Summary: Five Things That, According To Han Solo, Never Happened. OT, Han/Leia, as usual.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or its characters. I don't know what's going to happen in The Force Awakens, so I'm only hinting stuff I've read.
A/N: I've wanted to try a five times fic for a while, so I'm quite proud of myself for actually finishing this. I know it's not perfect, so critique is welcomed! Writers Mathematica and LASOS are the true masters of this style- I can't recommend their work enough, go read it.
Five Things That Never Happened
Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you.
-Unknown
I
Yavin is almost certainly not the safest place in the galaxy right now, but it is doing its best to appear that way. Far from waning over the last two days, the air of celebration is almost tangible in the vast hall, filling it from the echoing flagstones to the skylights that allow the silvery moonlight to shine in.
The combination of rippling colour and cheap liquor has generated a headache the weight of a small warship in Han Solo's temples, but he'll be damned if he lets anyone see him leaving. So instead, he retreats into the shadowed side of the room, both to have a reprieve from his thoughts and the hundreds of other people gathered here. Judging by the noises coming from its relative privacy, many couples over the night have decided to do the same.
He is tired and feels sick and is trying (and failing) not to think of a certain redhead who he really should be spending the night with, and who makes his heart break a little more each time he thinks of her...
And suddenly it's not so difficult.
Because another woman, one who has, if anything, haunted his thoughts even more over the past few days, is sitting at a table in front of him. Alone.
Crying.
"Princess?"
It is only well honed instincts from years of experience in bar fights that saves him from taking a shot glass to the face; instead, the Princess' throw flies over his head and explodes against the wall.
"Don't call me that! Stang you!"
Okay.
Before he can ask himself why, Han edges closer and slides into the booth. Leia has resumed crying, seeming not to care whether he's still there or not.
"Hey," he cautiously eases the empty bottle from her clenched fist, to which there is no reaction. "Leia?... I'm sorry."
The sobs don't cease, and he is (hopelessly) sitting there as she struggles to breathe, her shoulders heaving uncontrollably, as he glances around the room because he knows (somehow) that she wouldn't want anyone, ever, to see her like this.
But here he is.
Wordlessly, because once again he knows words will only make it worse, he shifts closer and places his hand on top of hers, limp on the table top. He half isn't expecting a reaction (and the other half expects her to shove him off and curse him again), but she leans against him, into his chest, forcing his arm around her. He tells himself there is no way to get comfortable unless he rests his chin on top of her braids.
It may be minutes or hours before she will fall asleep in his arms once tears have worn her out, and they will stay there until Riekaan finds them and offers to take Leia back to her room. She never asks how she got to her quarters, or why he held her, and so Han never asks about why she was crying in the first place.
(Which is why it's not until months later that he learns what the Empire did to her and what she saw them do, and about the nightmares and flashbacks and scars they left her with)
(And when he does, they still pretend that night on Yavin didn't happen, because it isn't for another two years that either thinks about those feelings it created, and it isn't until the galaxy has been torn apart and rebuilt from the bottom up that either can act on them.)
II
For reasons unknown, he is still there two years later.
It has been two years of hell, with attacks and emergency evacuations every other week, and somehow the Rebellion is still going, dragging its battered remains onwards to the next safe house, places even Han hasn't heard of.
And this time, this time, he is done.
He and Chewie are leaving this hole for good, with no regrets, no second thoughts. After all, there is nothing to keep them here, despite that sentimental rubbish the Wookiee keeps coming up with. He was stupid to say around this long. He is done.
He has come up to command from the Falcon, fully ready to make as much commotion as he can so he can get proper clearance as soon as possible, and it is now that he meets his only source of doubt. Literally meets it.
"You're leaving."
It isn't a question; Leia knows as well as he does that this was always going to happen, and that no amount of protest from her will change that. He can't force himself to turn and face her; after all, can imagine the anger on her face well enough.
"Han… I thought you'd decided to… I mean, running away isn't-"
Now he spins, because if there is one thing he isn't doing, it's running away. "Sweetheart, I'm doing this to stay alive. I almost died on the last run!"
"I said I'm sorry! I can only apologise so many times."
