This was my attempt to work out my endless grief over Han's death. It helped, a little. Thanks to MrsTater for sharing my grief and wrangling my verb tenses.
In Extremis
Han Solo has pictured the end of his life many times. Caught at the business end of a bounty hunter's blaster, crushed in a trash compactor, frozen into a block of carbonite, one part test subject and one part trophy — these moments had all fit within his admittedly low expectations. He is a smuggler, a scoundrel, always has been.
He has never imagined the burning pressure of a lightsaber in his gut, his own son's hands wrapped around the hilt.
Ben's face is stone, and they are drowning in shadows as the final flare of the sun dies so far above them. There was a time when he could read every flicker of his boy's face, but now Han can't tell whether or not Ben is sorry for what he's done.
He knows it's not true that your life flashes before your eyes at the point of death, because he's been there before and all he's ever been able to focus on is the present moment. Leia's face, stained harsh orange and glacial blue in the lights of the chamber on Bespin.
Ben's face, highlighted in flickering red.
Maybe his life isn't flashing before his eyes, but his mind is certainly casting back farther than usual, all the way back to Corellia. He remembers their saying about the value of love, even when you'd lost it. Something about the whole ordeal being worthwhile. He can't remember the exact words, but he remembers their essence, the empty comfort of them, the assurance that there is meaning behind the pain of a broken heart. He can almost hear the words, a distant echo in Leia's voice. Maybe she'd spouted it at him after Ben was gone. Or maybe it was the other way around.
He touches Ben's cheek because it's been an involuntary reflex since the first moment he saw his face, and he thinks that maybe old, shitty proverbs are just as real as hokey religions and magic tricks. Because even as the world turns cold and black around him, the chill far greater than even the death of the sun should allow, he realizes that this whole insane thing — the Rebellion, Leia, Ben — has been worth it.
He remembers, nonsensically, the moment Luke, so young and so long ago, insisted on saving a princess, pleaded with him to save her from execution. Better her than me, he hears his own voice in his mind, and thinks that he was an idiot in those days long past. He'd called him crazy out of a habitual resistance to the unexplained, but Luke had never been crazy, he'd just figured out long before Han that there were things worth dying for. People worth dying for.
He wishes Luke was here now, the only person in this universe who'd ever brought somebody back from the abyss that was swallowing Ben whole. He's glad Leia isn't; she'd watched him die once in a carbon freezing chamber on Bespin. She doesn't need to see that again, and definitely not like this.
I love you. He settles for thinking the words in Ben's direction, because his lungs won't work. He may not have the Force sensitivity that's woven through the Skywalkers like a curse, but surely Ben can hear it. His face is blank and Han can't tell. I love you, he tries again, aimed at Leia this time, because he still can't speak, and he's falling and his mind is going dark. But for once, he doesn't fight the sensation of helplessness. If there is one thing he's learned from Luke and Leia, it's that love is never futile.
Besides, she knows.