Notes: Everyone is born with the first Words that their Soulmate will speak to them tattooed on their body. It is very taboo to show these Words to someone else, but if you do, it is a uniquely strong sign of trust and friendship.
I borrowed lines of dialogue from Star Wars: A New Hope. Nothing belongs to me; all respective rights belong to the man, George Lucas.
"They're gonna execute her! Look, a few minutes ago you said you didn't want to just wait here to be captured. Now all you want to do is stay?" Luke asked incredulously.
"Marching into a detention area is not what I had in mind," Han said, lounging further back into the chair he had claimed.
"But they're gonna kill her!" Luke couldn't believe the gall of the smuggler.
"Better her than me!" Han protested hotly. And yet...his hand automatically dropped down to brush against his upper leg where his SoulMark had been for most of his life. It spoke of an escape route. An escape route that they would need to take after mounting a rescue, perhaps? He had always assumed he would meet his Soulmate while in the midst of a smuggling heist; cutting off an escape route sounded like something he would do to bait Imperials into thinking they had him trapped. Heck, he had done it before (albeit unknowingly at the time, but hey, he had gotten away, and that's what counted!). But could the SoulMark really be referencing the rescue of this Princess? And even if it did, did he really want to get involved in something like that?
"She's rich," Luke said suddenly, temptingly.
Han sat up straighter. "Rich?" Chewie growled his interest at the sudden twist the conversation had taken.
"Rich. Powerful. Listen, if you were to rescue her, the reward would be…"
"What?" Han demanded.
"Well, more wealth than you can imagine!" Luke baited.
"I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit," Han pointed out.
"You'll get it," Luke promised.
"I better," Han warned, his mind already making the decision before he was fully aware of the fact.
"You will!" Luke vowed, before excitedly launching into his plan for them to rescue the Princess.
Han paid attention, for the most part. For the other part...well. All his life, he had never really known how to feel about the whole Soulmate thing. He hadn't been lying when he had told the Kid earlier that no all-powerful Force controlled his destiny. Han Solo went wherever he wanted, and did whatever he pleased; he took orders from no one. But he was Marked with the words that his supposed "perfect mate" would one day speak to him, and he was supposed to be okay with that? That just did not sit right with him.
Sure, there were stories out there of Soulmates who met, but who didn't stay together; or those who found each other minutes before one of them died. Those stories were more on par with the sort of life that the smuggler was used to: mainly, that life wasn't fair. But sometimes the more traitorous part of his mind thought that knowing there was someone out there for him was sort of nice. And when he started thinking like that, he tended to go and do crazy things...like walking into a detention center full of Imperial guards, on an Imperial battle station.
So when things went to hell, and he had known they would, he fell back on his oldest habit: shoot first, ask questions later. His smooth talking could have been better - "Luke, we're going to have company!" - but hey, they had survived this first firefight, and that was all that mattered.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, Han caught his partner's gaze. "What, Chewie?"
The Wookie merely let his gaze drop down to Han's left leg. Chewie was the only other being in the whole galaxy who knew what Han's Words were.
"Don't even think it," Han said, leveling a finger at his friend. "I'm not thinking it. I'm not!" he added in protest when Chewie let him know exactly what he thought of that statement. "Come on, there's no way! I mean, a Princess and a guy like me...it would be crazy! Let's just focus on all of us getting out of here alive, shall we?"
And as though Fate Herself had heard, there was suddenly a loud pounding against the door to the detention center, followed by blaster fire; someone was trying to force their way inside. And Han had a pretty good idea who. "Get behind me, get behind me!" he ordered Chewie before the shooting started up again.
The duo's shots hit home, but all too soon Han and Chewie were forced to abandon the main holding area and retreat down the corridor that Luke had disappeared down earlier. Not good, not good.
Chewie growled out a heads up that Luke was coming up behind them, and that he had who he assumed was the Princess. "Can't get out that way," Han warned them as he fired off another shot. He took some joy in the fact that another Stormtrooper dropped; the other part of him was frantically trying to figure a way out of this mess. Maybe they could -
"Looks like you've managed to cut off our only escape route," came the Words, said in a scathing tone.
Shavit.
Han turned and looked down into a pair of brown eyes that were glaring back at him, but man were they full of spirit. "Maybe you'd like it back in your cell, Your Highness?" he asked sarcastically, because - Soulmate or not - no way was she going to pin the blame for this one him. It was not his fault!
But then her eyes widened, and he knew that he had just said her Words. And she was probably figuring out that she had said his Words, if he was reading the emotions flickering across her face correctly. And he knew his life would never be the same.