked from underneath his ship. "Something I can do for you?"

"No, I've just come to talk to you."

"Okay, shoot."

"The elders met today to discuss your presence here."

Han bristled but tried to control it, he had been waiting for someone to tell him that he had to leave. "And?"

"_And_, in accordance with Princess Leia's wishes, you've been granted an invitation to stay with us."

Han felt himself relax and realized that he had probably not done a good job at covering his apprehension. "Thanks."

"The Princess indicated that you would probably want to stay on your ship, but we do have accommodations available at the temple if you would prefer."

"No, thanks. The Princess was right; I'll stay on the _Falcon_." Han silently hoped that the Princess would be doing the same.

"Well, consider yourself a welcomed guest. You have an open invitation to our meal times and any parts or supplies you may require."

"Thanks, Orren."

Orren glanced up at the _Falcon_ and replied, "Well, I guess I'll let you get back to it."

"Thanks again," Han replied as he shook Orren's hand and then watched the elder Jedi walk away.

"Is he gone?"

Han turned toward the cautious whisper coming from within the _Falcon_. He had almost forgotten about Zacari. Taking a quick glance down the forest path to make sure that Orren was out of sight, he replied, "Yeah, kid the coast is clear."

As Zacari tiptoed down the gangway, Han asked as he hitched his thumb in the direction that Orren had gone, "Shouldn't he have, like sensed you or something?"

"Oh," Zacari replied. "It's not _that_ exact. He probably sensed another life force inside of the ship, but he could've thought that it was the Princess." The boy stopped at the edge of the gangway and placed his hand against one of the struts as he tilted his head to the side and asked, "Why does everyone get all quiet whenever they talk about you and the Princess?"

Han stared at Zacari for a moment, not sure how to answer him. As he turned to head back to the maintenance hatch he replied, "Kid, I gave up trying to figure you Jedis out a long time ago."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Han jumped when the small voice came from right behind him. He whirled around to find Zacari standing right in front of him. "Damnit, don't sneak up on me like that."

"Now you're acting like they do," Zacari replied with a hint of curious suspicion and injured feelings.

Han ruffled the kid's hair as he said, "Sorry about that," and then as he turned back to the mechanical hatch he added, "That's the last thing I'd want to do."

Zacari walked around the dangling metal door and said, "You shouldn't use swear words because they define your intelligence."

Han looked down at the kid and chuckled, wondering if he even knew what he was saying. Something told him that he did and he answered seriously, "Thanks for the advice."

Just as Han began to loosen the bolt on the part he was working on, he heard Zacari say, "So, is she your girlfriend?"

Han let his shoulders slump down in exhaustion as he released a long, tired breath. The kid asked a really good question, a question Han wished he had an easy answer for. He kept his eyes on the bolt rotating within his fingers and said, "You know, grownups don't really have girlfriends."

"Is she your wife, then?"

Han wouldn't have thought that the sound of more footsteps approaching would've been a welcomed occurrence, but that's just what they were. When he leaned over to look toward the forest path, he saw the twin Jedi, Meisha and Shanel walking towards him.

"Hi, Captain Solo," the pair giggled in unison, much like the first time he had met them.

"Meisha, Shanel," Han nodded a greeting to them as he stepped from behind the metal hatch.

"We've come for Zacari," Meisha replied, eyeing the young boy sharply.

"We've nearly torn the temples apart searching for him," Shanel added.

Han felt the young boy lean against him and he put his arm around him protectively. "That's my fault. I should've let someone know that I invited him to see the _Falcon_." He felt Zacari look up at him but Han kept his eyes on the twins.

"Oh, it's quite alright. No harm done," Shanel answered him with a smile.

"No, no real harm done," Meisha agreed reluctantly and then added, "But it is time for Zacari to report back."

"Okay," Han answered her as he gave Zacari's shoulder a squeeze. "You come back anytime you want," Han said to the boy and then looking toward the twins he added, "Just be sure to let someone know where you are."

"Sure, Captain Solo," Zacari replied as he walked away from Han.

"Good night, Captain Solo," the twins said in tandem as they waved and began to walk away with Zacari in tow.

"Meisha, Shanel, always a pleasure," Han replied and then added, "G'night, kid."

Zacari turned around and waved at Han, his face a mixture of emotions. Then he whirled around and ran to catch up to the twins.

Han returned to the exposed maintenance hatch and worked for the next several hours without being disturbed. Repairs to the _Falcon_ always serving as the perfect distraction to any of his troubles, the day flew as Han noted that he barely thought about Leia. Of course, he made note of that fact fairly often.

* * *

It was the combination of two things that finally made Han button up the maintenance hatch and call it a day. One was the fading glow of daylight as the giant gas giant of Yavin sunk behind the cover of the tall forest trees. The other was his rumbling stomach; he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast at the temple that morning.

He entered the _Falcon_ leaving the gangway lowered, holding out hope that Leia would return to talk to him this evening. He washed up in the galley and made himself a quick dinner. Halfway through his meal, he heard someone coming up the ramp. He set his silverware down and waited while he listened to the sound of the gangway rising and the security lock being set. And then she was standing in front of him, a satchel slung over her shoulder. It was Leia.

He didn't say anything.

"I want you to take care of me."

He stared at her. He had been unsure of what he had expected or wanted to hear from her. He had thought he would know the look and the words when he heard them. His body instinctively straightened up, his mind snapping to full attention knowing that this felt as close as he had ever gotten to it.

She continued, trailing her hand over her stomach, "I want you to take care of us. I want there to be an us."

It did not escape him that she had yet to utter the only three words that it would've taken to express everything she had just said. But in his mind she had said them in the only way that she knew how or was capable of at that moment. He heard her declaration loud and clear as if she had said 'I love you, Han' and nothing more. It shimmered in her eyes and it was written on her face.

And then it struck him. This was it, that thing that stood between them. If he had to name it, it was this, this need for one another that they both refused to confess. It was not a lack of trust or worthiness or love. It was this perceived weakness. Or more to the point, it was their stubbornness _not_ to appear weak to the other. For her it was physical, for him it was emotional, but for both it looked and felt the same.

Coming here and declaring his love for her had been a show of strength for him, an admittance of feelings that left him exposed and vulnerable. For him the greatest sign of weakness he could have displayed was if he had remained on Coruscant and never ventured to find her. His arrival on this moon, the minute he stood before her again was his victory; declaring his love for her merely saw it through to the end.

And then he looked at her, his eyes traveling the length of her body but seeing much more than just that. He saw that for her a declaration of love was also a sign of weakness, a surrender to the very thing she swore she would never allow herself to feel again. And her strength? Her strength was to stand here in front of him and admit she needed him.

He stood and took the satchel off of her shoulder and placed it on the floor. Then he placed his hands on her arms and felt the slight tremble of her muscles underneath her skin, an indication of the fierce battle that was waging on inside of her.

He brought his hand up and held a lock of her hair in his palm, asksing her as he studied it, "What made you cut it?"

She hesitated, "Hormones, I guess."

"Hormones," Han repeated absently as he slowly let go of her hair, watching each strand drop away. He pulled his eyes back up to her face with a great effort and when his gaze met hers, he asked, "Are you hungry?"

"No," she replied quickly and then paused and added, "I'm tired..."

Tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of everything, is what Han heard as her voice trailed off in the silence. He placed his hands on either side of her face.

"And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for leaving…"

He shook his head and kissed her quickly on the lips. "Shhhh. You're tired, sweetheart." On his face, he wore a lopsided grin and his tone was overly placating.

She raised an eyebrow to him, her face relaxing, but said nothing.

He whispered, "Let me take care of you."

She smiled up at him with a look that said they were in on the same secret.

Before she could respond he bent down and scooped her up into his arms like a child.

"Han! I'm too heavy," she protested over a giggle masked by a surprised shriek.

"Don't worry about me, baby. I could carry two of you if I had to." He began to walk toward his cabin.

"Well, you _are_ carrying two of me," she chuckled as she tightened her arms around his neck.

He nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck and kissed her there, making her squirm and tilt her head to stop him. "Not two of _you,_" he growled into her ear.

He brought her into his cabin and set her on his bunk. Kneeling before her as he had done that morning, he ran his hands up her thighs and said, "Now where were we?"

"Han…" Her face had grown serious, her expression worn thin of all guards.

He lifted himself up off of his heels, straightening up on his knees so that their faces were next to one another. "Yes?" He whispered with a smile. He took his finger and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, leaned into her, resting his check on hers and drawled, "_Sweetheart_."

"Thank you for finding me."

He drew back and then kissed her on the nose.

"And for forgiving me. I know I don't deserve it."

"We're not gonna talk about that anymore and there's not gonna be any more of that to talk about, right?"

Her head dropped and she replied, "Right."

She lifted her head and looked primed to say something else. He waited.

"There was never anything between Roman and me…besides a friendship. I wanted you to know that."

He watched her, deciphering the facets slowly being revealed to him. He smiled and unable to delay it any longer he leaned into her and kissed her. The heat instantly flared between them and time seemed to speed up. Every second not touching and feeling the other was another second wasted as their hands battled feverishly for position. Leia's moans were of impatience as much as rapture as she pulled furiously at his clothing in between helping Han remove her own.

"Slow down, sweetheart," he chuckled at her as he heard the seam of his shirt screaming in surrender. He tossed the offending garment over his head and then ran his hands behind her back and removed her bra.

She pulled herself toward him, smashing her naked breasts against his chest and she sucked her way up his neck until she reached his ear. Han had not thought that it would be possible for Leia to have missed this type of intimacy between them more than he had. But he had to admit that he may have been mistaken.

Having missed the gradual growth of her body, he had approached her with timidity at first which only served to frustrate her. Ever the quick study, he swiftly adapted to this new playground of enlarged breasts and heightened sensitivities. Every touch and reaction was new and he studied her like an explorer on an unchartered planet.

They couldn't get enough of each other, from their mouths devouring each other, to the sensual feel of skin on skin, to the moans escaping through gasps of air and the shudder of their bodies beneath one another. It was as if a moment had not passed between them and then it was like everything had passed between them at the same time.

Han felt for the first time that he had shortchanged the physical act of making love. He had often chastised the naïve fools who mistook sex for something more. But as he made love to Leia, as he felt their unborn child sandwiched between them and her love radiating off of her as if it were a tangible thing that he could gather up in his arms and take away with him, he realized that they were making love in every sense of the word, with every meaning behind it and every risk and reward to be had from it.

It was through a shuddered moan as his muscles convulsed that he uttered the words to her yet again. "Gods, I love you, Leia."

She answered with a searing kiss that may have suffocated a lesser man. She answered with the clench of her body around his, and her warm breath in his ear and the silent tear that he pretended not to notice trailing down the side of her face. He kissed her and collapsed next to her and for the first time since he had known her, he felt certain that he knew exactly what she felt and he shut his eyes in absolute relief.

They laid together in his bunk, nestled in each others arms, their breathing and the _Falcon's_ ventilation system the only sounds invading the silence. She pressed her back against him and his hand trailed lazy circles along her shoulder, down her arm and on her stomach. She took his hand and studied his palm for a moment before she planted delicate kisses upon each hard-earned callous.

When she was done, she pressed her lips against the soft skin of his open palm and rested there for a long, quiet moment. Pulling her face away, she turned towards him and asked in a low, raspy voice, "What's worse, Han? Living for everyone else or living only for yourself?"

He watched her for a moment and she turned her head to look up at the bulkhead above them. This is what she needed from him, he thought. The long hours they spent in her bed on Coruscant while she playfully asked him questions took on a whole new meaning to him now.

Her eyes moved slowly to meet his again and then she added, "Seems either way, you end up alone."

He grasped the coverlet and brought it tightly around them, gathering her up in his arms as he did so. Their faces now nose to nose as he said, "We're not alone."

She looked at him, her eyes naked and full of pure emotion, absent of the fear, doubt and defensive barriers that usually resided there. He saw only love, trust and hope. He knew in that instant that what she had said in the lounge had been her greatest triumph and that that admission was her truest declaration of love.

He took a deep breath and spoke into her silence, "Maybe there's another option."

She leaned her body into him and her eyes sparkled in the reflective lighting of his cabin. She hung on his words, as to a lifeline. "What's that?"

He placed his hand on the side of her neck, right below her ear. He rubbed his thumb on her cheek as he smiled like a little boy with a secret. He leaned into her, his words escaping his lips in a heavy breath. "Living for each other."

She closed her eyes in acceptance and agreement. He watched as his words washed over her like a healing salve, and then he leaned into her and kissed her.


	25. Chapter 25

From a Certain Point of View

Han stood in the back of the room while over a dozen Jedi elders discussed the missing transport. It had been three weeks since his arrival on Yavin 4. The mass recruitment of Force sensitives had slowed down, but a bi-weekly shuttle of supplies and new recruits had been expected and was now a week late.

Everything had been perfectly normal these last few weeks. There had been no attacks or threats or even nightmares. Han had begun to hope that there was nothing to worry about, but all it took was one look at Leia's face when she was relaxed and not working to hide her fears, to convince him differently.

The sense that something was about to happen had begun to spread amongst the Jedi even before the transport had failed to arrive. They had discussed it as a group, they had meditated on it but the deep-seated terror nestled inside each person differently. No one enemy or event could be pinpointed or shared and the apprehension grew, feeding off of itself, its long tendrils coiling through every facet of every day in a nebulous form that could not be addressed because it was impossible to define.

"The supplies are not the real issue. We are more than capable of living off of the land," one of them had stated calmly.

Their words echoed off of the stone walls and made even the calmest voices sound panicked. They were all huddled around a single table, leaving the remaining chairs scattered throughout the room like a silent audience of unwanted guests. The large room that could hold the entire population of the Academy swallowed the small faction of senior members, heightening the sense of secrecy.

To Han, each empty chair seemed to represent the danger that hid behind the nothingness, the nameless, faceless fear that was bearing down on him and Leia and their unborn child. He, Leia and Chewie were no closer to identifying the enemy than they had been when he arrived. Time was quickly becoming their enemy turning what had once been hastily derived plans of escape to be used only as a last resort to very real possibilities.

He studied the faces of the elders. Behind any one of them could very well be the crux holding up this house of cards. Each face was like the white stone of the temple, however, void of any hint or trace of its origin, they were polished down to perfection.

"Yes, the real issue is _why_ has the shuttle failed to arrive? Perhaps there is a matter of galactic significance that has prevented them from fulfilling their commitment." This came from a female member of the group.

Although the capability was available, the Jedi had refrained from planetary communications in an effort to keep the Academy's location hidden. The _Falcon_, however, could take a quick jump out into hyperspace and find out what was going on. Or better yet, go all the way to Coruscant and get Leia to a medical facility. Han knew that he was only invited because his ship was now a very precious commodity. But he sat back and watched and waited, refraining from any comment. It wasn't as if he wasn't going to do whatever he wanted to with his ship anyway.

Just over a week ago, during a heated discussion between the two, Leia had finally agreed that she would leave the planet with Han and Chewie on the _Falcon_ if no other opportunity presented itself. She had hung her hopes on the arriving transport. Her plan was for the _Falcon_ to leave when the transport arrived, allowing a means of escape or transportation for anyone they were leaving behind if things went awry.

The failure of the transport to arrive had provided Han with all the ammunition he thought he needed to convince Leia to leave. However, that same event had seemed to prove to Leia that they needed to stay. She was convinced that their leaving would be the catalyst to whatever events that were meant to unfold. For reasons all too well-known to Han, she refused to be responsible for anyone else's death or suffering.

"There is also the matter of the Princess," Roman said coolly.

Han shifted on his feet.

"Yes, her physician was to be on the missing shuttle to escort her highness back to Coruscant," Seth added.

"I can escort _her highness_ back to Coruscant _and_ find out what's going on with your missing shuttle," Han offered.

"Yes, Captain Solo, we realize that that is rapidly becoming a very real possibility. We are, however, hesitant to send you out into a situation which may put you and the Princess in more danger than if you were to just remain here," Orren countered.

"I can handle any situation that arises."

"None of us are going to allow Leia to be exposed to unnecessary risks at the hands of your overconfidence," Roman replied sternly.

Han pushed himself away from the wall that he had been leaning on. He despised Roman's use of Leia's given name. Standing erect he replied, his eyes only on Roman, "And nobody here is going to stop me from getting Leia and _our_ child the medical attention they require." Han gained a certain sense of satisfaction whenever he got a chance to remind Roman who the father of Leia's child was.

"If the transport does not arrive by week's end, I will be accompanying Captain Solo to Coruscant. And I don't expect my decision to be questioned by any one of you," Leia replied, the sharp edge of her words cutting through the tension in the room. Her eyes had remained centered on Han.

"I agree," Seth replied. "Although we would be more than capable of delivering a baby here, we are not equipped for any complications that may arise, as Dr. Vail had alluded to on his last visit."

Seth's words caused the hair on Han's neck to prickle. He looked at Leia to find her looking at him with an expression that begged him to wait for an explanation. He took a heavy breath, leaned his body back against the wall behind him and waited, responding to her unspoken plea.

Leia had continued with her Jedi training, although it had been greatly curtailed. That combined with Han's empty appointment book had afforded the pair endless hours to while away together over the past three weeks and they had all but recaptured the ease of the relationship that they had been cultivating on Coruscant.

Han was often commandeered to assist Leia with her meditation exercises. They were meant to help her find her center, to relax her and allow her to think more clearly - transforming her thoughts from destructive to constructive and granting her inner peace and balance. Meditations were what sharpened a Jedi's focus, level-headedness and ability to rise above the typical pitfalls experienced during times of emotional upheaval and confrontation.

Han had but to simply sit with her and hold her hands as she leaned against him and concentrated on her breathing. She would talk him through the exercise with her and she claimed that his mere presence soothed her. Quite often afterwards, and then at times like these when he was so easily cajoled by a single look from her, he wondered just who was benefiting from those exercise sessions more.

Three hours and sixty-five arguments about interstellar communications and Force visions later, Han and Leia were walking slowly back to the _Falcon_. He was accustomed to scaling back his lengthy strides when walking with her, but her current state had made her pace all but excruciating to the long-legged Corellian. He held her hand not entirely out of love and protection but as a tether to prevent him from inadvertently leaving her behind.