(But, although neither know it, she will keep saying it forever if it makes him stay.)
She sighs. "Why can't you just…" Unable to find the words, she gives up with a frustrated shake of the head.
"Why can't I- I'm not part of your Rebellion. I'm not gonna stick around so I can get killed for people who don't even care about my life!"
"You know, maybe if you let people in instead of pushing them away, you'd see we did care."
His response is an incredulous shake of his head as he turns back to the door of the command room, now, if anything, even more certain about what he came here to do.
A hand on his shoulder makes him halt.
"Han, I care!" The unexpected vulnerability in her voice strikes his chest and he is forced to face her and look into her tear-filled eyes. "I care."
And how easy it would be to tell her the same, lean down and press his lips to hers (but he can't, he can't, he mustn't…)
"I just…" he is angry to hear his voice crack, and has to walk past her so she won't see his hands shaking. "I can't do this right now, okay?"
He'll just come back later. Once he's calmed down, once she's not here…
"Stay," she calls to his retreating back, her voice only a fraction more steady than his had been. "Please."
He walks away, as if she'd never spoken, still half believing he will leave the moment he has an opportunity. Even though, deep down, he knows he won't be able to now. They never mention the argument again, so Han likes to pretend it didn't happen. That he's not serious about leaving.
He makes excuses, jokes about it, still threatens and argues and has fleeting moments of certainty when he is so close to leaving…
But he won't leave. He can't.
He'll just never admit it's her that made him stay.
III
There is, to Han, no time between climbing into that snow speeder's cockpit and the moment he pulls himself out of it, back at Echo Base. He's spent the journey staring blankly at the shining surface of Hoth as it sped past below him, shivering continuously despite the fighter's climate control.
His thoughts never strayed to his near comatose friend in the adjacent ship- after a night of fighting to stay alive on the hostile plains of the planet, Han's mind is as completely numb as his extremities.
Like an automation, he hauls himself out of the seat and into the hangar. It is just as busy and as loud as it was the previous day (has it really been less than one rotation?) and it strikes Han as wrong after all he and Luke have been through in the hours between.
There is too much movement for his sleep deprived brain to track, and before he can even work out where he is, Luke is gone and he is alone save for the hundred or so people he can see going about their business (and he is this close to throwing the medic at his arm into a wall, he swears…)
But then there's a voice in the madness, something that pulls him back to the here and now and it's her. It's her.
"Han."
Her eyes are shining with unshed tears and her braids are unravelling and there is something about it all- her, and their relief, and his kriffing gods-forsaken tiredness, that threatens to make him break down then and there.
Instead, (because he's Han Solo and he has an image to keep) he tries to smile.
"Hey, sweetheart."
And then they are holding each other and his knees give way and they are an emotional heap on the floor, his head buried in her shoulder, her trembling hands smoothing his hair, which is matted from snow and sweat and gods knows what else. He is shivering like anything, because it is so, so, cold, so cold that he can't imagine anything beforehand or anything afterwards. He doesn't know how long they stay there, or even if they say anything to each other, mainly because later, after he somehow gets to his feet and can clean up in the Falcon, he blocks it from his memory.
Because if he does that, then maybe he didn't raise his head and meet her eyes and maybe they didn't lean together and maybe
(maybe their lips didn't brush together for a brief moment and turn his thoughts into a jumbled mix of emotions he didn't understand.)
IV
A few (months, days, lifetimes) hours ago, Han wouldn't have thought anything could hurt more than pure, uncontrolled electricity coursing through his nerves. He would've been wrong.
Watching it happen is worse.
"Leave her alone, you bastards! Don't hurt her. Don't…"
His pleas to an empty room are cut off by pain filled screams, only they aren't his, they're hers, and he can't do anything-
"LEIA!"
The binders on his chest and wrists do not give an inch as he strains with all his strength, as if reaching the monitor will somehow alleviate her pain.
The cries cease for moment as the grid is switched off, letting her head hang in exhaustion. The tears on her cheeks are mirrored by his own.
"Leia," the word is a whisper, nothing more than a shaky exhalation of air at the sight of her soaked hair, her lifeless eyes, the involuntary spasms of her muscles caused by the residual electricity.
