Nothing worked.
Oh, the sales went fine—better than fine. Doc was confident in his services and ran a straight pitch: he flew cargo better than anyone, on time and at a fair price. That was it. That was all he said, in meeting after meeting, day after day, all over the city of Eisley. Han kept his mouth shut until he was asked about routes or mechanical specs; no jokes or flattery required, Cunliffe laid those on thick enough.
No: it was the motel that did Han in. The Valley Dell Motor Inn. Doc wasn't cheap, so work trips were generally comfortable, but this time Cunliffe had been entrusted with arrangements and had obviously forgotten. This motel was all that was available in Eisley in the crowded summer. How Han hated it. Hated driving back to the squat, glitter-stucco building every evening after supper in some lousy bar and grill. Hated the stagnant-smelling creek that cut through the scrubby campground next door. And, Han being Han, he especially hated that everything was broken.
It was! Everything was fuckin' broken! Han raged it to himself standing in the shower under a cold, rust-tinged trickle of water, unable to work up the faintest lather from the stingy bar of soap. Han hated the electric percolator that didn't get much hotter than the shower, hated the sachets of gritty instant coffee, still more potable than the bitumen brewed by the not-Chewie diner across the street. Han hated his room's fake-pine panelling, the windows that didn't open and the blinds that didn't close over the window that hoarded sunlight while he was out. Hated the hollow, warped door that wouldn't stay open until Han propped it with the phone book in the evenings so he wouldn't die of heat exposure. Hated the radio that never got a clear signal. Hated the portable fan, its breeze set to kitten-sneeze and no higher.
He hated (...feared? asked his mind-voice. Hated, Han snarled back) the slosh and thump of the public laundry room separating his room from Doc's. He used it sometimes—the trip was a week, he had to—but did so like a child taking medicine, lips set, eyes almost slits. Threw his clothes in, the soap, and sat on the balcony just outside, fiddling with his knife. Didn't bother with the dryer—it was July, he just hung his clothes from the closet rail in his stuffy room. Wore his jeans damp in the evening because why not, seeing the change in their fit, how the Rogues had been right.
Hated, hated the bed, so narrow and short that it seemed the manifestation of loneliness.
But most of all. Most of all, Han hated the telephone.
The first day away, the fifth of July, the men had met in Eisley and gone straight into long meetings. Hours. After that Han had to drive Millie after Cunliffe's sedan all over town in unfamiliar traffic, stop-and-start, searching for something with vacancy. When they'd finally found the Valley Dell Motor Inn, it was gone five o'clock, twelve hours since Han hit the road from Alder Glen—and he and Leia hadn't slept much, though Han had no regrets about that. Exhausted, Han climbed to the balcony and unlocked his door into the sweltering room, threw his duffel on one of two stunted, plaid-covered beds and flopped down on the other. It sagged dramatically in the middle, and Han grumbled as he rolled over to grab the phone on the pressboard bedside table.
Han made it through the first four digits of his own home number, DL-44...before realizing he heard nothing on the line but eerie flatness. He rattled the depressor, hoping in vain for a dial tone.
Fuck. Pulling himself from the polyester ditch of the bed Han went down the outdoor stairs. The front office was located by the pool, empty of water and tentacled with mold. There was no one at the reception desk. There was a bell, one of those small steel jobs that sounded like a bright peal from hell. Han extended a hand over its dinger, then stuck his fingers back in his jeans pocket. Even hot and frustrated and focused on calling Leia as he was, Han didn't want to be that guy, the Threkin Horm, the haughty prick who thought clocks were set to his very pulse. He could give it a couple minutes; at least the office was air-conditioned.
To distract himself Han turned the listing metal rack of postcards. And they were the weirdest shit—one of a bleak diner table, empty of all but a bowl of steaming beige paste. Muffling his snort, Han plucked the card from its slot. Behind it he found a glamor shot of the Valley Dell pool actually clean and in use, all turquoise water and sunbathers. Han took it too and held it up to the window, comparing it to the slimy pit outside. He began to feel a little guilty, then—not a whole lot, but some. Perhaps the twins' empathetic imagination was rubbing off on him: what if the motel used to be nice, but the owners had fallen on hard times? Maybe they were old folks, some long-married pair that couldn't keep up with the maintenance work, and—
Han gave the bell as brief and courteous a tap as he could. There was no sound except a flat, dull click. A man emerged, anyway, from some back room: forty-odd and tanned, looked capable enough in his white sport shirt and madras shorts. Wearing a watch that cost more than Han's truck. Set of golf clubs slung over his shoulder, an exasperated look. Han had clearly interrupted Chet's (he had to be a Chet) plans for an evening on the course. Fella had some nerve, Han thought. Some nerve to take people's money for amenities you didn't provide, and just...piss off. Maybe he fed complainers to the fungal monster living in the swimming pool.
"Just the postcards? Take them," Chet snapped.
"It's the phone in my room," Han said, in a level way that everyone who knew him would recognize as true distaste.
"What's it doing?"
Han stared. "Not phonin'."