He did not broach the subject that they both knew was on the table. He walked slowly next to her and patiently waited for her to speak. In the halls of the temple and even in the clearing surrounding it, they felt exposed and ill-at-ease. As soon as they entered the forest path, however, as if the cover of the trees was an extension of the home they had made in the forest, the two relaxed. Han let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulder.

Leia began to speak. Her words were short and choppy not out of any emotional turmoil, but because she was already out of breath. "Dr. Vail had some concerns around my ability to carry the baby to full term and thought perhaps I might require a surgical delivery, due to my size and frame."

"And when were you going to tell me this?" Han kept his arm wrapped around her and his tone even.

"Honestly, I hadn't thought of it. He assured me that I would be perfectly fine until at least thirty weeks."

"And now you're thirty-one and just agreed to wait until you were thirty-two to finally leave."

"I'll be fine-"

He stopped walking and utilized his arm to spin her towards him saying, "No. No, Leia you won't be fine if you go into labor and don't have the means to deliver surgically. You and the baby could die as a result of that scenario."

Her face hardened. "Since when are _you_ an obstetrician?"

"Don't," he pointed his finger at her. "Don't get all defensive on me. You know that it only proves that you know that I'm right."

She narrowed her eyes at him and as her face relaxed in admission, his did the same.

Han dropped his hand and leaned back casually. "Besides, I've been doing a little research on…babies and stuff." Han cursed the rush of blood that he felt tinting his face.

"Oh, _babies and stuff,"_ Leia repeated in amusement, pouncing on his obvious embarrassment. "Well, then you are _nearly_ an obstetrician, I mean with having grasped that kind of medical terminology so easily."

He shook his head at her and crossed his arms against his chest. "Do you know how lucky you are that I love you?"

He had said it lightly and had meant it in the same witty spirit of their argument, but the words fell like heavy stones between them. He hadn't told her that he loved her since those first nights after his arrival and although they never spoke of it, it was quite obvious that she had never returned those same sentiments in kind, at least not verbally.

He watched as her expression slipped into one of fear and embarrassment. His instincts told him to crack a joke and change the subject, but he fought them and pressed on. "What's the matter? You do know that I love you, right?" He thought maybe the more he said it and the more she heard it, the less she would be afraid of it.

She nodded her head and he felt compelled to let her off of the hook. Whatever it was that she feared, he knew in his heart that it wasn't him. It wasn't the man that she snuggled up to every evening and woke up next to each morning, but the abstract definition of love that had been shattered in a viewport in front of her eyes. He was willing to help her put those pieces back together, no matter how long it took.

Bending down to kiss her on the forehead he said, "C'mon, let's get you some lunch."

"Han," she said, as if his name expressed everything she couldn't. The funny thing was that it did, his name on her lips, the expression on her face, the absolute love in her eyes that required no words to put a name to it.

He shook his head slowly and smiled at her and then drew her to him and kissed her deeply.

* * *

"You know this kind of thing is what I regret the most," Leia said, her words drawled out in an exaggerated display of contentment.

Han looked at her. She sat on a large, flat rock that jutted out over a small stream. Her bare legs dangled off the side and her feet disappeared underneath the cool, murky water. She held herself, leaning back on straightened arms behind her. She had dropped her head back and closed her eyes, giving the sunshine full access to her face.

"Whatdya mean?" Han sat on the bank propped up against a small tree. His legs were outstretched, his pants rolled up to his knees and his bare feet, crossed at the ankles, were resting upon the rock where Leia sat. If he stretched his feet he could've touched her with his toes.

She pulled her head back upright slowly, rolling it along her shoulder as she sat up with a groan. She began to rub her lower back and Han took his cue. Joining her on the rock, he rubbed her lower back for a moment before scooting up to sit behind her, his legs on either side of her and his feet joining hers in the water. She leaned into him, his body supporting her weight.

She sighed and said, "For all the traveling I've done. For all the planets that I have visited. The oceans and mountains and deserts that I've seen. I never got to enjoy them. Never took the time to walk barefoot on a sandy beach, to splash in the waves, or to stand on the summit of a mountain and just…enjoy the view."

"I've got to say I'm probably just as guilty of that."

She relaxed her head back onto his shoulder, he could see that she had closed her eyes again. "I could describe the interior of every conference room from here to the Unknown Regions."

"Ask me and Chewie about any cantina," Han said with a smile as he turned his head and kissed her on the temple.

"I never saw a forest, but raw materials. Never architecture but _infrastructure_ instead. The only reason I know for certain that ocean water is cold is because the factories I visited used it for cooling water."

"I would've thought that you'd of had more free time than that. At least when you were younger."

"How much younger, Han? You met me when I was eighteen." She kept her eyes closed as if the words she had just said weren't as sad as they were.

It still struck him, how young she was when they met. How much life she had lived, or more appropriately endured, in such a short span of time. "As a child, I mean," Han stated, giving no specific age to the word and intentionally ignoring the fact that he would view most eighteen-year olds as children.

"I might've," she answered absently. "Had it not been for the Rebellion. Even though I was not involved as a child, my father was so entrenched in it that any typical family life was…out of the question." She paused and then said, "My mother…she lived the life that…that you probably imagine of a Princess."

Han knew that she spoke of her mother on Alderaan but wondered how she compartmentalized the two of them in her own thoughts.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly, looking off to the forest on the other side of the stream. "If there's one thing I wish for our baby, it's that she'll be able to enjoy…"

Her words cut off and her head fell down slightly. Han could see that she was looking at her stomach, watching her hand caress it with small, delicate circles. The end of the week had come and gone and the shuttle, or any word of it, had still not arrived. Leia was now thirty-two weeks and with each passing day she became more and more anxious and withdrawn. They were to meet with the Council of Elders the next day to discuss their departure.

"She will, sweetheart. I promise you that," Han answered her as his hand joined hers on top of her belly.

She had told him that they were having a girl - a daughter - one night while huddled together in their bunk on the _Falcon_. He had thought that the pressure for him to protect Leia and their unborn child could not bear any heavier on him until that night. Ridiculous and archaic or not, a daughter to Han, was an entirely different smashball game.

'_There's no difference between a baby girl and a baby boy, Han_,' she had said laughing at his outlandish assertions.

He argued only half-heartedly with her, in a half-joking manner. But he had not been half-hearted or half-joking at all. Oh, he would certainly protect a baby boy just as fiercely, but his _daughter_. For _his_ Princess, he had already mapped out her entire life the minute Leia whispered the words: _She's a girl_.

His daughter would want for nothing; his daughter would never know what it meant to have a tear stream down her cheek, she would know no fear because she would meet no monsters. His daughter would believe that the stars in the sky turned on and off for her amusement and her amusement alone. She would not live a single day for any other purpose than for her sole enjoyment. He also harbored some very specific details surrounding boys and dating and marriage, but he refrained from sharing them with Leia.

"You know it's not that I don't think I could lead the Jedi Council," Leia stated, in one of her now infamous topic changes.

"I know, sweetheart," he answered her, his voice soothing. He recalled her violent admission that night of his arrival. It's not that they hadn't discussed it since then, but they had never specifically named it either.

"I know I'm more than capable of studying and learning the Force. I just can't _force_ myself to see that future for me."

If anything good had come out of the past few weeks of uncertainty and fear it was that Han had recognized a change in Leia concerning her destiny. She seemed less willing to accept blindly a fate that she felt did not belong to her. When he arrived she felt strangled by the responsibility of establishing the Jedi Council, lately she seemed able to separate her fate from the fate of it.

She was able to visualize both coming into fruition together without the sacrifice of either but through the realization of each. The specifics of this newfound revelation still remained unclear which frustrated her, afraid to abandon a path which she was already half way down for an uncertain alternative that refused to take shape in her mind's eye.

"What future can you see?"

"You know it's not like a holofilm, it's just an idea."

"I know, just gimme the gist of it."

She smiled. To Han it was only the movement of her cheek toward her eye as he watched her from the side, but he could see her smile as clear as day. "I still see myself in the political arena. I can't picture myself tied to one planet, though. Like Yavin to lead the council, or Coruscant, even. I see beaches and mountains and forests, actually. That's what made me think of it."

Han had wanted to ask if she saw him, but he didn't. "Maybe you'll continue to recruit. Travel the galaxy that way."

"No," she pulled one of her legs up and propped her foot up on the rock, the fabric of her dress falling into the crook of her hip, exposing the better part of her thigh. "I am a Jedi, but it's not my life."

He ran his hand along the smooth skin of her leg. He found it hard to concentrate while he did so. "Well, we just have to trust that everything's going to work out as it should." His voice was thick and his words drawn out against his will. She often told him that he was easier to read than a picto-book and he had given up trying to argue.

She scoffed. "That is _so_ not a Han Solo thing to say." She was shaking her head as it rested against his shoulder, but she looked ahead and not at him.

"Oh yeah? Then just what would _Han Solo_ say?" He was nibbling on her ear now and his hand was following the fabric of her dress as it crept up her thigh. He had little idea of what they were talking about anymore.

She tilted her head to the side, granting his mouth full access, she spoke as if his actions had no effect on her. Han knew that it was a talent that she could draw on for only so long. "Oh, something along the lines of blasting the krith out of here, flipping my nose to the krethin' council _and_ the godsdamn New Republic and…wearing very little clothing for the rest of my life."

Han absolutely loved the clothing part; it couldn't have sounded sweeter if he had thought of that himself. "Man, who is this guy?" He teased back, trailing his lips down the line of her neck. "He sounds like a real piece-a-work."

As Han's hand became more focused on the exploration of her body, Leia's ability to feign disinterest crumbled. Han heard a giggle mixed inside of a moan as the sunlight faded behind the afternoon clouds.

* * *

Han stood in the back of the council room the next day, his arms crossed against his chest and his lips pressed together tightly. He had promised Leia that he would refrain from arguing with the Elders and that he would let her do the talking. He was still of the opinion that they should steal away in the middle of the night but Leia, although she didn't totally dismiss the possibility, still felt compelled to trust the Elders.

By the end of the meeting Leia had agreed to not only take a half dozen Jedi along with them but also to wait five more days before they departed. It took all he had to walk out of that room without uttering a single word in protest. But there had been a look, a single, solitary glance that he had received from Leia mid-way through the conversation that had held him to his promise, unfortunately it had also scared the bantha crap out of him.

They were barely to the forest path, Han nearly running to keep up with her when she started speaking, "Get word to Chewie. We're leaving tonight."

"Wait a minute. What happened in there?"

"I don't know."

"Leia." He hadn't touched her or grabbed her, but his voice alone stopped her and she whirled around to face him.

"It's time, Han. We have to get off of this planet or…at least make our move," she shook her head and raised her arms up in exhaustion as she added, "It's time to set everything in motion, whatever it is that has to happen. I can feel it. That's all I know." She started walking again, this time a bit slower. "We can't wait another five days."

"Is it the baby?"

"No."

She answered him quickly which usually meant she was being totally honest. His confidence grew; he could handle everything a lot better if he wasn't worrying about her going into labor.

But then his confidence quickly deflated as she added softly, "Not in the way that you mean."

Han stopped walking, parts of her words clicking into place in his mind. He said calmly, his voice low, "You don't think we'll get off the planet."

Leia stopped but didn't turn to face him. He saw her head drop down and he walked towards her, grabbing her at the shoulders and spinning her around to face him.

She kept her head down and he spoke to her, a mixture of a command and a plea in his words. "Tell me."

She was shaking her head as she brought her face up to meet his. "It's my fault."

"What?"

"We should've left weeks ago. We should've left when you first arrived."

He shook his head in return, trying to understand her.

"We only made it worse by staying…worse for me."

"Why?"

She rested her hand on her belly and said, "Because they don't need me anymore."

* * *

Han sat in his pilot's chair with Leia seated behind him in the navigator's seat. They watched as Chewie emerged from the forest path and disappeared under the _Falcon's_ hull. Everything had gone as planned so far. Han waited until the indicator light flashed that the gangway had been raised and secured. They had agreed to wait to warm up the _Falcon_ until Chewie was aboard so as not to raise suspicion by turning her engines on too early.

Han started with the sublight engines, it was not the normal startup sequence but it wouldn't hurt anything and the sublights took longer to warm up, were quieter than the repulsorlifts and would attract less attention. But by the time Chewie ducked into the cockpit and slid into his co-pilot's chair, Han already knew that something was terribly wrong.


	26. Chapter 26

From a Certain Point of View

"Now?" Han shouted from deep in the mechanical well of the _Millennium Falcon_.

"Nothing." He heard Leia answer from where she sat at the engineering console in the main lounge.

Han flung the maintenance wrench out of his hand along with every curse word that he knew before he drew in a deep breath and climbed out of the well.

As he entered the lounge he glanced at Leia before catching sight of Chewie walking in from the cockpit. The two seasoned pilots shared a wordless conversation through their subtle body language, not wanting to put voice to what they had discovered.

"What?" Leia demanded as she watched the silent exchange.

Han turned and looked at her for a moment. "The _Falcon's_ been…tampered with."

[By someone who knows what they're doing.] Chewie growled as he walked over to the engineering console and began to punch random buttons.

Leia stood, giving way to Chewie. "Tampered with, how?"

"_Skillfully_," Han answered, and in response to a pointed look from Leia continued, "Well, what's most disturbing is that it had to be done from the inside."

Leia shifted on her feet and Han took her arm and led her to the banquette. When she sat, Han turned and began pacing the lounge as he continued, "I guess the more that I think about it, it could've been done pretty quick by someone, like Chewie said, who knew what they were doing."

[Right here at this station.] Chewie added.

"What exactly did they do?" Leia pressed.

Han continued to pace the floor, still processing what they had found while he tried to put it into words for Leia. "They twisted the code. The code that was already twisted seven ways to Corellia by Chewie and me. They made it so we wouldn't be able to get off the ground, disabled the repulsorlifts. They didn't even make it too hard to figure out what they had done. But they didn't make it easy to undo."

[But it's not impossible.] Chewie added.

"Right," Han agreed as he pressed his thumb to his mouth and stopped walking. "Why wouldn't they have just sabotaged it outright? Totally disabled us so that we could never get off the ground?"

[When you're the only ship on planet.] Chewie grumbled, a Wookiee version of a mumble.

Han looked at Leia and then turned away, walking towards Chewie.

"Looks like someone else was planning a quick getaway," Leia said softly.

"Yeah," Han agreed absently as he watched Chewie's paws flip and turn knobs in a blur of grunts and fur and then added, "In my ship."

"It could actually be a good thing, that they had to do this from the inside of the _Falcon_," Leia offered.

"Right, I know." Han turned back to her and said, "I can only think of a handful of people who've been in here."

"And you're sure no one could've broken in?"

[Positive.] Chewie answered without turning around or stopping his work.

"Yeah, there's no way. We have double and triple checks, even if someone had been able to get passed the security, there is no way we wouldn't know about it," Han agreed as he walked towards the holochess table and Leia.

[And nobody has.] Chewie added.

"Well then, that's good. That's actually really good. It could be our first break on who's behind all this."

* * *

The trio compiled a list of anyone who may have had a millisecond of free time within the _Falcon. _Since Chewie had not been around much in the past few weeks, it was the memories of Han and Leia that were truly put to the test. In the end, they came up with six names: Roman, Orren, the twins, Meisha and Shanel but they were always in the company of Zacari, and lastly was Krom, one of the tall, crazy-looking humanoids that had stood on either side of Leia when Han had first approached her after arriving on Yavin.

"Zacari would've told me if Meisha and Shanel had fooled with anything and I don't think their two brains together could've figured this out," Han stated as the three of them began to pick apart the list.

"That could very well be an act, Han," Leia countered.

[When was Roman left alone onboard?] Chewie asked in a tone that Han recognized as accusatory.

Han said nothing but looked towards the woman that had volunteered Roman's name for the list.

Leia placed her elbows on the table, pressed her hands together and rested her face against them for a moment before she dropped her hands down and said, "It was weeks ago, when he had shown up that morning that we…" She looked at Han.

"Alright," Han said shaking his head. "I remember, I walked out and he walked in."

"I remember watching you walk down the path, all the way down the path while I sat in the cockpit and…" She swallowed. "I remember thinking that there was no way you would've invited Roman in, I really thought I was going to find him waiting outside for me."

"But I did and you didn't."

"No, I found him in here."

[Sounds like more than enough time.]

"What was he doing?" Han asked curiously.

"Just…standing there," she gestured towards the middle of the room. "I remember that I jumped when I came around the bend and saw him."

"What did he say?"

"He said," she looked down as if trying to remember his exact words. "He said that he didn't want to intrude and that he was just waiting for me…"

Han watched Leia as her voice trailed off. "But?" He asked.

She looked up to him. "I remember finding it funny that he wouldn't have at least called my name. Made his presence known. Or something."

[We need to be careful with this.] Chewie grunted as he moved to sit down on the other side of the banquette from Leia.

"Yeah, I know," Han answered, eying first Leia and then his co-pilot.

"What does he mean by that?" Leia asked.

Han walked over to the console and stared at the flashing lights as he answered her, "He means there are still six names on that list and we can't…we have to remember that."

"I agree," Leia whispered.

Han took her words as another stand for Roman's innocence. He grabbed the back of the high-backed chair and dug his fingernails into the cushion headrest. Taking a deep breath he turned back towards her and Chewie. "That doesn't mean that we both don't think that he's our top suspect."

Leia held Han's gaze for only one brief moment before she looked to Chewie. Han watched as his friend shrugged his shoulders at her, confirming Han's statement.

She looked back to Han. He had approached her and was standing on the other side of the holochess table from her. Laying his hands on the table and leaning towards her, he said softly, "Out of all of 'em, it sounds like he had the most time and the best opportunity and means."

She closed her eyes briefly and then nodded her head and said, "Alright, I admit I may be wrong about him."

"Make his presence known," Han whispered as he stood up straight, repeating Leia's words from earlier as something tickled at the back of his mind.

"What?"

"You said you were surprised that Roman hadn't made his presence known. Shouldn't you have known he was there anyway, with the Force?"

She sighed, as if she had thought of it already. "He could've been shielding."

[Only Sith shield in that way.] Chewie stated as he stood up.

"What does that mean?" Han asked.

"We teach shielding techniques as part of Jedi training. But never full shielding, it draws upon a power that is of the dark side. But I'm not always in-tune with the Force like I should be. My mind was a million parsecs away that morning, he could've been partially shielding and that was enough to catch me off-guard."

Chewie's fur ruffled but he said nothing.

