Title: "Last Ones Standing"

Author(s): vader-incarnate

Timeframe: post-NJO

Characters: Han, Mara

Genre: character death(s), angst, vignette, AU

Keywords: Han/Mara

Summary: After the end of the world, what's left?

Notes: Spawned / inspired by a random 'shippage meme on my livejournal. I don't know the NJO very well, so all this is played fast and loose; please excuse my EU-ignorance. Short and rough.

I dreamt of him again last night.

He has his father's eyes. Would have them, I mean, if he'd lived. I don't know how I know what he would have looked like, how I know this child I glimpse only in my dreams, but somehow it just feels right. Right and good in some way I'd almost stopped believing was possible after the war and after his death and after his father's death.

I dreamt of my son.

My Ben.

He would have been three years old by now. A big boy with his father's eyes and his father's grin, golden red hair that would have glittered in the sun as he ran out to play. Stocky toddler legs that would still have been chubby with baby fat, still tripping him up every once in a while. A burgeoning hint of rebellion, of individuality even at that age: one thing, I would have teased, that came from his mother rather than his father.

The Skywalker smile would have lit up his face as his father chased him, caught up with him, picked him up and tossed him into the air and caught him in one smooth motion. He would have laughed and laughed and laughed, my Ben, and his father would have spun him around and around in his arms, laughing with him. And I would have smiled to see them together, would have marveled at my own good fortune, that somehow the Emperor's Hand and the son of Lord Vader had managed to produce something so good together.

I would have teasingly scolded them both but would have been unable to maintain the seriousness, would have dropped the act and would have simply laughed with my little family. Would have embraced them both and simply cherished that sliver of time, free from grief and free from worry and purely, wholly happy just to be.

As it is, I'm sitting alone in Han Solo's kitchen and trying my best not to cry.

What's irritating about it all is that I can't properly decide whether these are dreams or nightmares. If these are just dreams, why the hell are my eyes watering over like this? If I'm supposed to be afraid of nightmares, why do I so eagerly anticipate these ones, these glimpses of a happiness I'll never achieve?

It doesn't take long for Han himself to come, damn his hearing. Han has the best hearing of any man I've ever met, Jedi or not, Force-sensitive or not. He's been on the run enough that the slightest noise disturbs his sleep, even at his age, and it doesn't take him long to find his way to the kitchen and find me sitting at his table.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't ask what the hell I'm doing there in the middle of the night. He's no stranger to these dreams himself, I know, and he knows them when he sees them.

I answer his unspoken question anyway. "Dreams" I say.

He nods, calmly accepting this answer as I knew he would. "Of Luke"

"No. Of Ben."

"Ah" he says. A flicker emotion across hazel eyes, quickly hidden away. Opens his mouth again as if on the verge of saying something else but changes his mind. He pulls up a chair across the table from my own seat and sits down.

It's surprisingly comforting to have company, even if we don't say anything. I don't even know, exactly, what I'm doing here in the first place; I'd thought that I wanted to be alone, but my midnight meandering had taken me to Solo's kitchen. Clean and homey, of course, but not one of my usual haunts.

Han doesn't say anything, seemingly content to leave me alone with my thoughts. He doesn't say as much as he used to in general; none of us do, I suspect, especially after the war. The Vong changed us, shaped us in ways they would never be able to understand: they'd left scars that can never be healed, gaping holes that can never be filled. Our hearts, mine and Solo's, stand testimony to this.

After a few minutes of silence, I find that I have to ask him something. Strange that it never occurred to me to ask before, but the dreams have left me feeling empty and I want to know if he felt the same way. Need to know.

"Han" I ask softly. I scarcely recognize my own voice; is that me, sounding so timid?

"Yeah"

"Han, when she died ... did you feel it"

And that startles him, his face taking on a different set at this unexpected question. Mouth thinning, brows arching down in a frown, preparing to get defensive. I'd never asked him before, and I suppose he expected I never would. When he sees I'm serious, though, he sighs.

"Yes" he says simply. "I did."

"What did it feel like" I press.

He laughs, a hollow, broken sound. "It felt" he nearly snaps"like my heart had been ripped open and sliced into pieces with a vibroblade. What the hell's it supposed to feel like"

He looks down now, embarrassed, a hand going to his forehead as he calms himself down. I say nothing, just watch as he deals with these emotions he's kept so securely locked away. He's no Jedi, to reach to the Force, but when he looks up again he's visibly calmer. "Sorry" he mutters.

I nod my head and stay silent, feeling guilty for bringing the subject up at all. It's been a long time since he lost Leia, and I know he's never really got past the guilt of it all: the fact that he wasn't there to save her, the fact that he'd never quite made up with her after Chewie's death and before hers.

After a moment, though, he speaks again. "I would have given anything" he begins slowly"to have had her back again. My life, my soul."

And I smile at that last one, just a little. "After Luke died" I tell him hoarsely"I didn't think I had a soul left. He was my goodness, you know? My light. My soul."

I remember that day quite vividly.

Remember the sudden tear in the Force, the sudden wrongness, the bond that was never meant to be broken snapping in a single cataclysmic instant. Remember the feel of having half my soul torn away, of my heart being shattered like so much glass, of a gaping hole in my spirit that would never heal.

Remember the bond, that wonderful living force that had connected us for so many decades, exploding into so many sharp-edged splinters, rending my flesh, drawing blood in so many places the mirror would never show me, but were so real nonetheless.

Remember the sudden blood on my thighs that signaled the miscarriage.

Remember screaming and screaming and screaming because the galaxy had ended,dammit,until a syringe brought an abrupt stop to it all. Remember being almost happy to succumb to that peaceful darkness.

And this, the worst curse of all: cursed to survive, cursed to live after all I'd ever cared about had been torn away.

I'm almost surprised to see I'm sobbing now, the tears flowing freely from wherever they've been dammed up for so long. Tears falling like crystals, like rain, each little droplet splattering onto the table. Dreams shatter too, I know, in the face of reality. Dreams are fragile things, and it takes less than nothing at all to destroy them.

Han's holding me and it's a comfort, so much more of a comfort than I expect.

I don't want to face this alone.

"Stay with me" I plead, childlike. "Please. I don't want to be alone."

He stays.

And they all lived happily never after.