He doesn't know how long the torture has been going on, only that she is still conscious after twice as many shocks as it took to knock him out, and that his voice is hoarse from screaming abuse at their captors.
(And Gods, he admires her so much, but he just wishes she would stop being so brave all the time)
The guards are reaching for the controls and Han's stomach churns as he pulls against the restraints again, knowing it won't help, that he can't do anything, that the Empire won't care if she dies and he'll stay here uselessly watching…
"Captain, release her."
Han swears at Vader's voice before he's even realised what the words mean. They're letting her go. The pain on her face only intensifies as she is let down from the grid, almost collapsing before two stormtroopers grab her arms and pull her up. The screen flickers and fades, leaving the room in a silence and darkness that seems to echo Han's heavy breathing. It seems an eternity before he is unbound and dragged back to the detention area, her phantom screams haunting him all the way there.
He can't remember the last time he cried.
He doesn't want to remember this, either.
It must've been during that hellish torture that it happened, but it isn't until they are in each other's arms on the harsh durasteel floor that he realises. Realises that against all he's promised her, promised himself, all he'd held true over these years, he realises-
(He loves her)
He will always deny it happened in that moment, in that way, because he knows the only thing worse than waiting three years to acknowledge that you love someone is to do so when she is broken and battered by Imperials, clinging to you as if you're the only thing left for her in the galaxy even though this whole thing is
All. Your. Fault.
V
It is a year later until he can hold her again, after they have both been through more fear and pain than either thought possible. He has only just began to recover from his carbonite imprisonment (his eyesight returned fully only the day before, and despite that his focus still blurs and his vision keeps fading and if he crashes into one more thing on his ship he is going to lose it), and she has been lightyears away from him for a near unbearable length of time, and they both crave human contact more than anything.
The have barely separated since they lifted off from Tatooine, almost two of the Falcon's cycles ago, even though Lando and Chewie have been with them the whole time. Now, though, they are finally alone, lying in his bunk in a way that became commonplace on the way to Bespin. And it feels…right.
If it was up to Han, he would never leave this cabin, never move Leia's cheek from his chest, never let go of her hand (which is so thin, too thin, oh sweetheart…) and never, ever, leave her again. But it isn't up to him. They are, instead, headed to another backwater planet, ready to launch a suicidal attack against the Empire, and she will eventually have to leave him and resort back to the strong, unfailing leader everyone expects her to be.
"Han."
It's barely audible, a muffled word into his shoulder, but it breaks through his thoughts like a vibroknife. It is not the words so much as the tone, which is (brokenhurtingoverwhelmed) able to twist his heart as he recognises its meaning. Her eyes are watery, tear trails evident against her pale skin, and it almost surprises him how much it hurts.
"Hey," instinctively, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her closer, closing his eyes in an attempt to prevent his own tears. "It's okay."
He is struck by the similarity to three years ago- a lifetime ago, it seems- when he didn't know what was wrong, only that he had to comfort her, had to make everything right again.
"I'm sorry." He will apologise forever if it could take the pain away, but it won't, of course it won't, and he would be kidding himself if he thought otherwise. (Like it or not, he can't do anything for her.)
But once again she shows her remarkable resilience by taking a couple of deep breaths and settling her sobs almost before they begin.
"I just… I thought I'd never see you again," her laugh is genuine, but almost forced. "It sounds stupid."
"No," he kisses her forehead, then her cheek, and leaves his lips resting by her hairline as he whispers to her, "No, it..."
And then-
A shaky breath.
A silent tear.
A truth.
"I love you."
He will never admit to her that that moment hurt more than anything, more than anything he'd felt or seen the Empire inflict, more than any wound or injury, worse than seeing the only being you ever trusted shot down in front of you.
It is the moment he wishes he can forget the most, and also wishes he can keep forever.
Because it's a truth, an unchangeable truth, one that will stay with him for the rest of his life and remind him every day that he will protect her, that he will die for her, and no harm will ever come to her. That no matter what happens, everything they will say, everything they will do, everything that may (and will) go wrong... nothing will matter.
He loves her.
End.