The Millenium Falcon was in its night cycle. The ship's engines murmured; a vibrating hum that lulled passengers to sleep. Lights were set low and all was quiet.
Luke padded through the quiet ship, having finished with his shift, considering where to lay his head tonight. He was the only one without any set quarters. Han of course had the captain's quarters; Chewie used the crew cabin and had swung a huge hammock across it. Princess Leia had become such a frequent passenger that Han had just cleared a cabin for her, completely unprompted. Both ignored the chivalry of his gesture. Luke didn't want to use the gaming bench. He'd woken with a crick in his neck from sleeping there last time, and didn't want to repeat that. Princess Leia wasn't on watch, so he couldn't go in her quarters. Chewie wouldn't mind if he used the Wookie's oversized hammock, since he would be spending the next 6 time parts in the cockpit, but instead Luke palmed open the door to the captain's quarters. Immediately the snoring stopped and Luke heard rustling along the wall.
"It's me, Han," Luke whispered into the dark. "Don't shoot." He darted into the 'fresher, not using the lights until the door was shut. When he emerged Han was pulling a shirt on.
"Take the bunk, kid. I'm up," he told Luke. "Sugared stars." Luke heard the whoosh of the door opening, and then silence and darkness was all there was to keep him company.
In her own bunk in her own private quarters, Princess Leia was dreaming. Her viewpoint swooped from high in the trees, noting the space between the leaves of the trees where golden sunlight and blue sky peeked. She was at the top of the bluffs where the sky fliers liked to launch on Alderaan. It was a beautiful day, and the colors, the colors alone, told her how the sun would feel on her skin, how dry the air would feel as the breeze lifted her hair. It was beautiful. She was happy.
Long, wooden picnic tables had been set atop the bluffs and a large group of people were sitting at them, talking. The sounds, the sounds alone, told her there was friendship and togetherness. She sat among the people, and they were her family. Impossibly so, to have so large a number, but the sight of this family told her she belonged to them. She sat among her family and she was about 15, the age she had moved from Alderaan to Coruscant to take a seat in the Senate. Yet she didn't look a Senator. She was young, youthful, dressed simply, her hair in a braid. Next to her and above her and around her was a presence. It seemed to be a cloud, but when she looked up at it, she saw, not quite a face, not quite a cloud, but something; something gently smiling, something loving. This was hers and hers alone.
While dreaming Leia was moved. The real tear that settled in the corner of her eye didn't wake her. To be so loved, accepted… all her foibles, all her evils. This presence was tender, affectionate. It filled her from within and followed her from without. She whimpered with joy. She'd never felt anything like it. Never had she known such love, such peace.
Leia stood in her Senate gowns, in the circular passage that surrounded the upper levels of the Senate floor on Coruscant. She was wearing her senatorial robes, her hair done in two buns at the sides of her head, in the popular fashion of the time. Her dress was a bit dingy. She looked around. Beings of all kinds were strolling by, deep in conversation. Tables were set near the numerous entryways, covered with shimmering cloth. Two beings manned each table, and various life forms would approach the tables and affix their signatures on a wide data board.
Leia soaked in the familiarity of the passage, and began to look for the entryway where her Senate seat was closest. Suddenly, Luke took her elbow, began steering her away. "I'm so sorry," he murmured.
He marched up to a table, affixed his signature, and she had a sense that he was the Senator now. While he signed she looked through the window of the closed entryway, saw …. something. Dark hair, relaxed fingers. It wasn't a doorway to the Senate chambers; it was a room. She stepped toward it, needing to see…
"I hate to tell you, Princess," Luke began, and he promenaded her around the passage. Their conversation was interrupted by beings offering her condolences, by Luke signing at tables, and always she saw a doorway where a person lay inside. Luke would head in the door's direction and then be beckoned to the table to affix his signature. Then he would be back at her side, murmuring, "I'm so sorry, Princess, but..." and he would walk to the next table, the next doorway. The cycle would begin again. Everybody said they were sorry, nobody would let her see, or even tell her in so many specific words, but she knew that Han had died and he was behind that door. And while everybody was sorry for her there remained an air of detachment in their own attitudes, even Luke's. All she wanted was to see him, his hair, touch his fingers, but she couldn't get to him.
The next time Luke grabbed her elbow she gasped awake. His words echoed in her head and she slowly let the false reality of the Senate chambers disappear. She was on the Falcon. Luke wasn't a Senator and Han wasn't dead. A profound sadness lingered with her. She blinked, wondering where that dream had come from and much preferring the loving presence of her cloud.
She remembered now. She had dreamed of Alderaan. Or, she had been on Alderaan and dreamed of love. Was Alderaan love? All those people… her impossible family. Alderaan was home. She had loved her home. And -the realization was painful- her home had loved her. She reached for its loving acceptance and found it was still there, inside her; she still had her cloud, her sun, whatever it was. But she couldn't love it back anymore. Maybe that's why her dream had turned so sad?
Leia rose from her bunk to use the 'fresher. The mirror showed her swathed in melancholy. She wasn't near tears, but something deep inside her mourned. In her dream she mourned Han, and he was hers to mourn alone. She touched her cheek, where the shadow of the tear remained. How did she go from having something so beautiful it couldn't have a form, to mourning Han Solo, the most exasperating man in the galaxy? Weird. And how did Luke Skywalker, sweet, empathetic Luke Skywalker come to be a Senator?
