"Alright, we're all set. Let's get out of here."

If nothing else, it had all been one hell of an experience. Han had had more than his fair share of near-disasters, of dangerous situations that he'd barely been able to crawl away from in one piece. But this one had been something special, beyond anything that he could have previously comprehended.

But in the end, he'd come out of it with what he'd wanted and needed.

Safely stowed in the smuggling compartments beneath his feet were cases of credits that were going to ensure he lived to see another day. He'd earned just about enough from this little excursion to square his debt to Jabba, to get his own neck off the line and the Hutt off his back. All that was needed now was one hyperspace jump to Tatooine, a brief visit to whatever den of iniquity Jabba was currently holed up in and Han would be a free man once again.

He'd thought he'd seen everything that this galaxy had to offer, that there was nothing left to surprise him but everything he had been through since he'd been hired for what should have been a simple enough job back on Mos Eisley had proven him wrong.

It would all have been worth it as soon as the minor dispute he had with Jabba was settled.

Han had to hand it to the Rebel Alliance; doomed as they and their cause were, they were at least good enough to pay what they owed in a timely fashion. It was just a shame that they weren't as quick in recognising a hopeless situation when it was staring them straight in the eye and their little plan to attack the planet-destroying battle station that was heading their way was the very definition of a hopeless situation.

Thankfully for Han, he did recognise a hopeless situation and so would be as far away from Yavin as he could get by the time said battle station arrived.

He just hoped that the inevitable guilt trip that his co-pilot would lay on him for not sticking around to help the Rebellion wouldn't last long.

As he dropped into his seat, Chewie began to warm up the Millennium Falcon's engines. Glancing at the ship's diagnostics on the console before him, Han winced; he and Chewie might have made it through recent events unscathed but their ship hadn't. Thankfully any damage appeared to be minor and could hopefully be addressed with any money left over from what was owed to Jabba.

Beside him, Chewie grumbled quietly.

"Well, the kid's old enough to make his own decisions," Han replied as he began to run through preparations for their departure. "You were there, you heard me offer him a job with us...I can't help it if he's naive enough to do whatever royalty commands him."

Chewie barked sharply.

"Oh come on!" said Han. "You saw him around her, the poor kid was past the point of being able to think for himself before we ended up in that garbage compactor." He chuckled. "So it's probably a good thing he's not coming with us; you and I both know how dangerous female influence can be."

"I assume you're talking about me in this instance," said a cold voice from the doorway to the cockpit.

"Hello again, your worship," replied Han as he spun in his seat. "You know, it's polite to ask permission to come aboard a ship that doesn't belong to you."

"It's a good thing I didn't," answered Leia. "Otherwise I might have missed your fascinating perspective on...what was it? ""Female perspective?""

Han laughed. As irritating as the princess might be, and she had certainly irritated him in the brief time they'd spent in each other's company, he found it oddly exhilarating to spar with her in the battle of wits they'd waged seemingly from the moment that she'd emerged from her cell on the Death Star. He figured that there would be no harm in wasting a little time riling her up one last time before they parted for the last time.

"Judging by the way you've got Luke wrapped around your finger already, I'd say you know plenty enough about female influence already, sweetheart" he drawled.

Leia flushed slightly.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" she replied. "As I'm sure you know, Luke volunteered to enlist in the Rebellion and required no encouragement from myself to do so." She folded her arms. "And he's hurt that you haven't done the same...apparently he holds you in higher esteem than you deserve."

The smirk faded from Han's face. He should have expected to have to endure one last desperate recruitment pitch before he took off and had little patience left for it.

"We've been through this already, Your Highness. Revolutions and suicidal causes don't interest me; I got what I was owed and now I've got business I need to take care of."

Leia chuckled sardonically.

"You know, you play the part of a mercenary quite well...well enough that I think you've even managed to convince yourself that that's what you are. But you don't convince me." So they were back to this, her delusions that she somehow had gotten a measure of him that no one else had.

Now Han's amusement began to morph into anger, something Chewie obviously recognised as he stood and shuffled past Leia out of the cockpit, mumbling that these squabbles were one thing he definitely wouldn't miss.

"Honestly princess, I'm long past the point of caring what you think," Han sneered as he learned back in his chair, steeling himself for an argument. And seeing as this was going to be the last one he had with this girl, he was determined to make sure that he got to have the last word. "I never said I was a mercenary but I am a businessman and I've got my own problems to worry about, old debts I need to pay off. And even if I didn't, I'm not stupid enough to believe that this attack you're planning has any hope of actually coming off. If there's anything this galaxy has taught me, sweetheart, it's to pick your battles carefully and this is one battle that you and your little Rebellion ain't going to win."