Chet took in Han's clothes, his Levi's, pearl-snapped plaid work-shirt rolled to the elbows, engineer boots. "There's a payphone at the gas station down the street."
"See, that ain't—" Han began, lifting his index finger, but Chet was already out the door, problem solved in his own mind.
Han scowled. No sense of standards, no pride? Teeth clamped into his tongue, Han shook his head. The postcards were five cents each; Han snapped his dime on the desk and left.
Back in his room Han had a weak shower, then changed into khaki bloodstripes and clean t-shirt and walked to the Texaco three blocks east, called Leia from the payphone to say he'd arrived. The booth was glass and even with the folding door retracted it held the whole day's heat. He felt like some wilting plant, and through the hiss and whistle of the bad connection, he heard little of what Leia said. Han pressed the palm of his hand hard to the glass above his head. All he could say was that he was there and alive, that he loved her and goodnight, and hope Leia heard him. After a stretch of dead silence Han hung up with a soft curse.
On his way back, Han stopped in the unlocked, deserted office and swiped the silver bell.
XXXXXXXXXX
The days passed, but the days weren't the worst. During the days, there was work, and though Han easily spent hours in the hangar and whistled all the way home after, sales work drained him. Cunliffe was draining, relentlessly demanding attention. Waitresses, clients, restaurant patrons, motel neighbors, Han, Doc—he set out to charm them all. Cunliffe was hot-tempered, but he was not truly vicious; just perpetually onstage, craving adulation. He made Han, a high-energy man himself but not at all the same type, want to sack out and sleep for a week.
But Han couldn't sleep. In the evenings he found himself tuning in to the quiz shows Leia watched on their own new TV, and he had not much hope of competition but Han liked to imagine her watching them too, liked and winced to think of her listening as she wandered their own clean, functional, compact home. Alone. He pictured Leia absently offering correct answers to Twenty-One as she got food, books, drinks, misplaced her glasses, reviewed her research, took notes. Curled in the armchair wearing one of his old t-shirts in that careless, shoulder-slipped way that drove him nuts. Leia Organa. If he'd been a contestant, her name would have been Han's every answer.
As he watched, Han wrote out his postcards with the silver drafting pen Luke had given him for Christmas. And it was Luke Han sent the first postcard to. On the front the postcard was printed in chlorine-blue script: Valley Dell Motor Inn. Enjoy our pool! In his own black ink Han drew crude tentacles flailing from the water like in those sci-fi flicks the kid liked and scrawled on the back: E3—It's a trap. The pit monster will eat you for a thousand years. E7.
The picture of weird hot mush Han sent to Chewie. Cream of what the hell is this? See you soon, pal.
To Leia, for Leia, Han tried to write a letter on the small pad of paper he found under the phone that couldn't reach her. But he didn't get past Sweetheart, I want before he was thumb-clicking his retractable pen, thinking of when the Damerons drove out to Alder Glen so Kes could wire the shop while Leia and Shara took Poe on a picnic. As they pulled paraphernalia from their car, Shara casually handed the baby to Han. Han froze—what was the kid, four or five months old?—but the boy's big shiny eyes had quickly tracked the glinting pen behind Han's ear. So Han settled the kid as best he could in the crook of one arm and spun the steel cylinder between his fingers, like a propeller. Poe chirruped and flailed, trying to close his dimpled hands on the flashes of silver. Pilot-reflexes on the little guy. Han was grinning at the kid when Leia came through the screen door onto the porch.
Her hair was loose-plaited over one shoulder; she wore the red gingham sundress he'd bought her. Damn. Damn, Han hadn't been able to fully picture, in Priscilla's shop, just how the dress would honor her hourglass figure. Poe batted at Han's moving Adam's apple. Beaming at the baby, Leia clapped her hands softly and held them out to him. With a delighted squeal, Poe lunged for Leia so quickly that Han lunged with him to keep the kid from taking a header. Leia picked Poe up and perched him at her hip, smiling as he pawed at the sunglasses atop her head. Man Leia looked pretty, and right, and happy, walking down the forest path laughing with her best friend and the baby. As he watched her go, checked skirt swaying around her knees, Han wasn't sure who was goggling at Leia harder: him or the adoring kid in her arms. And then Leia glanced back over one milky shoulder and winked, the little minx, knowing Han couldn't tackle her to the thick bracken then and there.
But that wasn't the sort of thing a guy wrote out, was it? I like you. Babies like you. You're so pretty, Princess. Jesus Christ! Han shoved the paper away, went for another walk to the Texaco for another call that was so broken up it was like speaking in code: I. You. Miss. Love. Goodnight.
Late on July eighth, the night before his birthday, Han stumbled on some weird show, eerie theme tune raising the hair on his arms. But stalled halfway to sleep he watched, and disconnected from his wife, from their life, Han found he could relate. Yeah, he was in The Twilight Zone alright, trapped alone in a dimension where nothing. Fucking. Worked, and the twist was—this was killer—the twist was that this man, this particular man, really liked things to work. (...needed? Han's mind-voice prodded. No! Han mentally snarled back. Just really, really, really liked.)
