The Ghosts

He felt the searing pain in his stomach and looked down to see the lightsaber protruding from it. So this was the end. But he was at peace. He looked up and saw this son-HIS SON!-and he reached for him, cupping his chin. Then he was falling...falling...falling.

Han's eyes fluttered open. With the barest movements of his head, he looked around and saw he was laying on a bed in a room filled with windows, looking out on a picturesque lake. A shadow moved to the left of him and he saw a young woman standing over him. Slurring his words as he woke from what felt like a deep sleep, he asked the woman, "Are you an angel?"

The woman chuckled. "You're the second boy to ask me that question." Then she moved out of his line of sight leaving the question unanswered.

He again closed his eyes and opened them, wondering what she had meant by him being a boy. It was an odd thing to call a man of his years. Gingerly, he got up from the bed and stood, testing his legs. They felt alright, so he moved around the room, to a door that slid open automatically. He stepped out onto a patio that ended at the edge of the clear lake set amongst green mountains.

Han had flown from one end of the galaxy to the other in his life, but he didn't think he had ever seen this planet. He had no idea where he was.

He didn't like this feeling of not knowing where he was.

He continued on the patio until it led to a table and two chairs. Had he crashed and been found? Had someone taken him in and healed any wounds he had? He looked down at this hands and body. Everything seemed intact. But he remembered...he remembered…

"You've awaken," a feminine voice said to him from behind. He turned and was faced with the young woman he had seen at his bedside, dressed in a simple gown of silvery gray. Her long brown hair was up in thick braids that were joined near her lower back. She smiled at him shyly as she made her way to the table for two, carrying a jug of liquid.

"Where am I?" Han asked as he followed her, wanting to know at once.

"Did you rest well?" the woman asked instead, ignoring a question of his question.

Han was still on edge and wanted his answers, but something stopped him. He did feel more rested than he had in the past few days. "Yeah, I do...I do feel better."

The woman nodded. "Good," she said. "I'm sure you're hungry." She pointed to a chair and it was then that he saw a plate of exotic fruits and meats. Once she had said that, he did begin to feel hungry. Han sat down and and began to eat as she poured him a glass of some sweet wine.

When he finished his plate he noticed that she was staring at him. He offered the woman a sheepish smile. "I apologize for my table manners. One of my failing my wife tried to correct over the years."

The woman laughed, a low, musical sound that he thought he recognized. In fact, the more he looked at her, the more he thought she reminded him of someone. "Perfectly alright," she said simply.

Han leaned back in his chair, the glass in his hand. He decided to try his question again but more gently. "Where am I, if you don't mind me asking?"

The woman still wouldn't, only smiled at him. He decided on another line of inquiry. "Can you at least tell me whose company do I have the pleasure of then?" he asked, oozing charm that had worked on Leia, years ago.

"I'm Padme," she answered simply.

There was something about that name that he recognized, but it was so far away from his memories, he ignored it as he nodded. "Han Solo," he replied, extending his hand. She lifted hers to shake his, but he grasped it, turned it over and planted a soft kiss on it. He looked up again and thought he saw her blush.

Her next words surprised him. "I know who you are, General Solo," Padme told him.

No one had called him that in thirty years. "You know me?" He searched his memories again, trying to figure out who she was and where she knew him. "How do you know me?" he asked. He was getting that uncomfortable feeling again.

She still didn't answer him again, a habit that was beginning to infuriate him. "Is there anything else that you need, General Solo?"

"Han. Just Han," he nearly spat out through gritted teeth. "And if you're asking me if I need anything else, answers. Just answers to 'where am I' and 'how do you know me.'" Padme's gaze dipped to her hands, folded on her lap. He could tell she was reluctant to give him the answers he was looking for.

Then, a vision crossed in front of him. The catwalk. Ben, standing there, his mask off, his eyes like two pits of darkness. But still, Han reached out to him. He tried to bring him back, back to the light. And then, the lightsaber, blood red, cutting into him. Han's last act was to reach for his son, try to reach him one last time.

It was like the clouds clearing out of a darkened sky, allowing the sun to burst forth. Han knew. He knew what happened to him, where he was and how this stranger knew him. He looked at the planet again and looked at Padme again. He smiled at the woman sadly. "I never realized how much Leia looks like you."

Padme turned to him, gifting him with a brilliant smile, one for a student who had at last solved a complex problem. "Thank you, Han."

Han looked around and saw a path leading away from the lakeside patio. He stood, his legs compelling him along it. He remembered this place, walking along this path so many years ago. He almost didn't notice Padme following him. The path ended at a flame burning brightly behind a marker. Gulping he looked back at his companion and smiled. "Pleased to meet you at last."

"And a pleasure to meet you," she answered him.

Han looked around resigned but finding a measure of contentment. He had put all the pieces together and the realization sunk in. "So, this is the afterlife?" he asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

Padme stared in the same direction as him. "This is our understanding of it, at least," she said diplomatically as possible. "From what I've been told. It's the living Force that we can interact with. A mirage, you can say, that comforts us here."

Han's eyebrow shot up. "You're Force-sensitive too?" He'd always felt different in such a gifted family, what with his wife, son and brother-in-law all being attuned to the Force. He hadn't realized that both of his wife's parents were too.

But Padme shook her head. "No, that was Anakin's blessing." She looked back at Han, her voice dropping a notch. "We can't live on within the Force, like him, or Obi-Wan or Yoda, but it can comfort us as we are now. This is the manifestation of that comfort."

He contemplated what she said, catching her suggestion of Anakin's 'blessing.' "I know some people who would call it a curse, not a blessing." He thought of Leia, and her lifelong struggle with her gift. He'd seen both sides of the Force. He'd seen it turn and knew how the Force could be manipulated...

He stole a glance back at Padme, who looked down, forlorned. "I loved him. Despite everything that was to come, I loved him." She closed her eyes, as if accepting a hard truth. "No, I love him. As I do my children."

Han understood that. In spite of what had happened to him, he'd always love his son too. Then a thought popped into his head, a long unanswered question. "Was it a broken heart?" He liked that thought, that he'd died of a broken heart and not a saber through the gut.

"In the end, yes, I believe so. I wasn't strong enough to go on after everything that had happened," she replied. "I wanted...I wanted to stay with my children. But...I wasn't strong enough in the end."

"Your kids did okay, after a time. Leia, she the strongest person I know. She's had so many trials to face in her life and so much heartache." He had always been in awe of his wife. He'd even admit to that as far back as the first Death Star. "And Luke." Han thought to his friend disappearing after everything that had happened, how he had crumpled a little bit. "What happened to Ben broke his heart. He blamed himself." Han sighed deeply, then decided on his declaration. "There's still good in my son. I have to believe that, in spite of everything."

Padme turned to him, her face set with determination. "I always knew that there was still good in Anakin. I saw the path he was going down, even before…" Her voice halted, but she backed it up with a strength Han was sure she had exuded as strongly in life as she now did in death. "In the end, I was right."

Han prayed silently that he would be right too, but aloud, he agreed with her. "He'll see the light, in time. I know that." He turned his face to a far off setting sun.

Padme faced that same dying light with him. "And another will guide him to it, just as Luke did for his father."

Han knew in that moment who she was speaking of. It was something that had never occurred to him, but it should have, right from the moment he had met her.. He looked at the woman again and saw it, truly saw it, at last. "Rey," he whispered, a stream of memories flowing back to him, of a young girl left alone on a desolate world. "Maz said…" He took a deep breath. "She's going to look for him, for her father." He looked to the other woman, his trademark smile on his face.

Padme turned to face him and smiled. "May the Force be with her in her search then," she told him, as the sun set at last.