"Musings, by Han Solo"
33 ABY
One week after the events of The Force Awakens
Han ran his hand along his sleeping wife's bare back. This is where I belong, he thought contentedly. He had been away far too long—years, this time—but he was home now, back for good. No more scouring the underbelly of the galaxy in search of his little girl. He had found his little Rey of light, just like he'd told Leia he would. Han Solo was a man of his word.
Except…he had broken his last promise to Leia. "If you see our son," she had requested softly, "bring him home." Well, he had seen Ben. Dressed like…like a Sith, masked, in head-to-toe black, prowling with dark purpose. With Leia's words ringing in his mind, he had considered running after him—maybe to talk some sense into the boy, maybe to drag him back to D'Qar with him, or maybe just to wrap him up in an embrace and assure his son he was loved. But every soldier's instinct in him had protested. Hurry up, get out of here, his instincts told him. The X-wing squadron in the sky above was getting pulverized, there were stormtroopers all over the base, he was badly outnumbered, he had to get Rey and Finn to safety. Besides, Ben was on a ridiculously narrow catwalk. If the scene devolved into a blaster fight, his son would fall right off the ledge.
So he had done nothing. He let Ben walk away without even a greeting from his father. And moments later, Chewie detonated the explosives, lighting up the whole Starkiller Base. Han hadn't even been sure if his boy survived the blast until the group had confronted 'Kylo Ren' outside in the forest, somewhere between the doomed First Order base and the safety of the Falcon.
Han didn't want to think about that confrontation right now. He drew his attention back to Leia's delicate body. She was sleeping soundly, as she only did when he was by her side. He kissed her neck. For several heartbeats, he let her pulse thrum against his lips and breathed with her, deeply, slowly. Then his mouth wandered upwards, kissing her cheek, her eyelids, her forehead. He moved back slightly in order to examine the face he knew so well. There were new wrinkles around her eyes. From too much worrying, he mused. And she's got too few laugh lines. Han vowed silently to do something about that. He had always been good at making his princess laugh…or at least smirk.
He caressed her hair lightly. It was still too short for his taste. She had cut it just after That Day, the day their daughter was kidnapped and their middle child was murdered. They didn't sleep for nights after that; they just…lay there. And after about a week, tired of passively tossing and turning, Leia sprang out of bed, grabbed a pair of scissors, and wordlessly cut her long hair off above the shoulders. She didn't even bother to turn the light on. By the time Han's foggy brain registered what she was doing, it was finished. She crawled right back into bed, leaving a ponytail half a meter long discarded on the floor.
Her hair had grown back some since then. She still kept it trimmed, even though her homeworld's culture frowned upon cutting hair. Any Alderaanian sensibilities Leia had held onto had been discarded as quickly and carelessly as her ponytail. She didn't even let anyone call her princess anymore. Han continued to stroke her hair, thinking about her motivation. Perhaps she had maintained some of her childhood traditions as a sign of faith: faith in a more innocent era, faith in justice and love and good triumphing over evil. In her first speech to the New Republic Senate, Leia had quoted an Alderaanian philosopher: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." She had genuinely believed that, until That Day.
Han felt a lump in his throat, pushed it down. Something had shattered in her then, and he'd never managed to put all the shards of her back together again. He tried to fix her; she pushed him away. She didn't want him to worry about her. She just wanted two things: her daughter back and Ben safe. For a while after the kidnapping, Leia had smothered her teenaged son with a mother's fierce protectiveness. When he understandably rebelled against her coddling, she sent him away to train as a Jedi, so that he might learn to take care of himself. By then, Han had left Hosnian Prime in an effort to fulfill Leia's first wish: find their daughter. Breha's abduction, along with little Anakin's death, had left a great gaping hole in his heart. It had permanently turned his hair gray and his cocky smile to a scowl.
No sense dwelling on that now, he told himself sternly. Breha was safe and sound, gone now to convince Luke to return to civilization, but perfectly safe. Despite growing up in solitude on that dustball of a planet, she had somehow turned out all right. Better than all right, Han thought with pride. Magnificent. Her mother's daughter. Rey had certainly proven that on Starkiller Base: she rescued herself, just as Leia had done at the same age on the Death Star. And like her mother, the girl could fight. Luke's lightsaber had flown into her hand, and she knew—instinctively?—how to handle it against…him. Her brother. It had broken Han's heart to watch the two of them battle.
"It is you," Ben had murmured as she fought him in the forest. He glanced at his father and asked incredulously, "You haven't told her?" Breha had looked over at Han in confusion, the blue lightsaber casting a pale glow on her face.
No, Han hadn't told her. He hadn't had a whole lot of free time: rathtars, pirates, the map in BB-8, the First Order attacking Maz's. He knew that was an excuse, though. He could have told her on the way to Takodana, but he had wanted Leia to be with him when he told their daughter about her life before Jakku. To Han's surprise, Ben hadn't blurted out the truth. He had merely suggested to Breha that she needed a teacher and that he could fill that role for her.
Ben hadn't tried to kill Rey, either. That fact gave Han a tiny bit of hope that maybe the boy was still capable of redemption. Han rolled away from Leia to stare at the ceiling. Once upon a time, Ben had adored his baby sister with a nine year-old's innocent devotion. He had always doted on her, always let her have her way. In consultation with his parents, Ben chose her clothes every morning. He read her stories about daring pilots, mythical creatures, far-off lands. As a toddler, she was allowed to dress up his pet pittins and have them attend her tea parties. It was Ben who taught Breha how to hold a toy lightsaber, how to parry and thrust—that idea made Han wince. He thought of them fifteen years later in that forest, their lightsabers illuminating the snowflakes, Ben's red blade slashing at tree branches around Rey and her blue sword slicing his face. Han just couldn't reconcile his memories of them as sweet children with the violence of that snowy evening last week.
How the hell are we going to save Ben?