In front of the high, whining test pattern Han finally slipped over the line of sleep, into the ninth of July. And he dreamed he was in Korea again, on his side across his high, too-short bunk. The mail call going on and on, through all the names that weren't his own. All them love letters and birthday cards and Han had to look like he didn't give a fuck.
XXXXXXXXXX
July 9, 1957. Han returned from a breakfast meeting at past one, terse and irritable. He stuck a couple bottles of soda in the bag of ice he bought from the diner—the motel machine was out of everything but warm grape Fanta—and collapsed across the beds. He'd pushed the two together, and this was even more uncomfortable but Han was too stubbornly pissed to change it back. He didn't have more meetings until three o'clock, so Han sank into a hot, restless nap that turned into a dream of Leia on their dock, lying on her belly in red gingham bikini bottoms that knotted at the sides. And she was playing like she was surprised to find one bow untied—playing like a pinup but smart, wry, still Leia all the while, smiling at him in her secret way, smiling over her shoulder, sweeping her hair from her huge eyes and oh the swelling rise and fall on the water, the way she—
Han woke hard as hell and that did not help his mood at all. He went into the shower, facing the mean, trickling chill until his heavy heat abandoned him. That was a mercy; the prospect of taking care of himself in this rust-mottled shower, alone on his birthday, depressed Han beyond expression. Another time, another place, no problem, but in this setting it seemed just...miserable function.
Pulling up boxer-briefs Han snapped on the radio, expecting it to fail him. He wasn't a self-pitying man, he was forever grateful for what he had but today, the ninth of July, stranded in the Jolly Hell Motor Inn, Han allowed a sullen grievance to creep in, even sought further evidence of his mistreatment. But the radio...worked, clear and loud. Hands on his slim jersey-cottoned hips, Han cocked his head in disbelief at the DJ's slick patter. Well alright, Han thought. Let no one say Han Solo wouldn't take a little good luck.
And then Han's eye fell on something that had been slipped under his door while he was asleep, or in the shower.
No way. Too good to be true. The envelope was pale blue, same shade as Leia's fancy stationery but...no. No point in jacking up his hopes. The note was probably from Cunliffe, some dirty knock-knock joke and any minute the guy would actually knock because that was the kinda shit he—
Han stepped closer. Most of the envelope was obscured by a sticker that read Registered Overnight Mail. Doc had signed for delivery but the letter smelled like Leia, roses and vanilla. Swiftly Han knelt, grabbed the envelope up. It was addressed to Han Solo, c/o the Valley Dell Motor Inn. He rose, retrieved his knife and slit the envelope, removed several small, folded pages. They were scented even more like her and Alder Glen, like Leia in their home, and Han felt a wave of feeling so powerful that he sank to the edge of the bed.
Han's lips parted and eyebrows knit as he read.
The first page was headed Twenty-Five and it, and all the pages that followed, was listed with things Leia Organa loved about her young husband. Things that made her laugh, that comforted her, made her feel cherished or safe or feverish. Things that reminded her of him, that she wanted to do with and to him, over the course of a lifetime with him. And his wife, his stealthy, pensive sleuth, hadn't stopped at twenty-five things about Han Solo but had collected fifty-six, and Han didn't know if this was intentional reference to the year they'd met or simply that that was when she'd had to hit the mailbox, but it thrilled him, moved him, nonetheless.
Leia's observations ranged from teasing to tender; from clever to insightful to silly to so incendiary Han's hand involuntarily crumpled delicate paper. She loved his innate pride, the way he wore his pants, his ash-green eyes, things he made. His quick tongue (his tongue made other appearances on the list). The unique workings of his mind. The lanky inventiveness of his body, also its occasional idiosyncratic clumsiness. Sometimes Leia thought all her work-day of things he'd said when he was inside her; the way their words could be both plea and order. She wrote of her possessive thrill to see his wedding ring on the chain that held his dogtags, when he forgot to return it to his hand after work: liked to see the circlet outlined beneath an undershirt. Said it was erotic in some unknowable way, her ring in the fine bronze hair, on the chain that held other vital information of faith and heart. She liked the notion that Han Solo was hers, Leia supposed, more than she should, more than she would ever have guessed.
She loved, loved the way he kissed her.
Leia's love for Han was blazing and joyous, funny, loyal and fierce, pressed into the paper in every elegant stroke of ink. Han swore when he was done reading, sighed and swore in a rush and put his hands over his face and tried to smooth the creased paper out. What she'd written took the form of a list but it was a letter alright, Han Solo's first personal letter. His own love letter and the best ever, of course it was, it was from his girl and how did Leia know, how did she know these things?
He knew he'd look crazy if anyone came to the door now, him in his undershorts, hard-on back with a vengeance (#9 on the list, holy Christ). Han bit flat his trembling lip, worried at the lump in his throat that felt big and sweet as a Pippin apple. Chest thumping out Sweetheart. Sweetheart, Sweetheart.
What to do now? He had to talk to Leia, had to reach her. Han being Han he decided to ride his luck.
He tried the phone.
And, deep and constant, he heard a tone.