Leia flushed again, this time far more deeply. From the set of her jaw, Han thought she must have gritted her teeth as she considered a reply and he realised that what he'd said must have had the intended effect if she was taking her time to formulate a worthwhile response. When she finally did speak, he was surprised that she did so gently but with words clearly laced with the hurt he'd inflicted.

"Why is it that Luke can see what's at stake here but you can't?" she asked quietly, almost with a hint of desperation. "You've seen enough of the galaxy to know how cruel the Empire is. You know what they're capable of, you saw what they did to-"

She broke off and Han watched her fight to retain her composure, knowing that she'd been referring to Alderaan. And as he did, he felt his facade crack a little. He couldn't imagine what the princess was going through through, how she was managing to bury it all under the appearance of a hardened and steadfast leader. But seeing what the Empire had done to Alderaan was one reason, a big reason, why he was so determined to leave before that battle station arrived.

"I won't beg you to stay," she finally continued. "But I do think that there is more to you than you'd like anyone else to believe. And I know you're a good pilot...so I'll ask one more time...will you help us?"

For a moment, one fleeting moment, Han really considered saying yes. He had to hand it to the princess, she was a good talker and Han had the feeling that she had to have been one hell of a politician before she'd ended up as a prisoner of the Empire.

But then the moment had passed and reality set back in. As much as he could appreciate the princess' intentions and, he would grudgingly admit, her persistence, he wasn't going be swayed by a pretty face with a sad story. When all was said and done, she was clearly a hopeless optimist and he was a pragmatist; her fate looked certain to be to go out in a blaze of glorious failure with her Rebellion, his was to live to fight another day. That was just how things were. Han knew a lost cause when he saw one and this insurrection was doomed, of that there was no doubt in his mind.

And it was high time he bailed on it before it was too late.

"Sorry sweetheart," he replied in a tone that he hoped would convey that part of him really was genuinely sorry for the dire situation in which Leia had found herself caught up in. "But I've got things I have to do."

"And what are those things?" Leia snapped. "Smuggling drugs and running up debts with gangsters? That doesn't sound like much of an existence Han."

"But it is an existence" Han retorted. "Which means it's got more going for it than sticking around here."

She looked away, blinking furiously and Han wondered whether she was trying not too cry. She hadn't cried during their flight to Yavin, or at least he hadn't seen her do so, and he'd wondered throughout the trip just what it would take to breach what emotional defences she'd built. How could such a young person endure so much and not crumble?

It seemed in that moment that his rejection of her and her cause had hit the princess hard and Han couldn't help but feel guilt for having disappointed her. Which was ridiculous; he barely knew Leia and had never done or said anything to put any ideas in her head that he was a rebel at heart. He'd made his position clear from the off and hadn't wavered on it. But Han found himself casting around for something conciliatory to say now, suddenly desperate to not have to see this young woman break down in front of him.

He leaned forward in his seat, bracing his elbows on his knees and waited for her to look at him again. When she did so, she looked as strong and resolute as ever but Han knew that she close to the edge now, had seen that she was just barely holding herself together. And he didn't want to be the one to cause her to unravel.

"Look Leia," he said in as gentle a voice as he could manage, doing away with the nicknames that he knew annoyed her and instead using her name for this first in the hope that it would convey just how earnest he was trying to be. "We've all got our callings in life. Yours is here with the Rebellion, so is the kid's. But trust me, I'm not cut out for revolutions. If I thought that this thing you're planning had a shot of working then yeah, maybe I'd be willing to pitch in. But I've got to look out for myself here and deal with my own problems, I don't have any choice in that. And I'm sorry for everything that you've had to go through, I really am, but I can't stay here."

Her jaw was set again and her eyes bored into his own. In that in instant, Han was sure that there were a lot of things that Leia would probably like to say to him and he was sure than none of them would be complimentary. But part of him just wanted her to understand him, to just see past her cause long enough to recognise that there was more going on in the galaxy than this rebellion.

After what felt like an age of strained silence, Leia settled on a response.

"Clearly I was wrong to think there was more to you than your own self-interests," she said in a voice that was low enough that it could barely be heard above the hum of the Falcon's engines. "You really are quite the mercenary."

Then Leia turned and left the cockpit.