Han bit. "Why would he even be _partially_ shielding?"

Leia hesitated; her eyes glanced to Chewie then back to Han's. "A Jedi can use shielding techniques to hide…intimate feelings that he doesn't want to broadcast."

Han crossed his arms. "Intimate feelings for you?"

"In this case, probably, yes." Han stared at her and she added, "You _knew_ we dated. I can't control how he still might feel."

Han unfolded his arms; this wasn't the time or the place to worry about Roman's intimate feelings towards Leia unless those same feelings were the driving force behind any sinister actions. It certainly marked as another strike against him in Han's book, for more reasons than one.

Han felt Leia and Chewie watching him and he drew himself out of his musings and said, "Earlier, in the meeting…when you got spooked. Was it from someone in the room?"

Her chin came up quickly and a wave of enlightenment washed over her face. "Actually, no."

Han said nothing, not sure what to make out of the answer he had not been expecting.

"I felt it, swarming around me, but not from inside of that room. Hovering outside of it, was more like it."

[That would eliminate Roman and Orren.]

"Unless they were shielding," she countered.

Han shook his head and let out a quick breath. "You know this Jedi crap is friggin' ridiculous."

[I should return to the temple.] Chewie growled.

"Right," Han looked at Chewie and agreed. "No use blowing your cover now that we can't leave."

[Or to let them know you tried to leave or that you know anything is wrong with the _Falcon_.]

"Right."

"I thought they were waiting for us to try and leave before they made their move. But if they wouldn't ever know if we tried, then what are they waiting for?"

Han just stared at her; he could see Chewie out of the corner of his eye doing the same.

Leia turned to Chewie. "It's bearing down on me. Can't you feel it, Chewie?" The desperation in her words only served to bolster the tension already building in the room.

Chewie nodded and gave a soft woofle and then turned to Han. [You'll work on the code?]

"Yeah," Han replied as he walked toward the engineering console.

[You should check all the weaponry, too.]

"Right."

Chewie looked down at Leia. [I'll see you at the assembly.]

"No," Han said, taking a step toward Chewie. "She's staying here. We don't separate. At least not Leia and me."

"Han."

"Don't." He held his hand up, his straightened arm shielding himself from her words. His palm held up defiantly in her direction, eyes never leaving Chewie as he spoke. His words, if not his gaze, directed to her. "They want the baby, probably at the cost of your life. I'm not letting you outta my sight."

"Alright."

Her answer was low but audible and Han had to drop his hand and do a double take in her direction. His mind had already mentally processed an argument to the rebuttal he fully expected to hear from her. The fact that she had complied so willingly only served to pound a stamp of reality down upon the words that he had just uttered.

"Alright," he managed to heave the word off of his chest as everything crashed down around him. He could not lose her again.

"What will I tell everyone? I mean, we just talked about keeping up appearances."

He blinked, trying to calm the currents of thoughts in his mind. He could not have her ripped out of his arms again, not when she was finally content to stay there. "I don't know, how about: I'm very pregnant and my ankles are swollen and my back hurts and I'm not up to traipsing around the compound for your silly little meetings anymore."

She was watching him as if she could see his mental wheels spinning madly inside of his head. On her face was an expression that would more appropriately match his thoughts instead of his words. She answered, "I think I can come up with something slightly more diplomatic, but okay."

She had tried for some lightheartedness in her delivery, but failed. He could look at her and see how close they were to everything exploding around them. He tried not to think of the types of decisions that lay ahead of them. Fighting not to imagine what he would do if it came down to her life or-

"I do want to make one thing perfectly clear, though." Leia stood up and walked around the holochess table toward Han and Chewie. The softness of her voice was gone as was the attempt at levity and there were lines etched into her face that Han had never seen before. "To the both of you," she said as her eyes went from Han to Chewie and then back to Han as she continued, "Whatever happens. If it comes down to it-"

"_Don't say it_," Han shook his head, surprised at how his words had come out in a growl.

She held Han's gaze for a long moment and then turned and looked at Chewie as if unable to address the remaining words to Han. "I don't want to live _my life_ at the expense of anyone else's."

Han stood, shaking his head at her, every muscle rippling under his skin from the strain of standing there and listening to her speak.

Her eyes remained on Chewie. "And I do mean _anyone_ else's, but especially..." Her voice hitched and she placed her hand on her stomach and looked down at it and added, "If it's her or me…and it's up to either of you…" She looked up, her eyes finding Han's as she said, "It had better be me."

Her words hit him like physical blows and he stood for a moment as they finished their assault. "Excuse us, please, Chewie," Han said through gritted teeth as he grabbed Leia's arm and led her into his cabin. He pounded the control panel when he entered the room and as the door slid shut behind him, he spun around to face her and said, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I don't want there to be any doubt about my wishes. No hesitations."

"I won't let it come down to that."

"You were _thinking_ it yourself."

"Then get outta my head!" He yelled as he spun away from her and ran his fingers through his hair.

He heard her whisper, his back still to her. "I wasn't in your head, not in that way. We both know things like this need to be discussed-"

He whirled around to face her. "This is not some damn Rebel mission. _You_ are not some acceptable risk or loss! I will not let you martyr yourself for this baby."

Her face registered a shock, as if she was the one who had been hit by his words now, and she replied, "Don't you dare. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Don't try and distance yourself, Han."

He furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head to her in question, unsure of what she was talking about.

She continued, "_This_ baby? Not _our_ baby, or _your_ baby, or _my_ baby?"

He watched as she began to crumble in front of his eyes. Each word acting like a building block being removed from her, causing her entire demeanor to collapse as the sound of each syllable escaped her lips. Her voice continued to rise as if to prove to him or to herself that she was not, in fact, falling apart.

"Not the baby that you have felt move inside of me every night for the past month? The baby you and I made together." Tears began to stream down her face as she continued, slowly ramping up to an anger now, "The _daughter_ you've been talking to and-"

He pulled her into his arms and held her as her body sunk in against him and she sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sweetheart," he mumbled into her hair with half-whispers, half-kisses. "But I can't have you talking like you already have one foot in the grave."

They held each other for a long while. The sound of Leia's sobs transforming into sniffles the only measurement of the passing of time.

When she had gathered herself up again, when he could feel her spine straightening as she composed herself, he heard her whisper, "You still have to promise me."

"Goddammit, Leia," he answered her tightly. His arms still wound around her protectively, lovingly, in total contrast to the sound of his words.

She pulled away slightly and stared at him.

He felt something break loose inside of him and he nodded his head and said, "Alright."

A warm pool of moisture puddled in his eyes and he looked up to the bulkhead to stave off the tears. He still held her loosely in his arms, and as if by the flip of a switch he could feel the flow of strength reversing from her to him.

I will not let it come down to it, he thought, right before he said, "If it comes down to it…I know…" He looked back down at her and whispered, "Just don't make me say it."

She said nothing as she let her body sink back into his embrace.


	27. Chapter 27

From a Certain Point of View

"What did you mean by that?" Han whispered into the back of Leia's head as they snuggled into his bunk on the _Falcon_. Chewie had left and Leia convinced Han to get some rest before he began working on the sabotaged code again.

"By what?" Leia replied, her voice husky with exhaustion.

"_Not in that way_," Han clarified.

Leia twisted her body so they could see each other, which was no small feat in her current condition. "Could you be a little more specific, please?"

"I told you to get out of my head and you said you weren't in my head, _not in that way_."

"Oh, that."

Leia was now lying on her back and Han rested his hand on her protruding stomach. "Yeah, that. Whatdya mean?"

Her answer didn't come quickly and Han raised his eyes to meet hers. Finally, she said, "You think I'm using the Force to read your thoughts and I'm not. Not really."

"Then what're you doing, _really_?"

"I don't know," she shook her head and looked down at his hand on her stomach. As she began to trace her finger along his arm, she added, "You would know if I was using the Force to read your mind or persuade your thoughts in any way. You're anything but weak-minded."

"Then why did you tell me that I was thinking it? How did you know?"

"I don't know, I guess I am _attuned_ to your feelings. I'm sure it is the Force but it isn't the same as when I consciously enter someone's mind; this happens at a more subconscious level. I don't know if I can control it, so…if you have a real problem with it…"

Her eyes were searching his now and he answered, "No. Okay, no, I don't have a real problem with it." He grabbed her wandering hand and held it in his own. After a moment of silence, he brought her hand up to his lips, kissed it and asked, "So is this some sort of one way street? Because that doesn't seem very fair."

She smiled as if she had just guessed a punch line to a joke. "Funny you should ask that, because I don't think it is a one way street." Completing her body roll, she turned on her side to face him, resting her head on her folded arm. "I think you're more than capable of experiencing the same thing."

"So, why ain't I?" Han shifted on his elbow, intrigued by the notion of being able to get a glimpse into Leia's thoughts.

"Well, I can only guess…but I think that you may be unknowingly preventing yourself from…_capitalizing_ on our bond." Leia's eyes left his for a moment while she watched her finger trail a few swirls against his chest. Looking back up at him, she said, "I think you shared a similar bond with Chewie, subconsciously. If you're honest with yourself, you'll see that you had for years. It's only now that you've attached the stigma that it's a _Jedi_ thing that you're rebelling from it. It's affected your relationship with Chewie…especially since it is something that you used to share and have now lost. It may not have affected us in the same way since it is something that we have never had and therefore can't really miss."

Han digested her words, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the conversation. Responding to her patient silence, he replied, "I'm not rebelling from anything between you and me or Chewie and me."

"Maybe not consciously, no," Leia replied, but Han noted more than a trace of skepticism.

"Well, how am I supposed to fix something that I don't even know I'm doing?" Of all the conversations he had ever had with Leia, somehow this one made him feel most vulnerable, his nerves raw from the exposure. He fought the familiar urge to run, or kiss her, and clenched his jaw as he waited for Leia to respond.

"Only you know that. But I can tell you that you're probably battling it internally under…" she held her mouth open for a moment and then released a breath and said, "Let's just say, a different label than you might think."

"What do you mean?"

"That verbally and consciously you may express your doubts about the Force, but it isn't really the Force that you have a problem with. Subconsciously the issue is labeled correctly and it is _that_ issue that you really have to work on."

"And you think you know what this issue is?"

Leia smiled, knowingly, but she said, "I can only guess."

"But you have a good guess?"

"Yes, I do." Her smile dissipated behind a serious expression.

"Care to enlighten me?" Han's chest tightened as he felt that he knew what her answer would be. He worked on trying to place it but failed. "C'mon, just what is this invisible demon that I'm fighting subconsciously?" Han pressed, forcing a teasing smirk.

Leia looked at him for a moment and the corners of his mouth relaxed, erasing his cocky grin. Holding his gaze and then tilting her chin up slightly, she said, "Trust."

Han let the word linger in the air for a moment between them before he began to shake his head. Looking away from her, he said, "I trust Chewie with my life. I trust you."

Leia smiled and placed her hand against his cheek, her skin cool against his. The contact drew his eyes back to hers. "Your trust with Chewie was shaken when he revealed his Force sensitivity to you after hiding it for all those years, that's only natural. And I…even I can admit that I haven't given you many reasons to trust me unconditionally. I think…"

Han waited for her to finish her thought.

"I think you've been content to let my growing trust in you…be enough for both of us."

Han swallowed and before his internal filters could stop him, he said, "Why for the first time do I feel like you're being totally honest with me?"

"Maybe because, for the very first time, you're using more than just your ears to hear me."

* * *

It was the _Falcon's_ proximity alarms that woke Han up just a few hours later. He climbed nimbly over Leia, trying not to wake her, his bones and joints creaking and protesting from the strain of movement. Standing next to the bunk, he took a moment to watch Leia stretch out into the warm space that he had just vacated, filling up his bunk as she had done his life.

He thought about the conversation they shared before they had fallen asleep and dragged his hand over his face. If he was honest with himself, he wondered just how much he really did trust her. He knew how much he ached and longed to trust her but there was a chasm of doubt that sprawled out between what he wanted and what really was.

Reluctantly, it seemed that he would have to agree with her claim that it was only _her_ trust in him that had grown in the last few weeks. His feelings for her - the same feelings that had made him chase her half way across the galaxy - had not changed; they were as strong as they were upon his arrival. But his trust in her had not changed either, and it had arrived battered and shaken.

And then there was Chewie. Just thinking about the hours they had spent the night before working on the _Falcon_, hells, he knew things weren't the same between them. But wasn't he justified to be a little skeptical of both of them? Chewie, his co-pilot and best friend had hidden something so important, so…_defining_. While Leia had yet to find the courage to tell him that she loved him. And the only reason he felt secure that she wouldn't run away from him now was because there was currently nowhere to run.

Han turned away from the bunk and blew out a heavy breath. And then at a sudden thought, he had to laugh at his own expense. Since when had _he_ become so judgmental? So worthy of other people's trust and love yet above reciprocating it? His smile faded quickly when he realized that he had probably patterned his entire life that way and that it was only now that it was becoming an issue.

His brain deadlocked on that thought and at another alarm from the _Falcon's_ security, Han had to physically shake it off before he slipped on some clothes and exited the captain's cabin.

* * *

"Orren," Han called down to the older Jedi as soon as the _Falcon's_ gangway hit the ground.

"Permission to come aboard, Captain," Orren replied cheerfully.

"Granted," Han replied and when Orren was halfway up the ramp, Han asked, "Can I interest you in a cup of kaffe?"

Several moments later, Han placed two steaming cups of kaffe down on the holochess table and sat down across from Orren. "What brings you by?"

"The Princess missed the assembly this morning." Orren took a sip of kaffe, set the cup down and added, "I was sent to check on her."

"She's not feeling well," Han answered more curtly than he intended. He wondered when he had gotten so bad at lying.

"Should we be alarmed?"

"No, no," Han shook his head and relaxed back against the seat. "She's just finding it hard to get around, you know, her ankles are swollen and her back hurts."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm glad that it's nothing serious." Orren's eyes looked towards the corridor that led to the captain's quarters. "Where is she now?"

"She's sleeping. That's another thing," Han added as he took a sip of kaffe. "She has trouble sleeping. Hardly slept a wink last night, as a matter of fact."

"Well, I had wanted to speak to both of you, but I don't think I should be gone any longer than necessary."

"Should I wake her?" Han asked, his thumb hitched in the direction of his cabin.

"No, no, I can run it by you, I guess."

"What is it?"

"I'm afraid the mood of the Academy has deteriorated over the last few days," Orren began, his words tumbling out of his mouth hastily. "Leia's absence at today's assembly only seemed to add fuel to the fire, so to speak."

"Fuel to what fire?" Han asked, resting his arms on the table and leaning towards Orren.

Orren looked at Han for a moment. "The fire burning through this Academy. The fire that reeks of the Dark Side," Orren replied, his eyes carefully watching Han.

Han hesitated. "What does this have to do with Leia?"

"I understand that you must be struggling to figure out who you can trust. But I'm almost positive that you and the Princess know what I'm talking about."

"Why don't you spell it out for me, just to be sure."

Orren looked nervously behind him and then back at Han. "Can you close that ramp?"

Han didn't move for a long moment, and then he stood, crossed the lounge and lifted the _Falcon's_ gangway. "Just to let you know," Han said as he slid back into his seat, "If you were trying to be discreet, you just blew it."

"It's no matter, I'd rather be able to speak freely."

"Alright, then."

"We feel the Princess is in danger, and more specifically that her unborn child is in immediate peril."

Han sat up. "First of all, let's clarify who you mean by _we_."

"Roman, Seth and I. Only the three of us. We've discussed it, meditated on it and are certain that the Academy has been infiltrated by a dark presence that means to bring some sort of harm to your unborn child."

Han leaned back, his thoughts jumbled upon hearing Roman's name mentioned in the mix. He sat back and said nothing, leaving his silence as invitation for Orren to continue.

"As I said, if you are feeling the same danger, I'm sure you're both struggling to determine who to trust."

"You could say that."

"I am. And we've come to a decision, the three of us."

Han bristled at his words. He certainly didn't want to be told what to do, especially not by some puppet of Roman's. "Oh yeah. And what's that?"

"We think you should leave immediately, just you and the Princess on this ship, as soon as possible."

Han began to shake his head slowly. Internally his mind was reeling. At first he felt that Orren could be trying to flush out Han and Leia's plans for escaping by encouraging them to escape in a ship that he knew full well was incapacitated. But something else made him think that Orren, at least, was genuinely concerned for Leia's safety.

Realizing that the Jedi was waiting for an answer, Han said, "And what? Leave all of you to some dark fate?"

"If it's Leia they're after, then none of us should suffer…_greatly,_ any way, from her departure."

"I think you're being a little naïve, especially if anyone gets wind that you helped us escape," Han replied, motioning to the recently raised gangway.

"We feel we'd fare much better in any kind of altercation if the Princess was out of harm's way."

Han drew in a deep breath and then released it slowly. Maybe it was all of Leia's talk about trust earlier that drove him to it. Maybe it was because if Orren was a part of this plot against them, then Han wouldn't be telling him anything he didn't know already. Regardless, the words began to fall out of his mouth before he had much time to contemplate it. "The _Falcon's_ been tampered with…sabotaged," Han stated calmly. "We couldn't lift off now if we wanted to."

"Then it is as we feared," Orren whispered as he sat back against the banquette, the blood rapidly draining from his face.

Han only watched him; Orren's reaction seemed genuine.

After a long silence, Orren straightened up and asked, "Is the damage repairable?"

"I think so."

Orren wrung his hands together. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

"I'm afraid time is the only thing I need."

"Well, then I guess I should leave you to it." A mask of composure seemed to slide over Orren's face as he pushed himself up to a standing position. "Please let the Princess know that she is formally excused from all further Academy obligations."

"I'll do that," Han replied, as he led Orren to the exit.

As the ramp lowered, Orren shook Han's hand and said, "May the Force be with you."

"I believe it already is," Han replied, as he watched the Jedi leave.


	28. Chapter 28

From a Certain Point of View

Han sat at the engineering console, his third cup of kaffe sitting chilled and neglected on the holochess table behind him. Orren had left hours ago and Leia was still sleeping in his cabin. Han's eyelids dragged over his eyes, scratchy and burning. Dozens of codes flitted through his head as his fingers darted about against the panel in front of him. For the first time in his life, he wished he owned a droid.

"How's it going?"