The ship was still quiet. She moved along the corridor to the cockpit, stopping a moment before continuing. Han sat at the engineering console. He was not wearing his boots or blaster, and he was intent on the screen. His left leg jiggled energetically and he rubbed the scar on his chin absentmindedly. Leia looked at his hand, remembered the curled fingers. She was sorry her dream had killed him.
She decided to turn back, not wishing to disturb him and dispel the intensity her dream imparted to her with his loss. The door to the captain's quarters was open and Luke was inside, a stack of flimsis on the bunk.
"Day's light, Luke," she greeted. "Don't tell me you are working?"
He gave her a sheepish smile. "Proud of me? I actually packed reports to finish. I'm starting to appreciate hyperspace as catch-up time. This commander business isn't all it's cracked up to be. My guys get down time, but I don't." He waved a hand across the flimsis. "I get to fill out all these. Who reads 'em anyway?"
"I do," Leia offered. "You're doing a great job. You should read Han's." A stab of melancholy nagged at her.
Luke was incredulous. "He does paperwork?"
"Command wants briefings," Leia shrugged. "Doesn't mean he takes them seriously. Last one I read he was waxing poetic on the past-season berries he got from a fruit broker."
Luke gave a silent laugh. "I remember when he brought those back. He made me an ice from them."
Leia nodded. "I had some too. I've got some work with me, too – let me get mine. I'll sit with you," she offered.
"Great," Luke said. "I'll see if there's some kaf."
She returned in a moment and found he'd brought a butler of hot kaf with two mugs. Leia settled on the bunk with her back against a pillow on the wall. She opened her bag and pulled out her own reports, but her eyes settled on Han's boots, carelessly tossed in the corner of the small room.
"Hey," Luke prompted her. "Han's boots smell?"
Leia hadn't realized her attention had drifted back to her dreams. She laughed dismissively. "No," she smiled. "I was thinking. I had a dream about him last night."
Luke's eyebrows rose. "Anything I need to inform Rogue Squadron of?"
"Nothing for the betting pool, no." Leia found she couldn't quite meet Luke's probing blue eyes. "I dreamed he died."
"That's not a good dream."
"Or, that he was dead. Everyone was telling me, asking me, if I'd seen him, that he was dead. You kept trying to bring me to him, but you'd get distracted, have to sign these boards….You were a Senator," she finished, still amazed he had such a position of power in her dream.
Luke sat a little straighter. "I was?"
"It was the weirdest dream. Everyone was worried, but more about how to tell me. And I was walking with you, I really wanted to see him. I don't know why, if he was dead, but I wanted to. And you kept having to leave me, things you had to do. It's still so clear." Leia remembered the feelings of dread and sadness and regret and loss, of things undone, unsaid. "Did you ever have a dream that just stayed with you the entire day? I just can't get rid of the mood of it, this melancholy."
Luke nodded, understanding. "I used to dream, when I was a kid, that my father was coming to get me. And I'd be, oh I don't know, quietly excited? I'd go around my day, doing chores, just waiting and excited. That I'd finally know him. And he wanted to know me. But something would always come up, and he'd call. Something always prevented him. But he wasn't the neglectful, bad father. He was genuinely sad, and so was I. I'd think about it all day." His eyes found Leia's and he was a little embarrassed, his childhood weakness laid out in front of her.
"I'm wondering why I dreamed him," Leia admitted. "It's not like I know him all that well. And before, I dreamed I was on Alderaan, and everything was so tender; I was so content. Then," she shrugged.
They were silent while they drank kaf. "So I was a Senator, eh?" Luke grinned.
Leia smiled. "Maybe I'm trying to understand what you both are to me," she said. "You two are a link between my old life and this new one. Maybe I'm sad when I see you because it reminds me of how much I've lost."
It disturbed Luke to think that Leia associated him with sadness. He struggled to find a new perspective for her. "But, too, we're your future? Because, yes, we came in when you lost Alderaan, but we helped you destroy the Death Star. And the Rebellion continues because of that. And it's growing," he added, warming to his analogy. "So, if you're sad when you see us," he knew you couldn't tell a person what not to feel, "you should also feel hopeful." He leaned towards her, "and I'm a Senator! I'm hopeful it means I'll find out more about the Force someday."
"Get your own dreams," Leia retorted, whacking him lightly with a pillow and feeling still melancholy, but no longer so alone. She sighed. "Well, as upset as I was in the dream, no doubt we'll be wanting to whack Han on the head with a hydrospanner in a few hours."
Luke laughed. "You, maybe. He doesn't often have that effect on me. He's not into guys."
"You call that flirting?" Leia asked in surprise. She shook her head. "The things he says."
"He does it on purpose, you know."
"Sometimes, I do know. His eyes get all sparkly."
Luke tried not to smile at her observation. He knew Han was playful, but he'd never describe his eyes as 'sparkly'. Then again, Luke thought wryly, I'm not into guys either.
"He's good at pushing your buttons," Luke said frankly. "I've seen you make a few good hits too." He drank his cooling kaf and set the mug on the ledge behind him. "We might be symbols, Leia, of your past. And I'd like to think your future, too. We are, 'cause we're still here. But, outside of dreams, we're here. You know that, right? In the real world, we talk and laugh and argue and just are -friends."
Leia nodded thoughtfully, seeing the long wooden table, the family. She put a face on two near her, Luke's and Han's, looked up at the presence of love and told it, Them too.