She'd said something very similar about him while they'd been on their way to Yavin and it had stung, though he would never had admitted that to anyone. Now her words struck him like a punch to the gut and his blood boiled, although he couldn't decide who he was angrier at; himself for letting the princess get to him in such a way that a small part of him really wished that he could be the man she had clearly suspected he was beneath the bravado, or Leia for forcing him to acknowledge that that small part of his character existed in the first place.

One thing he did know was that he wasn't letting her have the last word.

He clambered out of his chair and followed Leia into the main hold of the ship where he found her embracing Chewie in a warm hug. She and Luke had clearly gotten to the Wookie and Han could tell how sorry his co-pilot was to be leaving behind them again. His anger flared again and he petulantly wondered why the galaxy was conspiring against him in this way, why everyone he knew on this planet seemed to be colluding to make him feel so pathetic and callous for prioritising saving his own hide over jumping feet first into a fight that he wanted no part of.

"Thank you Chewie, for everything" said Leia gently as she pulled away from the embrace. Chewie's hands remained on her shoulders, making her appear even smaller in stature than she actually was. "And I promise that I meant what I said to you before...the Alliance won't forget about the things that the Empire have done to your planet, we will free Kashyyyk."

Chewie murmured quietly and pulled her into another embrace, one that was brief but full of meaning and gratitude. Han felt another sharp twinge of guilt; he knew what the liberation of Kashyyyk would mean to Chewie, how affected his co-pilot was by the plight of Wookies under Imperial rule. While he didn't want to interrupt their farewell, Han thought that Leia would want to know what Chewie had said to her.

"He says that he knows you won't forget," Han translated. "And that once his planet is free again, he'd like you to meet his family so that he can introduce them to the person who's given him real hope that things are going to turn out for the better in the end."

Leia beamed. "I can't wait to meet them," she said warmly, looking up to meet Chewie's eyes.

With a last goodbye and a gentle pat of Leia's head, Chewie made to return to the cockpit, giving his captain a look as he passed that conveyed a stern warning: be nice.

Tension hung in the air once Han and Leia were alone again. He knew there wasn't going to be any such warm goodbye between them as there had been between her and Chewie, that any goodwill that Leia might have had for him, even briefly when she'd harboured faint hope of recruiting him into the Rebellion, was gone.

Left in its wake was an awkward stand off. Han wanted to say something to her, something meaningful, but couldn't think of anything. He wanted her to understand him, more than he'd ever wanted someone to understand why he was the way he was, for her to not spend whatever was left of her life hating him for not living up to whatever expectations she'd so unwisely had of him.

He couldn't fathom why or how this woman had gotten to him but she had.

It was Leia who finally broke the silence, moving forward and holding out her hand to shake his.

"Captain Solo," she said in a formal tone that sounded forced and horribly inauthentic. "Thank you...I wish you the best of luck for your future, wherever that takes you."

So he clearly didn't qualify for a hug, whereas Chewie had. Well, if that was how the princess wanted to play this then Han would match her. He shook her hand firmly and inclined his head, deciding that on this occasion it might be best if he refrained from saying anything.

After a moment of looking at him almost expectantly, Leia seemed to come to the conclusion that Han had nothing left to say to her and made to take her leave, walking toward the boarding ramp.

And Han knew that she should let her go, to accept this parting wouldn't be a friendly one. But it bothered him. He hadn't been thrilled with the way he'd left things with Luke, knowing that the kid disapproved of him leaving, but as much as he liked Luke, he could have lived with that. But there was something about this interaction with Leia that Han knew would eat away at him. It felt ridiculously as though something was being left unsaid between him and the princess, that there was there some underlying tension that would remain unresolved.

Without having any idea of what he was doing, Han rushed down the corridor.

"Leia, wait!"

She turned at the top of the ramp, folding her arms again and looking wary.

"Come with us."

Whatever she might have expected him to stay, it clearly hadn't been that. And Han had taken himself by surprise; when he had chased after her, it hadn't been with the intention of inviting the princess to turn her back on the Rebellion she was so clearly devoted to and join him and Chewie. But then he hadn't really had any intentions in mind when he'd gone after her and had only known that he wanted to say something.

But he'd begun to extend the overture now. There was no turning back.

"I'm not saying you should stick with us or anything," Han went on, speaking quickly and with little thought of what he suddenly wanted to express to her. "We could get you out of here and drop you off somewhere safe. But you're too young to throw your life away here now, sweetheart...you could still do some good, there has to be other ways that you could beat the Empire...just let me help you Leia."

The expression of shock on her face gave way to something that looked horribly like pity and it made Han feel like an idiot. It wasn't malicious and, in some strange way, he thought that she appreciated his spontaneous offer. But he knew that she wouldn't accept it.