It was Leia's voice, and the stressful weight of codes and deadlines fell off of him at the sound of it. He turned to look at her, his lips automatically curling up into a smile. He splayed his cramped fingers out against his knees and soaked in the sight of her.

She wore an old shirt of his and a pair of cutoff, elastic band pants that Han hadn't seen (or fit into) in well over a decade. Her hair, barely reaching her shoulders now, was pulled out of her face with a clip that Han used to keep the cabinet door closed in his 'fresher. Her face was puffy from sleep and pregnancy, but her eyes looked bright and rested.

"It's goin'," Han answered as he patted his knee in invitation for her to join him.

Leia waddled toward him and sat crossways in his lap. Immediately his hands began studying her body like the dials and knobs of the engineering console. He began with massaging the tight muscles in her thighs, then applying gentle pressure on the soreness in her lower back, finally finishing with his thumbs pressing circles into the knots on her neck until he she was moaning and purring like he only wished his beloved ship would do.

Leia rolled her head from side to side and groaned and then arching her back, she said, "I'm hungry."

Han chuckled and then patted her hip in encouragement for her to get up as he said, "Yes, ma'am."

Leia followed him to the galley and watched him prepare lunch, eating her way through his preparations, much like she had back on Coruscant. When they finally sat at the holochess table to eat together, he asked, "Hey, where's Artoo?"

"Oh," she replied as if just remembering something, "I loaned him to Dr. Vail when the last transport left. He wanted to use him for some genetic research he was doing. He was supposed to return him on this last hitch."

"Figures, the one time I could really use 'im, the little runt goes AWOL."

"I'm sure the entire missing transport was just a devious ploy to…"

Han knew what kind of flippant remark Leia was going to say and in the same instant knew what stopped her from saying it.

"Orren came by," Han said after an awkward silence.

"What for?"

"To check on you."

"Oh."

"He said you're excused from any further meetings and stuff."

"Good. That takes care of that, then."

"I told him that the _Falcon_ had been sabotaged."

"_What?_"

"He said he, Seth and Roman got together and decided that you were in danger and that I should fly you out of here immediately." Han watched her for a moment, he could see the muscles that he had just loosened tightening back up. "I don't know. I didn't feel like lying to a Jedi so I told him we were grounded."

"What did he say?"

"He wished me luck."

Leia looked down at her plate, but didn't respond. He had expected her, or wanted her, to be happy with his decision to trust the people she trusted, but this reaction was anything but happiness. If anything, she appeared angry and hurt, leaving Han dumbfounded and confused as he wondered if he had made the right decision. These turbulent mood changes had become a norm around the ship as of late, however, and thanks to Han's diligent research on 'babies and stuff', he realized that it was all part of the 'miracle of birth' package. Han hadn't realized that the biggest miracle would be if he survived this whole thing, but he was the kind of guy who could adjust himself accordingly.

"Hey, you alright?" He finally asked, tilting his head to catch her gaze.

"I'm fine," she replied with her stock answer for everything.

To Han, 'I'm fine' meant a lot of things, but never that she was fine. He reached his hand out and massaged her shoulder while he offered her his best 'it's going to be okay' smile. She returned his smile with a weak rendition of her own and they finished the rest of their lunch together in silence.

* * *

It was two days later when Orren returned. The three of them gathered in the main lounge of the _Falcon_, Orren at the holochess table, Leia seated in the engineering console chair with it swiveled around to face Orren while Han stood next to her. The _Falcon's_ gangway was raised.

"We tried to use the interstellar communications system to find out about that missing transport," Orren whispered as if the _Falcon's_ hull was made of flimsiplast paper.

Han and Leia glanced at each other.

Orren continued, "The thing was busted…beyond repair."

"Who knows about it?" Leia asked calmly.

"Roman, Seth and I and now you two," Orren stated, nodding his head solemnly at Han and Leia.

"What do you want us to do about it?" Han asked.

"Nothing. Mainly we wanted to check on you, let you know that we still support your leaving as soon as possible."

"_And?_" Leia pressed and Han understood why. There was more than Orren wanted, even Han could tell that.

"_And_, we've come to a decision regarding the Academy that we wanted to run by you."

"I'm listening," Leia replied.

"We think it was a mistake to try and hide the Academy, especially on a planet that is so ill-protected."

"Where have I heard that before?" Leia shot back.

Han could feel as well as see her bristling at Orren's words. It was a similar reaction to what he had witnessed a few days ago when he had first told Leia about Orren's visit. Again he felt that she was angry, yet he was still confused as to exactly why.

"We know that your reservations concerning the use of Yavin Four went unheard back on Corsucant. But we're listening now."

"Typical," Han mumbled as the situation became clearer to him.

Orren moved his glance to Han and then continued, "As soon as you can get your ship in the sky and send a subspace message, we would like for you to request a full evacuation of the Academy."

"That's fine, Orren, but it's a little late," Leia whispered.

"I'm hoping we can end the blame game here between us before we regroup on Coruscant."

"I bet you are, when it isn't your life or your child's life that is on the line because of other people's foolish choices."

"Alright, take it easy, Leia. There's nothing gonna come out of pointing fingers now," Han cautioned her.

Leia stood and looked from Orren to Han. "I'm not pointing fingers at anyone but myself. I knew better, but I let them talk me into coming here…and not only leaving the protection of the New Republic behind me…but leaving you. And don't think that your name didn't come up while these men counseled me on my decision. These same men that now want _you_ to save them."

Han watched as Leia turned and left the room, leaving a stormy wake of tension behind her. At the sound of his cabin door closing, Han looked to Orren.

"We only spoke of you as a distraction to her Jedi training. It was nothing personal."

Han shook his comment off. "She'll be fine, this is all taking its toll on her, that's all. And you have my word that I'll get your message out as soon as I'm able."

"So, the repairs to the _Falcon_ are progressing?" Orren asked as he stood.

"Yes."

"Thank you, again, Captain Solo," Orren replied as he held his hand out and shook Han's.

Han held Orren's hand in his firmly, the friendly shake completed but he did not let go. After a brief moment, Han said evenly, "She means everything to me, Orren. You can't get much more personal than that."

* * *

Han walked back and let himself into his cabin to find it drenched in darkness, his shadow silhouetted on the ground before him as the hallway light poured in from behind him.

He spoke to the lump of covers rising and falling softly on his bunk, "You wanna talk about it?"

"What's there to talk about?" The lump responded, her voice muffled from underneath the sheets.

Han stepped toward the bunk and then sat on the edge of it. "Leia, what's this all about? You've been wound up like a manka cat ever since I spoke to Orren."

She threw the covers off of her and looked at him, her face was flushed.

Han shook his head. "It doesn't make a difference that I told Orren about the _Falcon_, sweetheart. If they're the bad guys, then they already knew. If they're the good guys they needed to know. And I don't care what they might have said about me back on Coruscant. Hells, most of it was probably true."

"I just wanted them to know the irony of it."

Han laughed. "I'm sure they do, sweetheart."

Leia's mood did not lighten as she sighed and said, "But, really, I had no right to chastise Orren."

"We're all on edge, Leia. I'm sure Orren understands."

"It's not that. It's…I shouldn't have taken it out him. I know who I should be angry with."

Han watched her and waited.

"If his actions infuriate me so, it's only because they act as a mirror to my own. I left you." She blurted the last words out as one would a last minute confession. "Now you're here by my actions and I've put you in jeopardy, _again_. I have no one to be angry with but myself."

"We've talked about all this, Leia. Why are you dragging it all up now?"

"Maybe because I'm doing to you exactly what's-" She stopped, her words cutoff by some invisible obstacle. "I don't know, it's all..."

He watched her as her eyes seem to search for the words that had abandoned her.

"Goddess, what's wrong with me?" She asked to no one in particular as she slammed her hands down on either side of her. Shaking her head back and forth, she then brought her hands back up to cover her face with them.

_Hormones_, Han suspected, but said, "Nothing's wrong with you. And…I'm gonna get that code fixed, don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried about the _damn_ code," she said as she lowered her hands away from her face, revealing her dampened cheeks.

"Then what is it?"

"Maybe it's _this_," she said and looked down at her stomach while she held her hands out in frustration.

"The baby?"

"The baby," she shot back at him as if he had finally struck at the heart of the matter. "Having a baby…and I mean, literally _having_ a baby and then…being a mother. What do I know about any of it?"

Han watched her, stunned into silence by her outburst.

"I didn't ask for this. This is usually a decision that a woman gets to make, Han." She looked at him, her mouth clamped tightly shut on the onslaught of words that he could tell were waiting there.

He shook his head, not sure what she wanted to hear from him and suddenly feeling a little bit foolish. Han had just taken for granted that Leia had wanted to become a mother some day and that this turn of events had just sped up the process.

Leia sighed and continued, her words delivered slowly now. "What if this isn't what I want…for _my_ life?" She pressed her fingers against her chest helplessly as she asked the question and then allowed her hand to rest there afterwards as if in protection of her heart beating beneath it.

Han didn't reply, but took her hand gently off her chest and kissed her knuckles as her fingers curled around his.

"And what about you," she asked, her voice croaking out the words. "Is this what you want, _really_?"

Han hesitated and then said, "I think it's foolish to ask those sorts of questions and to worry about things that you can't change."

"Is that your answer?" She asked, incredulously.

"I want you, that'll always be my answer."

Leia said nothing, but turned her head and looked away from him.

Han realized he was failing miserably on finding the right words to say and he knew that he wouldn't get anywhere with the Princess of Alderaan if he only continued with declarations of love. He stared at her for a moment and then said, "And for someone who speaks of destiny so much, you sure like to spit in its face whenever it suits you."

Leia spun her head back to face him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that this…," Han said as he placed his hand on her stomach, "is _our_ destiny. No matter what we ever thought about being parents, the timing, the situation, this is it. I never gave much thought about being a father, Leia, I think you know that. But it's all I can think about now and I've never wanted anything more in my entire life."

Leia dropped her head down and shook it slowly. "You must think I'm callous for saying those things, much less thinking them."

"I don't, sweetheart. You have every right to be a little angry about this and…" He hesitated and then smiled and said, "I'll be the first to admit that you getting this bantha cub out there is more than a little scary, even for me."

"Hmph," Leia grunted as she fought a smile that turned into a smirk in the process and then said, "It certainly won't be as fun as getting her in there, I can tell you that."

Han squeezed her hand tightly and laughed, pulling her to him in the process. He released a heavy sigh when he felt her relax against him and chuckle, too. "I personally think that we're going to make excellent parents," Han whispered confidently.

"I think…that you'll make a wonderful father."

"Well, I certainly have a field guide on what not to do."

She pulled away from him and replied with all seriousness, "Let's skip the part where we compare notes on the galaxy's worst fathers."

Han chuckled. "Okay, that's a deal."

Leia laughed and then heaved a heavy breath, as if releasing a weight from inside of her. "Gods, Han, I've made so many mistakes."

"And, what? You think you got the corner on that market?"

She smiled weakly.

Han brushed the hair away from her face and said, "I think I know what your problem is."

"I can't wait to hear this," she replied, rolling her eyes in the process.

"You love me," Han stated smartly, his words intentionally knocking her off balance and his eyes daring her to argue.

She hesitated a moment and then replied teasingly, "Yes, that's definitely my problem." And then she looked away from him and said, "And here you claim that you can't read my mind."

Han smiled, slipped his shoes off and crawled into the bunk under the covers next to her. "Oh, I'm fully attuned to you now," he teased as he ran his hand up her thigh.

"Han," she giggled, "you really should be working on that code."

He replied, his lips pressed up against her neck, "That's not what you're thinking about and you know it, Princess."

"I would hardly call _that_ using the Force, Han," Leia breathed out as he relieved her of her clothing.

* * *

Afterward, they held each other in a long silence, Leia's head resting against his chest and his chin pressed against her forehead. Han squeezed her, wanting to make sure she was awake as he said, "Leia?"

"Uh-hum?"

"I think you're _already_ a wonderful mother."

She picked her head up off of his chest and wrapped her hand around his neck, pulling his face to hers. "Thank you," she said, right before she drew him into a kiss.

When she pulled away from him, he placed his hand against her cheek and held her eyes for a moment before he asked, "Do you ever think about getting married?"

Leia drew back and looked at him from underneath her eyelashes, "Is that an offer?"

Han remained calm, even though his heart had frolicked into a gallop, suddenly unsure of why the hells he had asked that. "I was always of the opinion that a piece of legal jargon doesn't tie anyone to anybody any more than their word does."

Leia propped herself up on her elbow and asked, "Are you still of that opinion?"

"Yes, I guess, but…I know that on Alderaan matrimony was sacred."

"There is no Alderaan anymore," Leia stated bluntly, all humor slipping from her tone as she turned and looked down at the quilted blanket between them.

"Leia, do you want to get married? Is that something that's important to you?"

She looked back up at him for a long moment and then replied, "I'll let you know when you ask me."


	29. Chapter 29

From a Certain Point of View

"It's not funny."

Han worked on controlling the upward motion of the corners of his mouth while Leia glowered at him. "Who's laughin'?" He asked, showing a few too many teeth in the process. The aching muscles in his face rejoicing in the freedom of movement temporarily granted them.

"This is all your fault, anyway," she replied as she turned away from him, tugging at the tunic that was at the heart of the current issue.

According to what Han could gather, either that tunic - which had been about the only thing that Leia could wiggle into for the past month - had shrunk, or Leia's little bump of joy had grown exponentially since she had tried to shimmy into that tunic last, which was about four standard days ago.

"My fault? I didn't force feed you that third nerf steak last night, sweetheart." Han said it and Han regretted it – all in the same instant.

Leia whirled around on him, eyes afire and mouth hanging open like a Sarlacc on Tatooine. Any remnants of his smile evaporated immediately.

"I am eating for two." She replied hotly. And then as if by the flip of some hormonal switch that Han had yet to locate the bypass for, her eyes cooled and her mouth clamped shut. She turned away from him and said, "You told me you thought I looked beautiful."

He watched as her hands continued to pull at the guilty fabric of the shrinking tunic and he shook his head. Letting out a quiet breath, he dropped his head back, shaking it in surrender and amusement as he studied the ceiling of his cabin. If Leia had been a woman that was hard to figure out before, the addition of raging pregnancy hormones was more than any man should be expected to take.

As he brought his eyes back down on the jumbled up bundle of emotions standing in front of him, he stepped toward her. Clasping his hands on her upper arms, he said, "You are beautiful, sweetheart."

"Oh, blow it out your ass," she replied as she shook his hands off of her and walked to the dresser.

Han chuckled but failed to come up with an appropriate reply.

Turning around to face him, her eyes clear and hard now, she asked, "Are you sure the _Falcon_ will be ready by tomorrow?"

He drew in a deep breath as the hormonal switch, switched once again.

Han had been working for four days nonstop on rebuilding the sabotaged code on the _Falcon_. Chewie joined him each night and the pair worked together, Han only sleeping and eating when Leia outright forced him to. They were to report to the temple to finalize plans for their previously scheduled departure the next day, which is why Leia had to get dressed in something other than Han's old clothes.

Clearing his throat, Han said, "Yeah, we should get it tonight."

"_Should?_" Leia asked pointedly while she held his hand for support as she slipped on her shoes.

"We will, don't worry."

She looked at him. It was an understood reaction between the two of them to distrust whoever may utter the words: 'Trust me' or 'Don't worry'.

Leia straightened up, having slid her shoes onto her swollen feet. He still held one of her hands in his and he used it to pull her to him. He wrapped his arm around her and brushed the hair out of her face as he whispered, "We almost got it last night. We should finish up early, so…make room for me in that bunk because I am sleeping the entire way to Coruscant."

"Han…"

She breathed his name out in that way that only she could do and almost instantly his insides tingled in response. He knew everything she wanted to say: that she didn't think they would ever make it to Coruscant and that time was running out for them and that she was sorry for everything from Alderaan to his broken ship. Han could feel the frivolity dissipate from between them while the gravity of their situation wrapped around the cabin like so much spacers tape. But that only made him hold on to her even tighter, silencing her words if not the thoughts that flowed relentlessly between them.

So what if the galaxy's evil was bearing down on them? As long as there was a them, he would be happy. He smiled down at Leia and he could feel their baby kicking him in the gut as if in an effort to snap him out of his delusions. Leia's lips were still parted and she took a breath as if to argue with him, but he refused to let either of the women in his life bring him down so he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her hungrily, cutting off whatever it was that she had planned to say.

As he felt Leia opening her mouth to him and clinging to him possessively, he knew that when they were like this, none of it mattered. When he held her and she held him, time itself stood still and there was no pain and regret behind them and no danger and heartache ahead, only this moment and that's what he liked to live his life for – for the moment - and in particular, for this moment.

"What time is that meeting?" He asked her in between kisses, while his hands traveled over her body and his fingers began to lift the fabric of her tunic.

A small hand grabbed his and he heard her say, "I am not putting this thing back on."

He pulled away from her and smiled. "C'mon, I'll take full responsibility."

"No," she said as she took a step back. "Tonight. In celebration of fixing the _Falcon_."

He leaned into her, reclaiming the distance she had placed between them. "You sure know how to motivate a man," he drawled in agreement as he began to kiss her once again.

* * *

The couple walked along the wooded path towards the temple; Han cradling Leia's hand in his as she waddled along the leaf-strewn trail beside him. The morning light streamed through the cracks in the forest canopy above them like the blurred star lines of hyperspace that Han had begun to miss so much. He dreaded every step away from the sanctity they had enjoyed on the _Falcon_. The droning sound of voices in the distance seemed to mock him as they neared the Academy.

When they finally reached the clearing outside of the temple the pair stopped. There was a transport; a large ship resting on the grassy landing with its gangway lowered. A crowd that seemed to be comprised of the entire Academy stood around in groups chatting excitedly. Near the lowered ramp stood Orren, Seth and Roman speaking to a man in uniform.

Han looked down at Leia, the blood drained from her already-paled complexion. "You alright?"

"Yes," she answered absently and then motioned for them to keep walking toward the transport.

They stood for a moment on the outskirts of the crowd that had gathered before Orren made his way towards them purposefully.

"Isn't it wonderful? What a relief." Orren offered as he approached the couple.

"What did they say? Where have they been?" Leia asked.

"Some sort of mix-up in communications from what we can gather. They didn't even know they were late. This was their scheduled stop, the last one having been overlooked or inadvertently cancelled, we can't be sure."

Leia was shaking her head and looking at the Frigate, "Something's wrong."

