And We Dance
When everything is gone and the night is dim, Han's in a dancing mood.
She didn't know how he did it, but he did it to her every time.
Seven systems and fifty-six days through this godsforsaken political tour, and already, he'd stood her up for five dances. He'd gotten her hopes up five times, and let her down, five times. She was beginning to wonder what she was thinking to have ever tried.
It was amusing, somehow, to go over it now. He didn't mean to hurt her. He was just being Han, and that usually charmed her to no end — to hear him go on and on about his two left feet while draping his bare arms over her sides in a dimly-lit bedroom and leaning down to kiss the questions off her lips one by one… He didn't want to embarrass her, or himself, and that made sense. He didn't want to disappoint her by just saying "no", and that made sense, too. It all made plenty of sense.
And yet, standing here alone in this beautiful cathedral, after all the lights had been dimmed and the night sky shone through the stain-glass windows — the governor's ball long since ended, and she, too, having gone, but at some point coming back — she couldn't say why she felt so lonely.
She hadn't even asked him to come back. After he'd disappeared halfway through the evening, she hadn't tried to chase him down and tack his shoes to the floor anymore. He didn't want to be here. She hadn't asked him to be here. And she also expected him to show up.
Leia felt both heavy and light, tonight. The makeup was gone, and the heavy ballgown was gone, and the weight of stares was gone. Her nightgown was barely a thing on her now, and it did not protect her skin from the cold of the church as she wandered in circles on the marble floor. She didn't try to warm herself, either.
The stained glass let in purple hues and also blues, reflecting on the white floor beneath her bare feet. Every footstep seemed to be audible for miles, resounding in her ears as though she were inside her own head, stepping around in that dark arena. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the room filled with dancers, completing such elaborate routines which she'd never witnessed in any other system. This culture — wherever the hell they were now — the days were blurring — was so beautiful, so rich in history and art and… full of peace. She felt a sleepy haze over everything in this ages-old church, and the lovely whistle of wind echoing through the long hallways. She could feel something in this church. The gods, or the Force, or something else — something haunted her steps, tiptoeing behind her and sending shivers up her skin as she turned to face it…
And there he was.
And she felt horribly underdressed now, standing in the presence of a man in formal attire, though lacking in tassels, with shoes and combed hair and a clean shave… She didn't feel as though she were really seeing him. And coming in, he'd hardly made a noise.
Leia opened her mouth to greet him, but her breath caught in her throat, and the slight gasp filled the room a thousand times over. His eyes were staring right into hers, in such a violently-still manner that she wondered…
So she reached out to touch him. It was just a few fingertips, on the center of his chest, a gentle, loving touch. There was warmth there, and muscle, and skin and bone somewhere beneath this new outfit and that terrifying stare, so full of determination…
He was there, and he was smiling at her.
She had to wonder why he was smiling, when they had just recently been arguing and sending angry looks all over. It seemed that her emotions were always longer-lived than his, leaving her with the pain of deciding when to let go and when to hold on. She never knew when to let go, or when to hold on.
Slowly, she looked down over herself, the dress that hung to her ankles and the toes turning blue. "What?" she had to ask, his smile so strong on her now.
When she lifted her eyes, she saw his hand, extended in invitation.
She was frozen, then, with her toes curling in on themselves and hand drifting away from his chest in fear — fear of nothing, it seemed, but something or another. It was inexplicable, the swelling of her heart, the close of her throat, the open of her palm as it fell into his and she feared…
His skin was warm, almost hot in such a cold place, and it instantly drew her into his atmosphere. Her eyes closed as she stepped into the embrace, slowly, and her cheek came to rest carefully against his chest. There was such warmth there, and it radiated through her body inch by inch, as though he'd never held her once in her lifetime. She'd forgotten the feeling. How could she have forgotten?
Fingers tightened around hers, shoulders straightened but body softened against hers, he hesitated. His breath was warm in her hair — long and hanging down, but failing to keep her from the bitter cold — and she could feel the glowing of heat, only where he touched, where she felt him near. His lips burned as they pressed a nonexistent kiss into her forehead, vanishing, phantom things slipping away and floating up with the dust to the ceiling…
Only when his other hand came to a formulaic stop at her waist, lifting her up to her toes, did she draw back. She opened her eyes, and found the room much darker than she'd left it — much warmer, too. His eyes were scared, too, as his fingers tightened around her. He began a tentative step, and she stepped with him, instinctively. And he stepped further, and she stepped with him, and he stepped again, instinctively. It felt familiar, and it seemed as though he knew… exactly what he was doing…
Then he began to turn, and she followed, a smile threatening her face as she realized that he did know what he was doing. He'd learned how to dance for her. That was why he was here — to dance with her.
And he was smiling again, looking her up and down several times as he rubbed his lips together. She blushed. "What?" she had to ask again.
He just shook his head, still smiling, and continued to lead her through a dance that at first seemed natural to her. She gladly went with him, as he ventured out a little space, to appreciate the vastness of such a large and beautiful ballroom.
Her mind did stop, as he stared into her eyes and led her in circles, keeping her so warm and filling her with peace that felt unnaturally strong. She didn't have to think about such a simple dance, which she'd known all her life — just forward and forward, and to the side, and repeated reversed, and…
It didn't quite feel as though her feet were doing anything anymore, though. Perhaps the cold had taken all feeling from her toes, but she didn't feel anything at all. It was as though she were flying with him — every time she opened her eyes, finding herself at some other side of the ballroom, looking into the same pair of eyes in front of a different stain glass window… And she didn't care if she was confused. He had her drunk on the slow movements.