Leia chose to not respond immediately. Instead she stepped toward him and took his right hand, clasping it tightly between both of her own.

"Take care of yourself Han, please" she practically whispered. "And thank you for everything you've done for the Rebellion...and for me...I'll never forget it." Enraptured by her eyes, Han simply nodded and let this moment between them stretch on in silence, his stomach clenching horribly in unexpected disappointment.

Finally, she released his hand and left the ship, moving slowly down the boarding ramp with her head bowed.

Han watched her go, dazed by his own impetuous actions and Leia's reaction to them. Minutes ago he had wanted to hurt her, to shatter the assumptions she'd seemed to have made about his character and convince her that he was a rogue rather than a revolutionary. How in the hells of Corellia had he gone from that to pleading with her to run away with him, to let him rescue her from what looked to be certain death if she remained with the Rebellion?

He wasn't at all surprised that she hadn't taken him up on his offer but it hurt nonetheless. The sudden protectiveness he'd felt over her had eroded any rational thought and had been powerful. Han didn't think he could explain his current thought process if he tried but, while he couldn't articulate it, it was nevertheless profound; he might have had no faith in what the Rebel Alliance was about to attempt but he had come to care about the princess, he couldn't deny that now.

And he regretted that there wasn't a thing he could say or do that would convince her to leave Yavin with him.

That was the unavoidable fact of the matter; she'd taken her stand against the Empire while Han had decided not to take a stand at all. They were on completely different sides of a philosophical divide and were just too different to find the common ground to bridge the gap that existed between them. With that in mind, this parting of the ways had always been inevitable and was probably for the best.

That thought just didn't make Han feel any better about the situation.

With a sigh he activated the controls that would raise the ramp and shuffled back through the access corridor. Upon his return to the cockpit, he dropped heavily into his seat just as Chewie was completing their prolonged preparations for takeoff. Putting on his headset, he growled enquiringly.

"That was a long goodbye."

Han glared at his co-pilot as he buckled in. Unbidden, the image of Leia saying goodbye to Chewie flashed through his mind and there was something that he had to get off his chest now, before it was too late.

"Chewie, if you want to stay then I really won't hold it against you" he said. "I get it, why you believe in the Rebellion; if anyone has reason to hate the Empire it's you. And if you want to stick around with the kid and the princess then I understand." Chewie made to speak but Han continued, wanting to say everything on his mind without being interrupted.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd miss you pal. But I mean it when I tell you that I'm not going to hold you to this debt that you think you owe me. I know it means a lot to you but I don't want that to stop you doing something that you believe in, I don't want you to look back on all this time you've spent making sure I don't get myself killed and think you wasted it. If you want to stay then we can shake hands now and part on good terms...as friends."

Though he would never confess this to Chewie, the last thing Han wanted was to leave his co-pilot behind. Chewie was more than a co-pilot and partner, more than a friend even; he was the closest thing Han had ever had to family and it was pretty much unthinkable at this point to imagine what life would be like without him.

But Han also knew that Chewie, Luke and Leia were all kindred spirits, idealists who were bonded by a hope for the future that Han was just too cynical, too embittered by personal experience to believe in.

He might not have any hope for the future of the Rebel Alliance, he might have thought it would be suicidal to stay, but he understood why Chewie thought it was a cause worth fighting for, knew better than anyone just how much Chewie and Wookies like him had suffered at the hands of the Empire.

Rather than reply, Chewie simply flicked some switches on the console before him and buckled into his own seat. The look he then cast at Han conveyed everything he might otherwise say.

Appreciative as he was for Han's selflessness in this instance, Chewie was sticking around.

And Han was grateful for that, more so than he cared to admit even to himself. Saying goodbye to Luke and Leia had been rough, far tougher than he'd ever thought it would be. So he was relieved in that moment to have such a stubbornly loyal co-pilot.

Heartened, he leaned in toward the comm-system.

"Hangar control this is the Millennium Falcon, requesting clearance for immediate departure.

"Copy that Millennium Falcon, stand by," replied the Alliance controller.

As they waited for their clearance to leave, Han looked out over the vast hangar. The orange jumpsuits of the Alliance's pilots stood out amongst the monotonous grey of the technicians' uniforms. Han wondered for a moment whether any of them knew just what they were about to go up against, how afraid they might be if they did. Luke was somewhere among them, most likely itching to get in his fighter and up into space. If old Kenobi had been right and such a thing as the Force existed then Han hoped it really was with the kid and might somehow keep him alive. If it did, perhaps there was the slightest, most miniscule chance that their paths might cross again one day.