"What?" Han asked, squeezing her hand in his.

"Princess, are you quite alright?" Orren asked worriedly.

Before she could respond her knees buckled from beneath her and Han was lucky to grab her before she hit the ground.

"Oh, my she's fainted," Orren quickly stated the obvious.

"Is her doctor onboard?" Han asked, cradling Leia in his arms.

"Yes, yes. Good idea. Bring her to the medical wing."

With all her moods and bossiness, her cravings and achiness, and yes even her weepiness, Han never looked upon Leia as anything but the strong, independent woman that he had fallen in love with. The woman that could hold her own in a verbal argument, a blaster fight, lightsaber battle or drinking game. Holding her now, unconscious and defenseless, all of that suddenly fell away and she became something else entirely. She became his.

Han was up the ramp, down several corridors and on the turbolift before Leia came to. Her eyes fluttered open as she stirred in his arms. She looked around in a daze and then at Han. She had never looked more confused and vulnerable to him than at that moment. He couldn't stop the dopey smile he felt spread cross his lips. "You alright?"

"What happened? Why are you looking at me like that?" She wriggled in his arms as she eyed the walls of the turbolift.

"You fainted."

"Where am I? Put me down." She was wriggling furiously now as if she meant to escape.

So much for the damsel in distress, he thought with a roll of his eyes. "Easy. Alright, Your Worship," Han replied as he tilted her and lowered her gently to her feet.

Keeping his arm wrapped tightly around her, she swayed slightly and grabbed his arm to steady herself.

"_See_, your stubbornness?"

She pressed her hand to her forehead. "I'm fine and quit calling me names or I just might come to my senses about you."

"Is that right?" Han laughed but was quickly cut off by the sound of the turbolift door opening.

"Yes, no, I don't know," Leia stammered, still looking confused. "There's something not right with this ship."

Han led her out of the lift and down the hall. "The ship, right. Let's just get you checked out and then we'll be outta here."

* * *

Leia's doctor, Dr. Vail, was a tall, lanky man with a mop of curly black hair on his head. He looked thin from missing too many meals, probably with his head buried in medical books. He held himself with a confident but relaxed air and, to Han, he reeked of high breeding.

"She is definitely a girl," Dr. Vail stated as he performed his ultrasonic scan of Leia's stomach. "Your Force driven midicholorian blood cells did not steer you wrong on that bit of information."

Han felt his chest swell as he exchanged a long glance with Leia. He stood next to her, near her head and was holding one of her hands. The sound of their baby's heartbeat swooshed in the background as it pulsating strongly through the monitor. Each rhythmic beat seemed to jumpstart Han's own heart.

"A fine looking baby, indeed," Dr. Vail added. "She's grown quite a bit since I saw you last."

"So it isn't my clothes that are shrinking," Leia joked back and Han squeezed her hand.

"No, no, it would be safe to say that that would not be the case," Dr. Vail replied as he began to pick up the ultrasonic equipment. "And that fainting spell was probably just a combination of low blood sugar and excitement. You should really try to eat a substantial breakfast each morning."

Han could tell that something about the doctor's demeanor had changed, but not knowing him very well, couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"That's fine, but what else is it, Dr. Vail?" Leia asked as she politely ignored his advice and sat up on the exam table. Apparently reading her doctor as well, if not better, than Han did.

The doctor stopped what he was doing with the equipment and looked straight at Leia and said, "Nothing. Everything looks perfect, your baby is perfect."

"Dr. Vail, has any of your research taught you not to attempt to lie to a Jedi?" Leia asked, not at all placated by the doctor's demeanor or words.

Dr. Vail smiled and said with a sigh, "It's what we talked about before, about your size and the baby's position."

"But I still have several weeks; you said I wasn't even dilating yet."

"If the baby hasn't turned yet, chances are she will not. There just isn't any room for her to move around in there."

Leia took a deep breath.

"What does all that mean?" Han asked, wondering why it suddenly felt like the room was spinning.

"It means, Captain Solo, that the Princess will not be able to deliver naturally. Your baby is feet first and will most likely remain that way." The doctor took a step toward Leia and placing a hand on her knee, he said, "There is nothing wrong with a surgical delivery, Leia, they are perfectly safe."

She shook her head heavily and replied, "I know."

The doctor took his hand off of Leia's knee and said, "I'll leave you two alone while you get dressed and then we'll talk some more in my office."

"Alright. Thanks, doctor."

Leia slid off the table as soon as the doctor had left the room and then stepped behind a small partition where she had left her clothes.

Han stood in the silence of the room for a moment, the room strangely calm without the background noise of his baby's heartbeat. He turned his head and looked at the curtained partition that Leia now stood behind, everything becoming more real and more dangerous than it had ever seemed before.

Finally, he walked toward the partition. Peaking around the corner, he found Leia standing solemnly in place, a forlorn look on her face and holding her crumpled up tunic pressed to her chest.

"Sweetheart?" Han whispered as he walked toward her and pulled her into an embrace. "You heard the doctor, everything's gonna be fine. Our baby's healthy, that's all that matters, right?"

"I know, don't worry, I'm not falling apart again," she assured him as she wriggled out of his arms. "It's just that…"

"What?"

"Well, first of all, I can't get this tunic back on," she replied with a whine as she held up the offending garment.

Han laughed and took it from her. "Finally, a problem I can handle," he said as he scrunched the fabric in his hands. "Arms up, Princess."

Leia held her arms up like a child and Han pulled the tunic over her head and down her body with ease.

"See?" Han asked with an I-told-you-so grin and a wink. "I told you I could get this thing back on you."

Leia smiled and replied, "Forgive me if I was skeptical, but I'm pretty sure that was the first time in history that you ever put clothes _on_ me."

He held her eyes for a moment and was brushed briefly by an emotion that felt like gratitude. Having taken Leia's conversation about trust to heart, Han had found that he could read her a lot better lately. He was positive that her gratitude wasn't in response to his dressing her, but for something much greater than that. But as he tried harder to grasp it, it quickly faded. She smiled at him and he let it go as he pulled her to him and kissed her soundly.

He found that he had to take every opportunity to kiss her lately and that she somehow understood that need. Neither willing to admit that it was because they were running out of time. But there was something about this kiss, a reluctance from Leia that he hadn't felt earlier in the _Falcon_.

Han pulled away, breaking their kiss and then whispered against her cheek, "What's the second of all?"

"Hmmm?" She asked, her body leaning against him.

"You said first of all, that usually means there's a second."

Leia pulled away. "No, that was it."

Han grinned at her and shook his finger, sure he had hit on the matter at hand. "It doesn't work that way anymore, sweetheart."

"Please, Han. Let's just finish up here."

She still looked so fragile to him, yet her set jaw told him she was anything but willing to talk right now. "Alright, but I'm not letting this go," he said as they left the exam room and headed to the doctor's office. "I have a mind like a trap, you know."

"Oh, I know all too well what kind of mind you have, _sweetheart_."

* * *

"I'm sorry I cannot be any more concrete, but the human body is a complicated piece of machinery," Dr. Vail stated. "It would be best if we perform the surgery before you begin to labor naturally, but imperative that we do so as soon as possible afterwards."

"All things being ideal, when would you normally schedule my surgery?" Leia asked.

"Thirty-eight weeks, and I still will when we get to Coruscant, as long as your body cooperates."

"But I'm only thirty-four, that's plenty of time."

"You'll be thirty-four in a few days, which presents its own set of problems. Your baby may not be ready to breathe on her own yet, she may require her own special medical care if she were born within the next two weeks." The doctor drew in a heavy breath and said, "Leia, if you labor now and you aren't in reach of the correct medical equipment it could be detrimental to both your life and the life of your unborn child. I cannot make it any clearer than that."

"We'll leave on the frigate," Han replied quickly. And when Leia turned to look at him astonished, he added, "We'll come back for the _Falcon_, it's only a ship."

"Then we're set?" Dr. Vail replied, obviously relieved.

"No, I think we should discuss this alone," Leia replied, her eyes on Han.

"Okay," Han answered her evenly and then turned to Dr. Vail, "we'll get back to you this afternoon."

"Takeoff is scheduled for tomorrow at dusk, as far as I'm concerned you have until then."

Han and Leia said their goodbyes to the doctor and as they were walking out of the room, Dr. Vail called, "Oh, Princess?"

"Yes?"

"You can swing by my laboratory and pick up your Artoo unit. I do believe he's a bit homesick, if that's possible."

"Oh, for him, I believe it is, Dr. Vail. Thank you, we'll pick him up."

* * *

"What exactly was the doctor doing with the little bucket of bolts?" Han asked as they stood waiting outside of Dr. Vail's laboratory.

"Some sort of research on midichlorians and genetics," she responded as Artoo wheeled out of the lab.

The little droid beeped and rocked back and forth excitedly at the sight of his owner. "Hello, Artoo. Of course, I missed you."

Upon receiving his own warbled greeting from Artoo, Han said, "Welcome back, buddy," and tapped the little droid on his domed head.

They were walking down the halls of the frigate, Artoo now part of their entourage, as Leia whispered, "I don't like the idea of being cooped up on a ship that we have no control over with the entire Academy in tow."

"I agree," Han replied as they stepped onto the turbolift and then turned to face Leia. "But how about you tell me about that 'second of all' that we talked about earlier?"

Leia let out an exhaustive sigh. "Han-"

"Leia, I mean it," Han cut her off, his voice forceful.

She looked at him while she drew in and released a heavy breath. "I've seen the birth…over and over in my mind, Han. In my dreams, visions, whatever you want to call them."

"And?"

"And…I'm not in a hospital and I'm not in surgery."

The turbolift door slid open in perfect synchronization with Han's heart dropping down to his toes. "What-"

Han's words were cutoff when someone else entered the lift. He followed Leia into the corridor and continued, "What happens, is the baby okay?"

Leia stopped walking and looked at him. "I don't know. Everything blacks out before…"

"Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?" He asked, as they began to walk down the corridor again.

"I wasn't sure if they were anything to worry about."

"Can't these visions change? The future isn't set in stone, right?"

"I don't know-"

Han grabbed her by the arm. "If you don't know, then maybe we oughta stay on this ship, near your doctor and all his equipment."

"The Force isn't steering me that way, Han. This frigate is not where I belong."

Han's mind raced. "We have until dusk tomorrow. The _Falcon_ should be fixed by tonight. Hopefully, this will all just be a wasted discussion." He pulled Leia closer to him as someone walked past them in the corridor. Taking advantage of their closeness, he whispered to her, "But if the _Falcon_ isn't fixed by liftoff, then we're leaving on this frigate, Leia."

She stared at him, defiance swirling in her eyes. But she replied, "Fine. But you promised me the _Falcon_ would be fixed tonight. So, as you said, this should be a wasted discussion."

He motioned for her to begin walking again and spoke as he kept pace beside her. "I'll go find Chewie and now that we have Artoo to help us, it shouldn't be a problem."

The droid tweedled with optimism.

"Alright. I guess I should go and touch base with Orren."

They were walking down the gangway as Han said, "No. No, I don't want us separated."

Once on the ground, Leia turned to him. "We're running out of time, Han. I'll be fine."

"No, I'll come with you to see Orren."

"Alright. Actually, we should send Artoo to find Chewie, that'll be less obvious."

Artoo beeped in affirmation.

Han winked at her as he hitched his arm out for her to take. "Perfect."

* * *

As the best laid plans usually are, Han found his and Leia's were very short-lived. As the couple made their way to the temple they saw the jubilant young Jedi, Zacari hurrying toward them. As the young boy approached Han and Leia, he recited his rehearsed speech, "There's a mandatory gathering in the main hall. Everyone is to report there immediately."

While Zacari continued onto the frigate and bounded up the gangway, Han and Leia exchanged a frustrated glance.

* * *

As they entered the large assembly hall it didn't take the Force to feel the anxiety in the room. The arrival of the frigate appeared to serve as both a relief and a concern. For the majority of the Jedi, remaining on Yavin was still a distinct possibility and the temple reeked of unrest.

"I guess they're gonna tell everyone about the evacuation," Han leaned down and mumbled into Leia's ear.

"They had better, the natives are restless."

The couple spotted Orren waving for Leia to join the group of elder Jedi on a raised dais. Han grabbed a spot against the wall close enough to keep a watchful eye on Leia as she joined Orren and began to talk with him. On the other side of the room, Han traded glances with Chewbacca who had been joined by Artoo.

It was Orren who finally began to speak over the persistent din of nervous, chattering Jedi. As he began to discuss the flight of the newly arrived frigate and the decision to evacuate the entire Academy back to Coruscant, his news stirred up the temporarily quieted crowd as conversations exploded with reactions that consisted of panic, dissension and relief.

Orren tried unsuccessfully to bring order back to the room but the group began to break up disobediently. Jedi scrambled between one another in an apparent search to find those that were of like mind regarding the news. Han kept one eye trained on Leia as she stood across the room, huddled in conversation with Seth and Roman.

At first Han tried to ignore the distant humming that began to reverberate throughout the chamber's walls, struggling to concentrate on the bits of conversations that he could make out around him. But as the noise grew louder, it seemed everyone in the room began to tilt their heads up in an effort to identify the foreign noise and pretty soon all conversation had ceased and it was only the noise that remained.

Too late, Han identified it, his spine snapping to attention and his eyes immediately scrambling to find Leia. It was the sound of repulsorlifts. The transport outside was warming up its engines.

The crowded room of Jedi swelled into a panic as everyone realized, as Han had, what the noise was and in turn what it meant. There was a violent stampede toward the door and Han fought against the wave of beings as he tried to make his way towards Leia. He watched as she was swept out toward another exit, and he cursed under his breath as he fought his way through the crowd to follow her.


	30. Chapter 30

From a Certain Point of View

When Han had finally made his way outside, he saw the transport warming up for departure. Frenzied masses of Jedi were pushing their way up the lowered gangway, overwhelming the startled platform attendant. Han cursed as he watched the madness, scanning each bobbing head for Leia.

Catching sight of Chewbacca and Artoo making their way towards him, Han met them halfway. "I lost Leia. Have you seen her?"

Chewie's fur ruffled and he growled in response, [No.] His eyes joined Han's in a frantic search while Artoo warbled mournfully.

Han watched the crowd of Jedi dwindle as they slowly disappeared into the ship, leaving Orren, Roman and Seth standing at the edge of the lowered platform at the other end of the clearing.

"Is she on the ship?" Han asked Chewie in desperation.

Chewie inclined his head for a moment and then said, [I can't tell. There's too much commotion. But she is near…and her mood is unsettled.]

"Go back to the _Falcon_, I'm almost done with the code. Get her in the air and come back here."

[Your best bet may be that transport.] Chewie grunted as he tilted his head toward the ship.

Han looked at the ship and then back at Chewie. "If she's on it…"

Chewie lowered his heavy paw onto Han's shoulder. [Don't worry about me. I'll get out of here on the _Falcon_.]

Han nodded in agreement before he tore off toward the transport, leaving Chewie and Artoo scrambling off in the direction of the _Falcon_.

"Is Leia inside?" Han yelled at Orren, Seth and Roman over the sound of the ship's repulsors.

Roman moved to speak, but it was Orren who answered, "We can't be sure, but we think everyone's on board."

Han shot up the ramp, pushing past the gangway attendant as the young man yelled at Han for his name. Two long strides and Han stopped in his tracks and whirled around, grabbing the datapad from the young man's hands.

"Leia Organa. Did you check in Leia Organa?"

Han's eyes scrolled through the names on the list as he said, "A short, pregnant woman. Did you see a short, pregnant woman?"

The young man answered, "I don't remember, sir. But I can tell you that I didn't get everyone, it was too rushed."

Han threw the datapad back at him; Leia's name was not on the list. He shoved his way down the hallway, crowds of Jedi that had been in such a furious hurry to board the ship just moments ago, now rambled around aimlessly through its corridors.

Han nearly knocked someone over and catching their arm, exclaimed, "Zacari."

"Captain Solo!"

"Have you seen Leia?"

"Uh, yes, I think I saw her heading to the medical bay," Zacari answered as he pointed down the hallway to the turbolifts. "I've lost Meisha and Shanel." The boy added nervously.

"Don't worry, you'll find 'em," Han replied as he ruffled the boy's hair and tore off toward the turbolifts.

As he exited the lift the mechanical voice of the PA system announced: "_Please prepare for liftoff in two point three minutes_."

Han grabbed the arm of a uniformed man walking leisurely down the corridor. "Why are we taking off?"

The man shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Captain's orders."

Han bounded down the hallway.

"_Please prepare for liftoff in one point forty-five minutes_."

Han entered the empty med ward and immediately realized that his search had been in vain. "Leia Organa?" He shouted out anyway to a startled attendant.

"We've admitted no one to the ward as of yet, sir."

"Where's Dr. Vail?"

"I haven't seen him."

Han cursed under his breath. If Leia was not on this ship then where the hells was she? He spun around, and made for the turbolifts.

When he exited the turbolifts back on the lower level, the mechanical voice warned, "_Please prepare for liftoff in forty-five seconds_."

Han pushed his way down the corridor, finding the young attendant with the datapad standing in front of the closed access door that led to the gangway area.

"Let me through," Han growled at the young boy as soon as he was within earshot.

"Sir, the access way has been sealed, we are preparing to liftoff."

As if in confirmation the mechanical voice came on and said, "_Please prepare for liftoff in thirty seconds_."

Han drew his blaster and pointed it at the young man while he reached his hand out and pressed the release button on the access panel.

"Stand aside," Han replied through gritted teeth.

The young boy paled and slid along the corridor almost in perfect timing with the opening of the access door. Han entered the now empty room, sealed the door behind him and ran towards the exit.

"_Please prepare for liftoff in fifteen seconds_."

He reached the exterior wall of the ship and palmed the access panel open to lower the gangway. His heart pounding in his chest, it was the first moment that he allowed his thoughts to catch up to him. This transport was more than a dozen stories high and Leia could be anywhere inside of it. A part of him, at that moment, wanted to stay with the ship and search it more thoroughly for her, but the better part of him urged him to take his chances on the ground, hoping that if he was wrong the _Falcon_ could catch this ship if he absolutely had to.

The hissing sound of the gangway lowering mingled in and halfway covered the sound of the next warning.

"…_se pre… for …toff … five …cond.._."

Han watched the gangway lower slowly, more slowly than he had ever seen a gangway lower in his entire life. "C'mon, godsdammit!"