She could have fallen asleep in such a lullaby strain, a silent rhythm as she could no longer hear their feet hitting the resounding floor. But she was woken when his hand dropped from hers, landing on her waist in one swift motion as he did not stop her before lifting her, lifting her up…
And when she opened her eyes, she was looking at slow-spinning columns passing by her, as he spun her, lifted her with such strength she hadn't thought he still had. She felt young, for the first time in years, in the moment that she descended from the flight. She felt nineteen, when they'd first met — twenty-something, when they'd married — thirty-something, when they'd had a child and so alive.
How was it that he still looked so young? She, herself, had lost so much youth over the years, and he…
He didn't look like this anymore.
They were much older than this.
His grip tightened on her waist, as though he would lift her again, and she opened her eyes. She found herself looking into that same beautiful, young face, and the smile she hadn't seen in years, surely… Because they weren't quite here, were they? She remembered more than this. She remembered marrying him. She remembered having a child, at some distance in the future, and she remembered…
She remembered having him, and that which came after.
Soon, her fingers began feeling at his clothes, at his skin in a curious way, a searching feeling rising through her body as she wondered just what she was missing here. He was just smiling at her, and he was so, so handsome…
"We're not here, are we?" she had to ask, as her smile faded a bit and his stayed the same. He continued to lead her, and she continued to follow. "We're not here?"
Then, and only then, did his expression falter. He took a deep breath, his hand shifting in hers, and he lowered his head to whisper, "Just stay."
His voice was so aged when he said it.
"What?"
He tried to bring her back into his embrace, but her body stiffened, as she felt the cold creeping back into her skin, and the haze growing heavy. "What's happening?" she asked, though she knew it already. "We're not here?"
He swallowed hard, and when they came up to a window — when the light hit him, she saw the shine in his eyes. A wave of cold air flooded into the room, a draft, brushing her hair back from covering her shoulders. She drew a deep breath, but it came in shallow.
"This is a dream," she said finally, without a hint of confusion. It was a dream.
She no longer felt his arm around her, or really anything below the shoulders. She couldn't feel her feet slowing down with him. She couldn't feel the bitter cold floating up her skirt and invading her body, though the chills rose up her spine and pierced thick into her brain as her eyes fluttered against freezing tears, because he wasn't here. He wasn't here. He wasn't…
He was dead, damn it, he was dead and she hadn't realized it…
And she could feel herself waking, slowly, as his heat was all but gone from her now and the night was darkening and his fingers were twitching in hers, as though they would slip from her. She fumbled the numb fingertips, pinching his hands tightly to keep them from falling out. His other hand fell from her waist, resigned, and she was scared to blink, because she could feel it slipping away…
"No," she managed to say, through the choking tears collecting in her throat and the rough, cold air rampaging through her lungs. Her fingers lost feeling as his hand was only weight in hers, growing heavy. "No, no, no, no…"
He wasn't smiling at her now, and she felt her eyelids inching to shut…
"No, no, no, no, no, don't leave, don't go, please, please stay, please stay with me…"
But she was the one leaving, and that was the trouble — because she couldn't find her grip on him, just like any other day. She was losing him because she never knew when to let go, and when to hold on. She never knew when to let go, and when to hold on…
The church began to fade, and he began to fade, and she, too, began to fade, with only the last vestiges of voice echoing through the ballroom, hardly sounding like herself as she begged, pleaded…
"Just stay. Just stay. Just stay." The more she said it, the more it sounded like him — the sound pulsating through her head, so deep and so weak that it was almost nothing at all. "Just stay. Just stay just stay just stay…"
But it was futile. Her own voice startled herself to waking, when she'd tried so hard to hold on, but had ultimately ripped herself away — because that was the way of things. She woke to the middle of the night, as if it had been a nightmare instead of the best dream she'd had in the days since she'd found out. She woke with terror and labored breathing, as though she'd been scared of the dream, when she'd really been so scared of waking — waking to the world that was cruel and void of so many beautiful things, and so damn cold. Why would anything be this cold?
Although, in all fairness, it was still winter. And she was sleeping alone.
In the waking fog, everything came to harsh light as she tried to sort it out in her brain, once again, as she did every night. Where her youth had gone, where her love had gone, where the man who had once filled the empty space in her bed had gone… stupid questions, always the same. She knew it. She'd come to understand it — and it was easy, after everything she'd lost, and all the people who loved her and left her. Grief was an interruption of normality. It was a phase.
But her mind wasn't accepting this loss so well. She was still stuck in the shock, the precursor to recovery, the interruption of normality. She still sorted through the memories, the real ones and the made-up ones, just trying to figure out what to keep and what to release. Something that was so important to her was gone and the only way to survive was to process, but she was so lost now. Was moving on a form of betrayal? Was staying still a manner of giving up?
She didn't know if she was supposed to let go, or to hold on.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Star Wars.
This was my sad attempt at coping with Han's death. I wrote it back in January and didn't touch it until now, just because it was so depressive for me. But looking back on it, I thought it was worth a post.
To my queen Emmeline - sorry for hurting you with this angsty trash 3
Follow me at killyourstarlings on tumblr :)