disclaimer: not mine, never will be :(
rating/warnings: Teen / suicide ideation
notes: You can probably garner some of my current emotional state from this fic. It was definitely written to cope. lol. That being said, I hope it might prove impactful for others as well.
in your moment of darkness
He finds her sitting in her room with the lights off, a blaster cushioned in her hands.
"Hey Your Worship," he says, flicking on the lights. She winces and blinks, and he wonders just how long she's been sitting here.
"Go away, Han," she says, fingers tightening around the blaster. It is a long, slim thing—one of the standard issue blaster pistols assigned to Rebel soldiers. He wonders how she got it, if she stole it from someone or somewhere, or if she's always had it.
He wonders if anyone guessed what she might use it for.
Han crosses to stand in front of her. She is seated on her bed—though it is more of a cot than a bed, with a perilously thin mattress and blankets tucked around the corners—her hands on her knees, the blaster lying within the cage of her fingers.
"Are you really gonna do it?" Han asks.
At last, Leia looks up at him.
"I don't know," she says. Her eyes bleed, invisible tears and invisible blood weeping from gaping holes rent deep into her soul. It is the first time Han has seen the depths of those wounds—the first time he has seen more than the corners and edges of them, though they bled enough to kill two men twice her size.
"Why?" Han asks.
"Because I can't—" She cuts herself off, bites off the words and swallows them back, sharp edges cutting her tongue and throat.
"Can't what?" Han presses when she does not continue.
"I can't keep doing this," she whispers, looking up at him with a pleading look—pleading for him to understand, to not pity, to not judge. "Every night I dream of—" Again she cuts herself off, and again she swallows back words that cut her to bleeding ribbons.
"Leia," Han says, her name a benediction and a prayer. He kneels in front of her, reaches out tentative hands to place on top of her fingers, latched around the blaster. "Please don't do this."
"Why not?"
"I won't bullshit you with stupid and useless platitudes," says Han. "But it gets better. It does."
"How do you know?" Leia asks, plaintive and small.
"I can't pretend to know what you're going through," Han says. "I never lost a world. But I did lose my world, all in the space of a few seconds. Dewlanna—the Wookiee that basically raised me, who I loved as a mother—was shot and killed in front of me." Han swallows, and it is his turn to bleed around his words. "I lost everything with her."
"Oh Han," Leia says. She frees one hand from around the blaster and touches his knuckles. "I'm sorry."
Han grins sadly. "It was a long time ago," he says, and grips her hand tightly in one of his own. "I can't say I got over it—I'm not sure losing someone so close to you is something you really ever get over—but I did heal from it. And I believe you can too."
Leia pulls her hand out from beneath Han's and returns it to the blaster. She lifts it, looks at it, turns it.
Han reaches out and grabs it. "Please, Leia," he says, and rises to his knees. "You go," he says, and gently guides the blaster to point at his own chest, "I go."
"Han," Leia gasps, and jerks away.
"I'm not saying shoot me," Han clarifies with another pathetic attempt at a grin. "But I mean it, Leia: you go, and a piece of me dies with you. Same for Luke. Same for Carlist, and I'd imagine Mon, and the Rogues. Same for so many people—people you've inspired, people you've strengthened, people you've given hope and purpose to. You're not just you. You're part of thousands of others."
A lone tear slides down Leia's cheek. She sniffs, and wipes it away.
"You're so amazing, Leia," Han says. "You shouldn't snuff out your own light."
Her grip around the blaster loosens, and almost without realizing what he is doing, Han pulls it away from her. He smiles—really, truly smiles—and puts it down by his feet.
"C'mere," he murmurs, and gently pulls Leia into an embrace. She goes willingly, to Han's surprise, melting into his chest, arms creeping around his back, face buried in his shoulder. Her tiny, fragile body shudders, heaves—and Han realizes she is sobbing.
"I'm here," Han soothes, running a comforting hand up and down her back. "I'm here. And I'm going nowhere. I promise, Princess."
end notes: What did you think? Good? Bad? Awful? Let me know!