Involuntarily, Han cast his eyes around, searching for a flash of white amidst the orange and grey. But Leia was nowhere to be seen and Han had to quell another twinge of disappointment and regret.

He resolved not to think of her again once they'd taken off, although he had a feeling that it wasn't going to be as easy to keep her out of his head as he'd like it be.

"Millennium Falcon, this is hangar control. You are cleared for departure. Clear skies gentlemen and may the Force be with you both."

Slowly the Falcon rose into the air and the jungle canopy of the Yavin fell away as the ship ascended toward space.

Concealed in the shadows of a far corner of the vast hangar, Leia watched as the Millennium Falcon disappeared from sight.

She really had thought that she'd begun to get through to Han, that his insistence on saving his own skin in lieu of serving the greater good of the Rebellion was wavering. But she had been wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.

And that hurt.

Leia prided herself on being an excellent judge of character and she'd seen through the cool and arrogant facade that Han Solo had constructed. Beyond that was a good man, a great leader, someone whose life might could be one of great purpose if he would only allow it.

Dodonna and Draven had dismissed him as a lost cause, a criminal with no regard for anything other than his own interests. And they'd urged Leia to do likewise, to not expend her time and energy on attempting to recruit such a man into the Rebellion.

But something about Han had intrigued her. She'd wanted a chance to know, to understand what had transpired in his past to make him the person he was now. Leia knew that Dodonna and Draven had been wrong to discount Han so readily; if he was the waste of space that they perceived him to be, a being as noble as Chewbacca wouldn't be following him across the galaxy, wouldn't be so steadfastly committed to staying with and protecting him as Chewie so clearly was.

It was irrelevant now; Han was gone and Leia knew that she would never see him again.

She hoped sincerely that he got himself out of whatever mess he was in with that gangster in the Outer Rim. Han had the money to settle his debt now so there was no reason to suspect he wouldn't. And once that situation was resolved, Leia suspected that Chewie would do his best to ensure that Han stayed out of any further trouble although she knew that the Wookie would have his work cut out for him in that respect.

She hadn't known the pair for long at all but Leia would miss them, she was willing to admit that much to herself.

But there were more pressing matters for her to focus on now. She would see the fighters off and then make her way to the command centre. From there it would be a matter of waiting, of hoping against hope that the Alliance could defy the odds stacked against them and destroy that battle station.

Leia welcomed having something to occupy her thoughts. If nothing else, it would allow her to forget just how terrifyingly tempted she'd momentarily been to take Han up on his offer of leaving with him.

Chewie barked in annoyance. They'd been sitting in the orbit above Yavin, just beyond the boundary of the Alliance's sensors for more than twenty minutes. And Wookies were not known for their patience.

"Yeah, the coordinates are all set," Han replied sharply. "Just sit tight for a minute will you, I'm thinking."

Chewie groaned. He had a bad feeling about this.

Han's attention was fixed on the Falcon' sensor readouts. He was pressing his headset against his ears, straining to pick up whatever chatter he could from the battle that he'd been determined to avoid getting caught up in. From what he could gather from the scrambled noise that the Falcon was picking up, Luke was still alive and in the thick of the fighting. Chewie, who'd begun listening in on his own headset grumbled quietly.

"I'm not sure," answered Han. "Luke's alright but there can't be many Alliance ships left now."

Chewie enquired as to whether there was something the two of them could do to help, rather than sit here and listen to the Rebellion's attack force be obliterated.

Han took off his headset and threw it onto the console in frustration.

If he and Chewie were going to do something then it would really have to be now or never. Chewie, still listening in on the skirmish over the Death Star, murmured that Luke had been just been ordered to set up for an attack run at the exhaust port that was supposedly the only flaw in battle station's design. Han knew that there had already been two failed attempts at it, had heard the garbled, static-distorted cries of the pilots as their ships has disintegrated around them.

There really wasn't a choice to be made now.

"Let's get one thing straight before we do this," he said is as stern a voice he could manage, pointing his finger in Chewie's face. "We're doing this for the kid, not the Rebellion, right? We're not getting sucked into their cause, we're just going to help Luke blow that station away and then we're going to settle things with Jabba. Understood?"

Chewie growled his agreement and made to fire up the Falcon's thrusters.

"And Chewie," growled Han in a menacing tone. "This has nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with the princess. We got that clear?"

Just about managing to suppress a knowing smirk, Chewie nodded.

"Alright," said Han. "Turn us around and let's get this over with."