"_Liftoff_."

The massive repulsor motors of the large vessel drowned out the sound of Han's next curse as he ducked and scrambled down the gangway that was now slowly lifting off of the ground. Standing perilously at the edge of the platform, watching the earth of Yavin Four fall further and further away from him, Han felt a faint tug inside of him, a final doubt that perhaps Leia was onboard and it caused him to panic and hesitate.

Turning around to look at the empty bay behind him, he heard his words to Leia: '_I__f the _Falcon_ isn't fixed by liftoff, then we're leaving on this frigate._' He turned around; he was slowly reaching a height that would make his decision an easy one. He lowered on his knees toward the edge, the wind whipping at his clothing and pelting his hair against his face. He shimmied down the platform and hung on by his fingertips as he heard Leia's words: '_The Force isn't steering me that way, Han. This frigate is not where I belong._' And then he let go.

Han hit the unforgiving earth hard, twisting his right ankle as he rolled to a stop. He watched as the ship lifted off above him, covering his face from the hail of rocks and dirt that the repulsor engines were stirring up around him. As the ship lifted further away, he sat up and looked around, rubbing his now throbbing ankle.

There was no one in sight. One last time, Han looked up toward the shrinking dot in the sky that was the transport and let a wave of terror seize his chest in a gripping panic as he wondered if he had just let Leia slip out of his hands once again. He stood gingerly, favoring his twisted ankle as he steadied himself, brushed himself off and headed toward the temple.

* * *

As he neared the entrance to the temple, Han saw a figure slumped against the steps, the white stone stained red all around it. Han ran towards the figure, fighting through the pain shooting up his leg as his ankle protested severely to the abuse. Han stopped, his chest heaving as he sucked in air, his body working furiously to keep up to the frantic beating of his heart. It was Seth.

The older Jedi lay crumpled against the temple entrance. Han dropped to his knees next to him and felt for a pulse, jolting back when Seth reached out and grabbed Han at the wrist.

"Sss-sss," he gurgled out through spurts of blood spewing from his mouth.

"What?" Han replied with a gasp as he caught the faint fluttering of Seth's pulse sputtering erratically beneath his fingertips.

"Ssss-sss, lliii-ghttt," Seth added with a gasp, causing him to cough up crimson chunks of blood that splattered against the stone in cold, wet slaps.

Han looked down to the belt where Seth's lightsaber should've been hitched, only to find it empty. His eyes scanned the immediate area with no luck. The absence of movement beneath his fingertips brought his eyes back down to Seth, but he was gone.

Han laid the Jedi's hand down on his chest and rose shakily to his feet. He looked down at the pile of brown robes, bones and blood that used to be a man, a Jedi. He thought for a quick moment that he should retreat and get Chewie, but the vision of what Leia might be going through and not wanting to add a second to the time it would take to find her, won over as he ran limply toward the temple, drawing his blaster in the process.

* * *

Han entered the main assembly area, the room serving as a hub to the entire temple with corridors leading from it like spokes in all directions. He spun around once, his eyes glazing over each entrance as he tried to determine which way he should go. His heartbeat was wild and erratic and he worked unsuccessfully on calming his nerves. He jumped at the sound of a blood-curdling scream and ran towards the corridor that led to the sound and the Jedi living quarters.

* * *

The first room Han entered was the large lobby that served as the common area for the living quarters. His eyes immediately landed on a slumped figure near the far corridor. The room was eerily quiet, the sound of that scream still echoing in Han's mind as he approached the fallen figure, his blaster at the ready. Han reached down and grabbed the figure by its shoulder and turned it onto its back. It was Orren, at least what used to be Orren. Like Seth, the Jedi was dead.

As Orren's body sprawled out lifelessly on its back, his lightsaber clanged to the floor as it rolled from within his bloody grasp. Han bent down and picked it up, clipping it to his belt. When he stood he heard a rustling sound in the corner and he pointed his blaster in the direction of the noise.

"Who's there?" Han asked gruffly as he walked toward a set of loungers at the far corner of the room.

"Captain Solo?" A timid voice replied as Han watched Zacari's head peek out from behind the lounger.

Lowering his blaster with a relived sigh, Han replied, "What're you doing here? I almost shot you."

Zacari stood, his body visibly trembling along with his voice. "I was looking for Meisha and Shanel. They never made the transport."

Han looked at the boy. "Did you see who did this?" He asked pointing to what was left of Orren.

Zacari nodded, tears falling down his cheeks.

Han walked over to him and knelt in front of him. "You need to be brave and tell me what happened."

The boy shook his head back and forth and cried, "It was them! I was looking for them! It was them! They killed him!"

Han pulled the boy into his embrace and held him as he wailed. "It's alright," he reassured the boy as he stood up and looked toward the corridor where Orren's body lay.

"Did they go that way?" Han asked.

Zacari sniffled and nodded. "Roman was with them."

The blood ran cool through Han's veins. "What about the Princess?"

"He had her."

Han looked toward the dark hallway and turned to Zacari and said, "You stay here-"

"No!" The boy screamed, terror in his eyes as he grabbed Han by the wrist. "Please don't leave me alone."

Han breathed out calmly and taking the boy's hand, said, "Alright, stay close."

* * *

Han and Zacari meandered through the hallways of the temple passed the living quarters and into an abandoned section of the ruins. The corridor that they found curved wildly and continued to slope further down into the ground as the walls closed tightly around them. Han had almost decided to give up and turn around when the distinct sound of lightsabers hissing and crackling in the distance refueled his resolve. He felt Zacari's grip wind tighter around his hand as they continued.

As the sound of the lightsabers grew closer, the pair came across another lifeless body, this time of a woman. Han held Zacari back, not wanting the boy to see one of his mentors slain maliciously and left for dead. Zacari crouched against the wall, trembling in fear as Han turned the body over.

Han had to catch the weight of his body with his arm against the wall as he gasped, his knees buckled beneath him and he covered his mouth in utter shock. A cool burst of perspiration painting his forehead as he suddenly felt nauseous and faint. It was one of the hags that had kidnapped him. Memories of his terror and torture at her hands left him speechless and shocked as his heart sped back up into a panicked gallop.

"Who is it?" Zacari whimpered from down the hall.

"It's not Meisha or Shanel," Han whispered absently to Zacari as he realized in that instant that in actuality it was Meisha or Shanel – which, he couldn't be sure. But the Jedi twins who spoke in unison and sometimes completed each other's sentences were in fact those same hags that had tortured Han to the brink of death. They had been here the entire time, somehow altering their appearance.

Han wiped his sweaty brow on his shirtsleeve and pulled himself together. He heard a voice scream in terror, "I didn't sign up for this!"

It was Dr. Vail. He pushed the hag back over, shielding her deformed face from the boy.

Dr. Vail's voice squealed again, "You'll kill her! I wo-"

"C'mon," Han held his hand out to Zacari as he got up and hobbled as fast as he could on his injured ankle toward the sound of the doctor's now muffled cries.

* * *

Han and Zacari arrived at the opening that was more of an archway than a door. Han leaned against the curved wall of the entrance and looked in. The area inside was cavernous and cave-like with rounded, craggy walls and a ceiling that was littered with stalactites, dripping down like sharpened teeth toward the floor below. It reminded Han of the prison that he had lived in during his kidnapping and torture. The room had a familiar smell, of rotten flesh and stagnant water. The air was so thick Han had to struggle to breathe it in.

There was a large ledge around the entire room that surrounded a canyon-like opening in the middle that was the size of the maw. Large pieces of earth shot up out of the canyon, tremendous formations of stalagmite, like fingers stretching up from a dark grave. Some pieces were chopped off at the top and flattened, most were so pointy their tips shined like the edge of a vibroblade. The opening caused the sounds of the room to echo, lending an eerie edge to the scene set out before him.

To the right, he saw Leia struggling to battle with the other hag. Leia was swinging a lightsaber in her hands clumsily, lucky to even produce a defensive move, much less an offensive one. Her moves were jerky and lumbered as she tried to maneuver her pregnant body against the thrashing blows of the hag's flailing lightsaber. She stumbled backwards and away from the hag's persistent attack. The hag looked wounded but in better shape than Leia was as she pummeled Leia's lightsaber relentlessly and continued to gain ground.

On the far side of the room to the left, Han saw a medical gurney. The white sheets and shiny durasteel legs stood out like a mirage among the filthy walls of the cave. Dr. Vail was slumped against the gurney, blood pouring out of his neck. The distinct smell of soldered flesh wafted toward Han as he turned away in disgust. Not far from Dr. Vail, almost directly across the cave from Han was Roman, also slumped over and bleeding. Han couldn't tell if he was dead or alive.

Zacari whispered from behind Han, "The Princess has Roman's lightsaber, she must've overpowered him."

"Is that Seth's lightsaber?" Han asked, looking at the hag – another wave of nausea crashing over him at the sight of his other nemesis.

"Yes, I believe so." Zacari crawled up next to Han quietly, neither Leia nor the hag had been alerted to their presence yet.

Han watched Leia battling the hag as she ran out of real estate behind her. He drew his blaster and raised it toward the hag, but the erratic movements of both her and Leia never afforded him a clean shot.

"Captain Solo, I've ranked highly in my lightsaber training. Give me Orren's lightsaber and I can help the Princess."

Han kept his blaster trained in the direction of the fighting as he let his eyes glance down at the young boy cowering beside him. How could he send a child to fight this battle? A scream from Leia drew his attention back to the other side of the room as he watched the hag slice her lightsaber against Leia's bicep, causing Leia to stumble back precariously close to the cliff-like drop in the center of the room.

Seizing the moment of weakness, the hag lifted her hand and raised her lightsaber in what would surely be a fatal blow.

Blind with fury, Han raised his blaster and fired at the hag, hitting her in the shoulder, derailing her aim but not totally thwarting the blow. He watched as the hag's lightsaber slashed Leia's thigh, knocking her off of her feet. Han watched in horror as Leia slumped down near the edge of the cliff, her lightsaber rolling out of her outstretched hand and falling silently into the abyss.

Wounded but still alive the hag cackled and raised her hand toward Han and Zacari. Han recognized the maneuver and shot off two blasts as the hag sent a Force shove in his direction. He watched as his shots hit the hag, one in the hip and one in the arm, flinging her lightsaber across the room and sending her sprawling against the cave wall behind her. In the same instant, Han and Zacari were hit with her Force shove. Han's blaster flying out of his hand as he was thrown halfway across the room and pounded up against the wall to one side and Zacari thrown off to the other.

Han fought off his body's urge to lose consciousness as he coughed up chunks of blood. The pain in his head, his ribs and hips tore through him but he struggled to get up, pushing himself against the jagged wall behind him for support, ignoring the tearing flesh on his back. The hag was no better off than he was as he watched her pulling herself along the floor by her fingernails toward her fallen lightsaber.

Looking in Leia's direction, Han noticed Roman had come to and was crawling towards Leia. At a single touch from Roman, Leia writhed in pain and screamed out.

"Stay away from her." Han yelled across the cavernous room toward Roman. His voice much more forceful and loud in his head than the garbled words that actually came out of him.

"Throw me the lightsaber!" Zacari called to Han.

Han looked toward the boy across the room from him, who was now standing up propped against the wall on trembling legs.

"No!" This call came from Roman and Han spun around to look at him. Roman was fighting to get on his feet as he said, "Do not trust him."

The snap-hiss of a lightsaber brought Han's attention back to the hag. She had reached her lightsaber and was stumbling across the room toward Roman and Leia.

"Now, Captain Solo!" Zacari yelled.

Roman stood calmly, Leia's body stretched out at his feet. Stretching his hand out toward Han, he said, "I am not your enemy, Captain Solo. Give me the lightsaber."

The hag stumbled and fell and Han pushed himself up to his feet, slumping against the wall and bracing himself as his bones protested and his muscles ripped in pain. Thoughts swirled violently through his mind. Leia's voice saying that she trusted Roman. Zacari telling Han that Leia had been on the transport. The fact that both of them had access to the Falcon's engineering console. Memory after memory, one more piece of the puzzle always cancelling out another.

Han blinked as a warm liquid trickled in his eye and blurred his vision. The hag was crawling toward Leia, struggling to get to her feet. Han looked at Zacari who was now walking toward him, clutching his abdomen as his hand ran along the rough wall for support.

Han's eyes fell back on the older Jedi as Roman sighed and said, "Please, I would not hurt her." Then added firmly, "I love her."

Han winced in pain as he unhitched the lightsaber from his belt. "Are you trying to convince me to trust you or kill you?"

A scream tore from Leia. The hag got back on her feet and was stumbling toward her.

"You're running out of time! Captain Solo, please!" Zacari pleaded, the boy still several yards away.

Han shut his eyes, the warmth of Leia's presence wrapped around him. Inhaling a deep, cleansing breath he opened his eyes as another scream from Leia prompted him into action. Hitching his arm back, Han threw the lightsaber.

Never before in his entire life had Han wished to have the Force, but he did in that moment as he watched the lightsaber hurl toward its intended target. Han wished he could call it back and send it elsewhere as the terror of making the wrong decision gripped him by the throat and he braced himself to face the consequences.


	31. Chapter 31

From a Certain Point of View

Chapter Thirty-One

"No!"

The blood curdling scream came from Zacari as the lightsaber landed firmly in Roman's hands. Han watched as the young boy's eyes flashed in fury and then he held his hand out to Han and shot lightning through his fingertips, hurling him back against the wall of the underground room.

Han writhed on the floor in agony, clutching his stomach and rolling up into a ball against the cave wall. His teeth clenched together in a vice against the pain, the familiar convulsion of his muscles as they rode through the spasms of voltage pulsating through his body brought the memories of his distant torture back full force. A dark halo of unconsciousness beckoned to him, his brain's ingrained reflex to protect itself urged him to surrender to the peaceful darkness, where he would be free of the pain.

He fought against the blackness that infringed upon his mind, concentrating on Leia and their unborn child. Whatever strength he had drawn upon to survive his previous torture - when he had been alone and without much to fight for - he had to find that same strength now, now when he had so much more to fight for and to live for. In the distance, under the murky water of his wavering consciousness, he heard screams and the crackling of lightsabers and he struggled to lift his head up and look around.

Zacari was standing, feet splayed apart and his hands outstretched towards the ceiling as he began to morph into a decrepit old man, lightning shooting at the ceiling causing the stalactites to tremble and fall and the walls and ceilings all around them to shake.

Roman had begun to fend off the hag, gaining ground on her and pushing her away from Leia. _Leia!_ The word ripped through his mind in a terrified scream, piercing the veil of darkness that had almost engulfed him. She was no more than a mound of clothing, flesh and bones and the sight of her lifeless body yanked Han back into action.

He crawled along the edge of the canyon scurrying quietly on his forearms and knees. He could vaguely make out the figures of Roman and the hag dodging debris and battling with their lightsabers. Out of the corner of his eyes a flash of white streamed across the room and threw Roman against the wall, catching the hag off-guard and flipping her end over end onto her back as her lightsaber skidded across the floor.

Han scooted along the wall as he watched Zacari scamper, hunch-backed and deformed now as he scooped up the hag's lightsaber and moved towards Roman.

"Get me that child!" Zacari yelled at the hag, her listless figure flinching at his words.

Han spotted his blaster a few yards out of the way and crawled towards it as he watched the hag stumble towards Leia and Roman rise unsteadily to his feet.

With Roman now battling Zacari in the background, Han made his way toward Leia, blaster in hand. The hag was hunched over Leia's body, one hand holding her at the wrist and one hand trailing her long, bony fingers down Leia's stomach as Leia's body jumped and trembled in response.

"Kill him!" Zacari yelled to the hag.

Han was just yards from her, her head had been down in concentration as she tended to Leia. At Zacari's words, the hag lifted her head and looked straight at Han as a blaster bolt tore straight through her forehead. The hag collapsed onto Leia's body and Han shoved his blaster in its holster, got up and ran over to Leia.

"No!" Zacari yelled again and then Han heard a muffled sound as Roman must've taken advantage of Zacari's split attention.

Zacari screamed and lunged at Roman as Han flipped the dead hag's body off of Leia and lifted Leia's head into his hands.

"Leia?" He whispered as he caught her tears with the backs of his finger. Her eyes were clamped shut.

And then the numbness of his lingering pain slipped off of him and his heartbeat, his breath, his very being froze in the fraction of that moment. The noise and the movement of the falling rocks all around them, of the screams from Roman and Zacari and the hissing and crackling of their lightsabers all fell away as Han leaned his face down against Leia's and whispered, "Sweetheart?"

She coughed and curled her body up in a sign of pain, twisting to lie on her side as she opened up her eyes and looked at him.

Time began to move again as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into an embrace. "It's alright, baby. We're gonna get you outta here."

Remaining low to the ground, Han began to move her away from the edge of the cliff and toward the exit, crawling around pieces of the collapsed ceiling and dodging falling debris. They were halfway to the exit when the walls shook again and another flurry of stalactites and rocks came crashing all around them. Han threw his body over Leia, shielding her from the onslaught as his already battered back took the brunt of the attack.

When the rock storm subsided, he pulled away and looked down at her.

"I'm sorry, I tried to find you," she said, her eyes more fully awake now. Then grimacing, she added, "But I couldn't run."

"That was my fault," he said, as he crouched down next to her and prepared to lift her, wincing in pain as he readied himself.

She looked at him questioningly.

Han paused for a moment, bent down quickly to kiss her on the lips as he explained with a crooked grin, "I told you to stop running." He lifted himself to his feet, doing his best to ignore the shooting pain that exploded through every single nerve cell he owned. Carrying Leia against his chest, cradled in his arms like a small child, he added, "At least this time…you were running towards me."

She pressed her head against his chest as he staggered out of the cave. Han set Leia down in the outside corridor and propped her up against the wall. He took a minute to catch his breath and began to inspect the two gashes on her bicep and her thigh as Leia once again doubled over in pain. "We need to get you outta here," he said, looking down the hallway.

"No. I'm fine. Don't leave Roman," Leia said through gritted teeth.

"Leia, you're not fine. You're losing a lot of blood."

"Alright, I'm not fine, but you're not leaving Roman or Zacari. We've got to finish this."

"Let me at least wrap 'em," Han said, indicating her wounds as he began to shrug his jacket off.

"Han."

"Wait a minute," he replied absently and began to rip the sleeves of his jacket at the seams to fashion a few bandages.

"Han." The way she said his name snapped his attention to her. She continued, "It's not my arm or my leg that's the problem."

His hands stilled for a moment. "What? Then what-"

Leia clutched her stomach. "They did something to me…the baby's coming."

"_What_?" Han's hands went back to work in overtime as he quickly tightened two strips of fabric over Leia's opened wounds. Moving to scoop her up again, he said, "That's it. I'm getting you outta here."

"No. Han, they want the baby, don't you see? We'll never know peace if you allow, that, that thing to live." Leia cringed and Han couldn't tell if it was because she was thinking of what Zacari and the hags had planned to do to her or if it was from the pain. "I will not leave this planet until they are all dead, even if I have to fight him myself."

Their eyes locked on each other and Leia added, "Han, please. Trust me on this, it has to be done."

He helped her to her feet and she stood hunched over, cradling her stomach with her bloodied arm, while steadying herself against the cave wall with the other.

"Can you walk?" He asked her, not liking where he was going with the conversation.

"Yes," she hissed back as she dug her fingernails into the rocky wall while another shot of pain ripped through her.

"Go," Han said, tilting his head toward the exit. "Don't wait for me. Chewie should be out there. Take off and get to a med center."

She looked at him. "Han."

"I promise you, I'll take care of this. Now you promise me. Don't stop. Don't look back."

He leaned into her and kissed her as she breathed out, "I promise."

* * *

Han crept back into the cave. Roman and Zacari were at a standoff on the other side of the large opening. Zacari's back was to Han, he was without a lightsaber, his feet dangerously close to the edge of the cliff as he was shooting lightning out of his fingers with Roman absorbing it with his lightsaber blade.

Roman's eyes flicked to Han and back almost imperceptibly. Han froze in his tracks, still crouched down on his hands and knees. Something about Roman's demeanor told Han to wait.

Roman leaned forward with his lightsaber, pushing the Force energy back toward Zacari. Zacari leaned further toward Roman, doubling up the effort on the Force lightning. And then Roman dropped his lightsaber and raised his hands as if in surrender, taking the brunt of the Force lightning to his chest. The sudden release of tension rocked Zacari on his feet and the old Sith Lord stumbled back and scrambled for his footing as he slipped off the edge of the chasm.

Han jumped to his feet as Roman was flung back against the wall behind him with a deadening thud. Zacari screamed and stretched his body out as he flung himself toward one of the sharp stalagmites protruding from the depths below, hugging onto it for his life. Han stumbled toward him as Zacari slid a few feet down and then caught himself and watched Han approach him.

Slowly, sickeningly, Han watched as the monster morphed back to the young boy that had greeted Han upon his arrival on planet. The little boy cried, "Captain Solo!"

"Shut up," Han yelled as he leveled his blaster and aimed it at the boy's head. Blinking back the image of the innocent child before him.

Zacari's voice deepened, and he began to lose his childish looks. "I'm unarmed, helpless. You cannot strike me down. It is not the Jedi way. It's of the Dark Side."

Han swallowed and then squeezed the trigger of his blaster, making perfect contact with his target. Stumbling toward the edge of the opening, Han watched as Zacari fell, the silence of his dead body drifting down into the expanse seemed almost surreal. Han hitched his blaster into its holster and whispered, "I'm no Jedi, Zacari. I'm only in love with one."

Han made his way around the ledge to where Roman lay. He bent down next to the Jedi and put his fingers to his neck and found a faint pulse.

"Leave me. I won't survive," Roman coughed and sighed.

Han sat back on his haunches, his ankle screaming in protest as he looked at the battered Jedi. "Survive or not, I have a feeling if I show up without your body, I _will be_ Dark Side fodder."

Roman's mouth turned up in a half-smile, half-grimace and Han found it hard to hate the guy much anymore. Who could really blame a guy for falling in love with Leia?

"C'mon, you're not much heavier than a pregnant Alderaanian Princess," Han said, as he wrapped Roman's arm around his shoulder and bore the brunt of the injured Jedi's weight.

* * *

When Han and Roman emerged from the temple, the _Millennium Falcon_ was resting on the clearing where the transport had sat, its repulsors whining in idle.

Chewbacca ran toward Han and took the burden of Roman's weight from him.

"Where's Leia?" Han asked as he followed Chewie, the pain from his ankle, his ribs and his head, increasing as he approached the ship.

[In the med bunk.]

"Where's the nearest medical center?" Han stopped at the edge of the _Falcon's_ ramp, steadying himself against its struts.

Chewie kept walking up the gangway as Han hobbled up behind him and stopped to lock the ship. He heard Chewie answering him, [We can make it to Kashyyyk.]

Han limped into the lounge, braced himself against the bulkhead and found Chewie strapping Roman onto the banquette. "Kashyyyk? There's nowhere closer?"

[Don't you trust me to have looked? The safest, closest planet is Kashyyyk.]

The pair began to make their way to the cockpit as Han asked, "How long?"

[Twelve hours,] Chewie replied as he stopped, spun around to look at Han and said, [I've got this, you go to the Princess.]

* * *

Han entered the med station and made his way to the med bunk. Steadying himself against the bulkhead, he looked down at Leia who met his eyes and offered him a weak smile. He glanced at the med scanner that she was hooked up to and watched as she steadied herself and breathed through a contraction.

Han sat down next to her and pushed the hair off her forehead and out of her face. Ignoring his own pain as it began to flourish with a fury as his adrenaline rush subsided, he smiled and whispered, "Just don't push, no matter what you do."

"Han." She answered, her voice quivering in fear.

"It's okay, sweetheart," he answered confidently as he felt his ship slide into hyperspace. "Chewie?" Han yelled over his shoulder and down the corridor, his frantic call for his copilot betraying the worry laced within him.

He looked back down at Leia and she whispered, "What if the baby comes?"

"Then I'll…deliver a baby."

She swallowed and looked at him skeptically.

"Hey, weren't you the one saying you wanted to do something with me that I've never done with another woman?"

Her face contorted as she fought through the pain that the threatening laughter was wrecking through her body and she squeezed Han's hand in a silent reply. Han watched her and offered her the best support he could, through his eyes, his hands, his thoughts and through the Force if he could manage it.

She steadied herself and growing serious, she whispered, "Han?"

"Yes, sweetheart."

"Remember when I told you that I was never looking for a hero?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to know what I was looking for?"

He hesitated, remembering that she had said that it didn't count if she had to tell him. But then he shook his head and said, "Yes."

"You." Her voice broke as she said it and another contraction took its hold. The tightening in Han's chest seemed to match hers.

Chewie walked into the med station with Roman hobbling alongside of him.

Leia turned toward them and asked, "How is he?"

[He'll make it,] Chewie answered as he lowered the Jedi to an empty bunk and began to tend to his wounds.

Han studied Leia's med scanner and then said, "Leia, the med scan is saying I should sedate you to try and slow the contractions."

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

Han found the appropriate medication and then sat next to her on the bunk. "I'll be right here, sweetheart," he said as he pressed the hypo against her neck and released the medicine.

She grabbed his wrist and squeezed. "Remember what you promised me."

"I remember. But I promise you, I'm not going to let anything happen to either one of you."

Her eyes fall heavily.

"Leia?" Han said, as he grabbed her hand and held it in his.

"Uh-huh?"

"Will you marry me?"

Her eyes widened as she seemed to grasp at the last bit of consciousness available to her. "You're asking me this _now_?"

"Yeah, I figure my best shot is while you're at your weakest…plus," he jerked his head toward Chewie and Roman, "I have witnesses."

Leia swallowed and her eyelids fell heavily. As she fought to open them, she looked in his eyes and said, "Yes, Han Solo, I will marry you."

Han grinned, the widest, most lopsided grin he had ever felt stretch across his face in his entire life. And then he watched as Leia succumbed to the sedative.

[You know she can always blame it on the medication later,] Chewie snorted from the other side of the room.

"Keep your opinions to yourself, ya oaf," Han replied, his eyes never leaving Leia.


	32. Chapter 32

From a Certain Point of View

Chapter Thirty-Two

"The scan says she's still contracting. The sedation should've eased her labor, but it hasn't."

"Captain Solo," Roman said, gritting his teeth against the pain as he spoke.

"Yeah?"

"I can place her into a Jedi healing trance…that may help relieve the contractions."

Han looked to Chewie. [I've seen it done.]

His eyes then fell on Roman, who said, "I wouldn't hurt her."

Han swallowed, his slow gaze went from Chewie and then over to Leia. He ran his hand over her forehead and whispered, "Do whatever you can do," and then stepped away to grant Roman access to the medical bunk.

Roman brought a chair up next to Leia's bunk and sat down. Han watched in silence as Roman took Leia's hand and closed his eyes. For a brief moment, Leia stirred emitting a low moan and Han took a tentative step toward her, but then she relaxed and Han turned away and wrung his hands together impatiently.

A long period of time passed as Roman held Leia's hand in silence.

Han watched the medical scanner and mumbled, "It's not working, she's still contracting."

[Her labor has slowed.]

Leia moaned and Han could see the ripple of her stomach beneath the coverlet.

He took a step toward Roman and Chewie held him back. "What's he doing to her?"

"I'm guiding the baby…turning her into position," Roman mumbled through gritted teeth as he spoke through what was clearly a very concentrated effort.

"The doctor said there wasn't enough room," Han challenged as he approached the bunk and pressed his hand against Leia's ankle.

[Calm down, cub.]

"I won't hurt her, Captain," Roman replied as he opened his eyes and sighed in exhaustion. "But, she's going to have to deliver this baby soon. I'm afraid it can't be stopped."

"Well, then, keep doing what you were doing," Han begged him now, pointing at Leia.

Roman smiled weakly. "It's done. The baby's turned. She's in the healing trance which should slow down the labor as much as possible. That's all I can do."

[We should run the scan on you,] Chewie offered, grabbing the scanner and motioning to Han.

Roman crossed the room and lowered himself onto a bench leaning against the bulkhead in exhaustion.

"I'm fine," Han said standing his ground next to Leia, his tone unconvincing.

[Don't make me force you,] Chewie growled as he pointed at the empty bunk.

Chewie ran the scanner over Han as soon as the Corellian lowered himself on the bunk.

[Four cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, bruised hip, mild concussion, a dislocated shoulder and multiple lacerations.]

"Told ya I was fii-iine," Han yelped and let out a string of expletives at everyone from Darth Vader to Mon Mothma as Chewie yanked his dislocated arm back into its socket.

* * *

Leia's sedative was prescribed to last for approximately eight hours. After Chewie had tended to Han's wounds and forced the Corellian to take a quick 'fresher, Han held a vigil by Leia's side, watching the readout of her scanner almost as intently as he was watching her.

Roman and Chewie had begun to discuss everything that had happened at the temple. It was Roman, Seth and Orren that had made a final stand against Zacari and the twins. It seemed Zacari had been on his way off of the transport when Han had bumped into him in the corridor.

Roman described the bloody battle that led to Orren and Seth's deaths. It had been Roman who spared the young Jedi Zacari's life and only knocked him out during the scuffle. "If I had only known about him then…when I had the chance, I would've-"

"Don't beat yourself up, obviously he had everyone fooled," Han mumbled, remembering how fondly he had thought of the boy.

Once he had reached the inner chamber, Roman had found the doctor and Shanel arguing while they were holding Leia down on the medical gurney. The doctor was pleading with the hag that the procedure was not working and that he hadn't realized what they were going to try and do with his research.

"I think whatever Zacari and the twins were, they were outliving their own bodies. They wanted the baby's life energy, they wanted to absorb the baby's Force strength and somehow rejuvenate their own," Roman explained.

Han then lifted his head as if remembering something and added, "Yeah, Leia said that Dr. Vail was researching something about genetics and midi-cholorians."

[We are fortunate that his research did not work.]

At the Wookiee's words, Artoo – who had remained silent in the corner of the room - let out a string of cantankerous bleets and blats.

Chewie laughed in disbelief. [The droid says that what we are fortunate for...is him.] Chewie translated.

For the first time in hours, Han took his eyes off of Leia and her medical equipment and looked down at the little Artoo unit backed up against the bulkhead.

"You _doctored_ the doctor's research?" Han asked.

Artoo rocked back and forth and whistled proudly.

There was a long silence while everyone absorbed the events of not only that day but of everything that had come before it. Han held Leia's hand in his own and stroked her soft, white skin with his thumb. Chewie excused himself and headed for the cockpit to check on the Falcon's coordinates, leaving Han, Leia and Roman in the med station.

Han heard the sincere regret in Roman's voice as he began to speak again, "I counseled her to leave you back on Coruscant. I'm the one that told the New Republic that she had risked her life to rescue you and then…to find your ship. I was blinded by jealousy." Roman paused and then said, "The entire New Republic came down on her after that…yet she still fought to remain."

Han took a moment to look over at Roman.

"I hope you know how much you mean to her," Roman said, it sounded like a warning.

"I know it," Han said looking back at Leia. "And I feel the same."

"I never felt I deserved her," Roman said quietly, then added, "No, maybe that's not the right word. I guess I knew in some way that I wasn't her destiny, if that makes sense."

Han didn't take his eyes off of Leia's hand resting in his as he answered, "There was a time when I would've told you that it didn't."

A long moment passed and then Roman got up and left the room.

* * *

It started when Leia's monitors began wailing and screaming for attention. Han stood and tried his best to decipher what was happening.

"What's going on?" Roman asked as he rushed into the room, Chewie right on his heels.

"The sedative is wearing off. She's beginning to feel the labor," Han answered and looked to Roman and Chewie.

"We should break the trance," Roman offered as he walked towards the bunk.

Han watched as Roman took Leia's hand and brought her out of the Jedi healing trance.

Leia's first glimpse was up at Roman, but her eyes immediately sought Han out as she asked, "What's wrong?"

Roman moved away from the bunk and Han bent down toward her, grasping her hand. "We couldn't stop the labor, sweetheart. But Roman thinks he got the baby to turn."

Leia nodded her head and held her breath, steeling herself against the pain.

"Everything's gonna be alright," Han said, thankful that he sounded surer than he felt. He sat down next to Leia on the bunk and trailed his hand over her forehead and down her cheek as he whispered, "Do you remember when Dr. Vail said your body was a complicated piece of machinery?"

She looked at him, confused as she nodded her head.

"Well, who do you know that's better with complicated pieces of machinery than me?" He grinned at her and winked.

She stifled a laugh behind a pained smile. Then her eyes darted about the room and she looked back at Han and breathed out, "I just want you."

"Alright," he replied. Turning to Roman, he said, "Get up to the cockpit. We should be dropping out of hyper in a few hours. Do you know how to fly a ship on its sublights?"

"Yes," Roman replied.

"Good. Take us in to Kashyyyk. They'll recognize the _Falcon_ and hail you once you drop in their atmosphere. Oh, and as soon as we're out of hyper, contact the New Republic, let them know about that rogue transport."

"Okay." And with that, Roman left.

"Chewie?"

[Yes, cub.]

Han drew in a deep breath and stood. "I need all the clean towels we've got, and a vibroblade…warm water and…and a bucket." He walked to the end of the medical bunk and then said, "Then get the spare med scan ready and the ventilator."

Han looked down at Leia and she lifted her eyebrows and asked, "Babies and stuff?"

"Yeah." He leaned up against the edge of the bunk, placed his hand on her bent knee and confessed, "But I gotta be honest, I kinda glossed over this part."

"You'll do fine."

Han was thankful she sounded surer than she probably was, as he replied, "It's not me I'm worried about."

The med station was a flurry of activity as Chewie gathered up everything Han had asked for and Han helped Leia prepare for the delivery. Once Chewie left the med station and the couple was finally alone, Han stood at the end of Leia's bunk.

He took a deep, very nervous breath as he looked from the medical scanner and then over to Leia. "You've got a contraction coming, ya ready?"

Leia shook her head.

Han looked back at the medical scanner and then heard Leia call his name.

"Han?"

His eyes quickly met hers. "Yeah?"

She studied him for a long moment, her eyes darting back and forth between his. Her mouth opened and she inhaled a sharp breath and then said, "I love you."

He smiled and winked at her as he replied, "I know."

* * *

There was a matter of time - Han couldn't be sure just how long it was - when he held her in his hands for the very first time. She was weightless and beautiful, her eyes looking upon him as the first person she would ever get to see and he the first to touch her. His fingertips tingled at the sensation of life breathing into the universe making space for its newest creation. His heart tripped over several beats and his breath held as hers took it.

Would she remember this bond at her first scraped knee? He wondered. When she would come running to her daddy, tears falling, arms outstretched, lifted into his arms with the same weightlessness, and the same sparkle of recognition and love. She would bounce on his knee while he flew his ship and he told her stories and this is the vision he would forever hold of her, in his hands, no bigger than his ten fingers all lined up in a cradle of warmth. Had he ever held so much in the palm of his hands?

In real time, she was in and out of his arms in a blur. He had to hand her to Leia while he quickly ran a scan over her tiny body and then took care of the umbilical cord. His fingers felt numb at the absence of her touch and his chest felt as if it were going to cave in on itself from the emptiness of not having her in his arms. The machine beeped and Han breathed a sigh of relief when he came across the lung capacity readout. He noticed Leia's hands were trembling, but so were his as he kept one eye on her and one eye on what he was doing.

Han was certain she wouldn't need a ventilator even without the readout, but the technical confirmation seemed to make his own lungs function more efficiently. The baby's lungs had been strong enough for Roman to hear her cries all the way in the cockpit once her little highness graced the galaxy with her presence. But she quieted almost immediately when Han laid her against her mother's chest and Leia wrapped her in a towel.

Their eyes met at that moment, his and Leia's, their hands both cradling their daughter between them. There are things that pass between two people, beyond words and quite possibly beyond the brain's capacity to commit it to memory. Han tried to hold onto that moment for as long as possible, willing his brain to absorb every minute detail set out before him, knowing it was bigger than the both of them and most probably too much to ask.

He got back to work at the edge of the medical bunk and he could almost hear his daughter cooing and clucking over the sounds of a concerned Wookiee howling to come in from around the corner.

"Give us a minute," Han hissed, not angrily but in a whispered yell of a seasoned parent trying not to wake a sleeping baby.

He was following the directions on Leia's medical scan, the readouts flipping faster than the _Falcon_ in an asteroid field. His eyes still found Leia's about every other second, half the time he found her looking back at him in awe, and thanks and what could only be described as total and complete, no doubt about, bet the entire hand on it, love. The other half her eyes were on their baby. The look was exactly the same.

Leia's readout began to slow, along with Han's heartbeat and he grabbed her ankle with one hand and her knee with the other as he slowly straightened out her trembling legs one by one and then pulled the coverlet over her feet.

"You wanna hold your daughter, Han?"

The question hit him like a lightning bolt, the words not making sense all lumped together in the same sentence like that. Daughter and Han and hold; it was exhilarating and terrifying and mildly confusing all at once. The gears in his brains clicked slowly around the words as he walked towards her.

"Ya sure?" He asked, running his finger down the outline of the baby's back as she lay scrunched up against her mother. The baby shivered at his touch and he drew his hand back as if she had tried to bite him.

Leia smiled and watched him; she seemed to know just what not to say.

Her silence encouraged him; that and Chewie's insistence that he was coming in there soon. Han swallowed and tried on a shaky smile as he took the baby off Leia's chest and cradled her in his arms. She was still puffy and her hair was plastered to her head but her eyes were open and Han recognized them and she seemed to recognize him and his heart was set a flutter.

"You can come in, Chewie," Leia called and the Wookiee appeared out of nowhere, his breath against Han's neck as he craned over Han's shoulder to see. But Han didn't take notice of any of it, he was too busy soaking in another memory too large, and too magnificent to be true.

* * *

Kashyyyk, several hours later:

Han watched Leia as she brought the baby up to her breast to feed her. She was small but feisty, just like her mother, and the two battled wills for a moment before the baby finally latched on. Leia's arm was neatly wrapped in a bandage, but true to form, she would allow no sign of weakness to show through as she held the baby to her as much in triumph over her injuries as to everything that it had taken to get her there.

Standing at the edge of the bed, Han hadn't much room to chastise Leia about her injuries. He had refused to use the crutches the Wookiees had fashioned for him and he politely ignored the shooting pains that his ribs and ankle constantly assaulted him with. Choosing instead to let his total and complete, almost to the point of delirious, happiness act as both his crutch and his pain killer.

Leia looked up at him. They had hardly had any time to talk since the baby was born. Not long after the birth, they landed on Kashyyyk and were tended to by the Wookiee healers. This was their first minute alone, thanks to the baby, who had fussed to be fed near constantly since her arrival.

Han walked over towards the bed, eyeing Leia suspiciously. "So," he said casually as he approached her. "In those _visions_ you were having…were you on the _Falcon_?"

She hesitated like a child caught sneaking sweets, and then nodded and smiled guiltily.

"Did you know I would have to deliver the baby?"

"I suspected."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"What? And have us both fainting?"

He watched her, not amused.

"I didn't want to worry you. I really couldn't tell what was going to happen, and…"

"It's alright," he said, as he sat down next to her on the bed.

The baby grunted from the movement and Leia shifted her and soothed her.

As the baby settled back down, Han whispered, "You do remember that you agreed to marry me, right?"

"_What_?" Leia asked in mock-shock, a wide grin on her face.

"Yes, you did. And I intend to hold you to it," he replied, his voice light as he winked at her.

Leia looked down at the baby, adjusted herself a little bit and looked back up at Han. Her face had grown serious. "You were right about what you said about marriage on Alderaan, Han. It is a sacred vow, something that isn't entered into lightly and must never be broken. It's said that the decision should not be an emotional one, never made in haste but made with a sound mind, after years of courtship."

Han remained silent, half waiting for the punch line and half waiting for the catch.

"As a princess I would have been presented with several courters and given ample time to make my choice, but the choice would most decidedly have been mine – between any of those that chose to offer, that is." She paused and smiled, resting her hand on his knee. "I guess I just wanted you to know…that although I have received no other offers, that…I most decidedly, wholeheartedly and with the soundest mind…choose you, Han Solo, above all others in the entire universe."

She craned her neck out towards him and he met her halfway with a quick kiss. As he drew back, he smiled at her, his heart bursting beyond recognition at her words.

"And if my father was alive…" She smiled at him again and then looking down at the baby nuzzled up against her breast, she said, "Well, let's be honest. He would most probably kill you." And then looking back up to him, she hesitated with a wicked roll of her eyes, and added, "Either one of them, really."

Han trailed the backs of his fingers along the downy soft hair on his daughter's head, causing her to squirm against Leia. "It's your sense of humor that I love the most, you know."

Their eyes locked then and Leia dropped any hint of teasing as she said, "I love you."

Han smiled as he let her words caress him, not even realizing how much he had longed to hear her say them again until they had passed through her lips. Even sweeter this second time, Han wondered if he would ever tire of hearing those same three words, linked together in the same tired sentence spoken by so many beings on so many planets for so many centuries. But never from those lips, he thought and only to him and those two things combined would render them exceptional every time.

He leaned over and kissed Leia. Their kiss deeper this time, her mouth opening up to his hungrily, only to stop when the baby fussed.

"I think someone's jealous," Leia chuckled as she covered herself up and placed the baby on her shoulder to burp her.

"Here, I'll do that," Han offered, taking his daughter and still marveling, for the briefest of moments, at how small she was in his hands.

He saw Leia watching him as he placed the baby on his shoulder and began to pat her back, completing the entire exercise swiftly and adeptly as if he had been doing it his entire life. Although it had been terrifying, Han was thankful that he got to deliver his baby, it somehow made him feel more comfortable with and connected to her already.

"Have you thought any about names?" He asked while Leia eased back onto the bed and relaxed.

She smiled at him, showing that she obviously had. "I have."

"Well?"

"You're sure you don't have a preference?"

"Unless you want to name your daughter after an ex-girlfriend of mine…I got nothing."

Leia narrowed her eyes at him and then said, "My father used to call me a nickname, it meant little princess. I thought, since you like calling me princess so much, that you would like the idea."

Han smiled. "I do. What is it?"

"Amira. But mostly Bail called me Mira, for short."

"Amira Solo." Han brought his daughter down from his shoulder to cradle her in his arms. Looking down at her, he said, "She's smiling, I think she likes it."

"That's gas, Han. You didn't burp her correctly."

He brought the baby back up onto his shoulder and shot Leia a look. But before he could say anything the baby burped loudly. Han laughed and said, "Well, I guess that's that, then."


	33. Epilogue

A/N: First and foremost I would like to thank, thank, thank my beta reader and friend, Zyra, for all of her support during this little project that was supposed to be less than 10 chapters and "just for fun". Her help, guidance and inspiration (sometimes teetering on therapy) was exceptional throughout this entire process.

Second, and just as inspirational, thanks to all of you who followed the story and reviewed. I hope you all realize how encouraging and motivating a review can be and I hope you found the story worth the read. I, for one, am sad to see it end...

Thanks again. ;-)

* * *

From a Certain Point of View

Epilogue (Approximately 5 years later)

A lone Whisper Bird glided along the delicate wind currents of an early morning breeze on the planet of Ossus. The bird's radiant scarlet feathers fluttered through the air noiselessly as the stunning creature glided over the treetops in search of its first meal of the new day. Ossus was the third planet in the Adega system and was once home to the greatest expanse of Jedi history and knowledge in the galaxy. Lush with vegetation and natural resources, the planet had been stripped bare by a shockwave during the Great Sith War and left deserted for decades.

Along with the Whisper Bird, native to the planet of Yavin, Ossus now teemed with transplanted life and rejuvenated hope for the rebuilding of not only a planet but of a new generation. The red bird flew over a large clearing dappled with small, primitive structures with meandering trails, vibrant gardens, ponds, statues and benches swirling in between them. Nestled in slumber in each of the tiny huts, undisturbed by the flying creature's quiet flight, were dozens of young Jedi; Padawan learners dreaming of lightsaber practice and levitation exercises with their teacher, a Jedi Knight by the name of Roman.

The planet Ossus had been chosen as the new home of all remaining Alderaanni refugees and the new Jedi Academy, all at the hands of one very savvy politician with a personal interest in both of the displaced groups. Billions in credits that had been collected, donated and earmarked by Alderaanian families, other Royal Houses and the New Republic were poured into the planet's infrastructure, including a top of the line military defense system. The Jedi Academy, considered a harmonious match for the peaceful people of Alderaan, was funded by one single family that included in it, the last remaining member of the Royal House of Organa.

The Whisper Bird tilted its wing and banked slowly to the right, its shadow gliding along the pebbled path below. As it neared a small, clear stream, the bird tucked its wings and accelerated its speed. Dipping its head, the elegant hunter pierced the clear blue water and swooped back up towards the sky with dozens of Glimmerfish sliding down its gullet. Disappearing into the woods, the colorful bird flew through a tunnel of branches and underbrush surrounding a well-worn path heading west through the forest. The bright flash of red through the trees, startled a small, Alderaanian nerflet who was wandering down that same deserted trail.

The nerflet lifted its head quickly and shrieked, sending the Whisper Bird up and above the forest canopy. The young nerf tore off toward the underbrush, suffiiciently scared for its life, its now imaginary pursuer nipping at its hoofed heels. The adolescent had only nubs where his antlers would soon grow and was able to duck and scramble beneath the underbrush darting and scurrying through the forest. After a long mile of running, the nerf came to another clearing and although open and exposed he slowed his pace and began to graze upon the tender grass still moist with morning dew. A nerf's memory was very short-lived, especially when good grazing was to be had.

Several yards across the field where the nerf now enjoyed his breakfast, sat a small, nondescript home nestled quietly amongst a peaceful parcel of land, which like the Jedi Academy, was surrounded by forest on all sides. The house was modest but expertly built. One with an eye for such details might recognize the signature touch of a talented Wookiee amongst the wood workings and structural details. Not built as a tree house, such as those on the planet Kashyyyk, the house blended naturally with its surroundings nonetheless and boasted as much outdoor living space as that within.

A wall of windows looked out over the property from a large, comfortably worn kitchen with children's drawings clinging to its cabinets held up by spacer's tape. A wind chime made of seashells tinkled melodically in the morning breeze and the smell of wildflowers permeated the thick, morning air. The house was empty and it sighed and creaked as the gentle wind whipped around it, seemingly calling out to its occupants, its lifeblood, begging them to return home.

Across the backyard, the path continued. A child's hover-scooter sat beneath a shade tree where an infant's swing rocked in the wind. In the distance sat a large landing pad. Imperfectly rounded, the scorched vegetation surrounding it mimicked the odd shape of its normal occupant. A small shed was set off to the side of the landing pad, filled with parts and tools and no less than three small sensor dishes of an old, very-hard-to-come-by model which just so happened to fit a Corellian YT-1300 stock light freighter.

Further west from this house, much further away than the Academy to its east, was the Capital City named New Alderaan. Built in much the same way as its namesake had been, the structures complimented their surrounding terrain and blended in with the natural environment. Somewhere amongst the boulders, lakes and fields was one such building, only a few stories high but filled with offices and people and politicians of all kinds. On the top floor there were two empty offices, connected internally by a shared door. On the exterior door of one office was the name 'Solo' with the name 'Organa-Solo' on its next-door twin.

The famous couple was five years married and on vacation with their children. In their daily life they each served their new planet in their own way, usually working together and rarely ever found apart. The former Princess of Alderaan served as an Ambassador to both New Alderaan and the Jedi Academy. She traveled the galaxy aiding displaced Alderaanni refugees, and frequently making an appearance on Coruscant fighting for her new planet's rights along trade routes and political party lines.

Her husband might still be considered to be working in the trade that had made him famous: smuggling. He, along with their children, traveled the galaxy at his wife's side, his fast ship and knowledge of the hyperspace lanes always somehow allowing their itineraries to match up. Han Solo had become the most popular non-Alderaanian resident on the planet Ossus. Because what Han Solo did was find your memories.

It had started out as a short-term assignment to collect vegetation, flora and fauna that had once been native to Alderaan to aide in the rehabilitation of the planet. With Leia by his side, the pair gathered up rare and sometimes thought to be extinct Alderaanni animals and artifacts and returned to Ossus as celebrities reborn.

Han's list of requests, or conquests, had never slipped below the thousands and his plunder had consisted of anything from rare artwork, to spices to the elusive Alderaanni flying insect: the Flare Wing. His capture of the latter ended with a total fumigation of his beloved ship and a Wookiee-built terrarium in his daughter's room housing the original captives. The people of Ossus continually lined up to thank the infamous smuggler or to make unusual requests and his once temporary assignment had become more permanent than the enigmatic scar on his chin.

* * *

Han Solo stepped out onto the white sands of Borleias, a small planet near the core that boasted beautiful, secluded beaches. It was his and Leia's fifth wedding anniversary. Standing in the sand clad only in his swim trunks, he faced the ocean as the wet, gritty wind slapped at his unshaven face and he recalled a conversation between him and Leia.

Leia, rounded and pregnant with their daughter in her stomach, had sat on a rock by a stream on Yavin Four. She had regretted not feeling the sand between her toes or enjoying the cold water of an ocean during her all-too-brief childhood. He had promised her then that their daughter would live a different life, have a different childhood then either one of them had experienced.

Almost as if summoned by his thoughts, five-year old Mira brushed by him, running towards the crashing waves of the pale blue ocean. Her legs were long and lanky like her father's and her skin was tanned golden in spite of her mother's obsession with solar protection. Her thick, brown hair was pulled into two braids that bounced against her back as she ran.

As the water covered the child's feet, she turned around and screeched. "Daddy! It's freezing!"

She had her mother's eyes, wide, brown and innocent, yet able to reflect the entire galaxy within them. Han looked over to his wife, who came to stand just a few feet from him, carrying a chubby little toddler on her hip. The boy wore a floppy sun hat and his skin was as white as his mother's. His arms and legs flailing excitedly at the sound of his sister's screams.

Han looked back at his daughter and she took her hands out of the ocean and threw them over her head, sending a shower of cool water down upon her that made her shiver in delight. "Mira, sweetheart," Han said with an easy smile. "I think your mommy and brother want to feel how cold the water is."

Leia shot Han a threatening look that no longer held much effect on him and he smiled back at her in amusement.

Mira began to run towards her mother shouting, "Mommy! Luke-y! Come and feel the water!"

* * *

Later, the sun sizzled on the horizon, shimmering and dancing on the tranquil water in the distance. The baby Luke lay wrapped up on a blanket, an umbrella shielding him from the blustery wind as he slept. Mira sat in the sand, making rounded castles and watching the sugar white grains sift through her small fingers.

Han stood, his arms encircling his wife, his gaze traveling over his family and then resting back on the beautiful, wide brown eyes looking up at him. Her body was soft and warm pressed up against his. Wiping some grains of sand off of her cheek, he said, "I love you."

"I love you, too," she smiled and stretched up to reach his lips.

Her touch still held its ability to stir something profound and animalistic inside of him. As if every kiss was their first, each movement of her lips and her tongue an offer of possession to him of her very being. It was a submittal to his claim over her, unlimited, uninhibited, and without expiration.

"We need to reclaim the beach on Ossus," Leia purred, while planting tiny kisses along his neck. There wasn't anywhere they went that Leia didn't want to bring a piece of it back with her. Han sometimes wondered if she was trying to capture not only the memories of Alderaan back on Ossus, but the best parts of the entire galaxy.

"I think we'll be bringing enough sand home with us on the _Falcon_ to do just that."

She looked up at him, her eyes serious. "I love you," she said again.

"You just said that," he corrected her and smiled at her like she was confused.

"I know. I wanted to say it again."

He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and trailing his hands over the naked skin on her back that her swimsuit did not cover. Then remembering something, he pulled away from her and laughed.

"What?" She said, searching his face, half amused and half curious.

"I was thinking about our conversation back on Yavin just a while ago," Han explained.

"Can you be a little more specific?" She asked, wrapping her arms around him and leaning back so she could look at him.

"You and me by the stream that day when you told me I had said something that was 'so not a Han Solo thing to say'," he continued, shaking his head and mocking her voice and tone.

"I vaguely remember that. So?"

"Do you remember what you said that day? What I _would_ say?"

She paused for a moment to think on it. "Something about snubbing the New Republic and the Jedi Academy and…," she laughed and shook her head remembering the third thing. "So, what? You think my little prediction came true?"

Han took a step back and looked at her current outfit, and then quickly ran through the sun dresses she usually wore when they were at home or the shorts and tee-shirts she wore when traveling on the _Falcon_. He nodded his head vigorously and smiled.

"I didn't snub the Academy," she replied with the lift of her chin.

"There was really only one of those things that I really, really wanted."

"The one you probably thought you'd never get?" She replied in her bedroom voice that reverberated through Han's insides all the way down to his toes.

"Right," he agreed and then pulled her to him. After a short pause, he added, "You snubbing the New Republic, who'd of ever thought."

She moved to pull away from him but he held her. "Nerfherder," she mumbled against his chest, easily giving up the fight.

The baby fussed and the pair looked over to the blanket. Luke, now awake, had rolled over and sat up, pounding his fists onto his knees in excitement over what he had accomplished.

"Can we walk for sea shells now?" Mira asked, shooting up to her feet. "You said we could when Luke woke up!" The child was now jumping up and down on her meticulously constructed sand castle hills.

"Of course," Leia replied as Han walked over to the blanket and deposited Luke up and onto his shoulders.

The toddler grabbed a fist full of hair like reins on a bantha and Han yelped, "Yow! Ease up, Luke. I'm not Uncle Chewie!"

"No!" Mira giggled. "Uncle Chewie would _roar_!" And she held her outstretched hands on the side of her face and gave her best Wookiee roar imitation, much to her brother's delight.

Then the Solo family walked down the beach, leaving three sets of footsteps behind them. Leia and Han walked arm and arm next to each other while their daughter raced around about them. Han kept his free hand on his son's chubby leg as the youngest Solo kicked and wiggled on top of his father's shoulders.

As the happy family disappeared into the distance, a curious sound was heard wafting across the unrelenting ocean breeze. It was the sound of whirring servomotors.

"Artoo Detoo, I don't know why I continue to listen to you. You know how sand and humidity wreak havoc on my joints."

The little domed droid tooted and shrieked indignantly as he began to follow the trail of footsteps down the beach.

The tall, golden droid hurried to catch up with his counterpart as he replied, "Well, I don't know how long you can pretend to hold that over my head. Honestly, I have always found it very difficult to believe that Captain Solo would have rescued me specifically for your benefit…"


End file.
