…
One Month
Every time she sees him, he's always focused, intense. It's always about the next mission, the next ambush, the next rescue. His eyes flicker towards her when she enters, and for a moment she thinks she sees an awareness of her in his gaze, but then he blinks and it's gone.
It's always about the Rebellion.
It's contagious to a certain extent. Every time Hana's about to grab the few things she has scattered around base and make her way back to Tatooine, someone comes running into the control center panting with urgent news and a new mission. And every time, Hana listens to the plans these damned fool Rebels are making and knows that they have a better chance of succeeding if she comes along.
And so she goes, blaster on her hip and cocky smirk in place. She saves their asses, or at least proves useful. And every time she thinks about sitting this one out and letting a few people get killed for their stupidity, Chewie gives her the look he gave her when they were on their way out from Yavin.
"You know, buddy, for someone who owes me a life debt, you sure do have a lot of input on where we go," she mumbles, and he grunts a chuckle.
Sometimes I know what's best for you, little one, he replies, and she rolls her eyes.
"Being free of a bounty on my head is good for me," she retorts.
Chewie, in his infinite Wookiee wisdom, doesn't reply.
Then there's a moment where she's gathering her stuff to finally leave and there isn't a mission keeping her from leaving, from flying away and never looking back. No one runs in, no one needs saving.
She sees Luke in the control center as she goes to collect the debt Wedge owes her from their last game of Sabaac. There are others scattered around the room, talking quietly, working diligently, but she glimpses him standing by the navigation desk, working alone. He's leaning over the main desk, examining holocharts of remote planets to figure out their next escape route, their next mad-dash backup plan.
The Falcon needs repairs, she decides. The engine isn't sounding as smooth as it used to when it boots up. She'd have Chewie take a look with her. It wouldn't be any good to fly to Tatooine to pay off her debt and have her ship blow up on her on the way.
She could leave him to his work. Or she could give him a break, ease his mind a little bit, warm her hands on the fire that makes him work so ceaselessly.
…
It's a bad day for him. It's been a month since the Battle of Yavin, a month since The Disaster. He woke up from a restless sleep sweating last night, his back tingling with Vader's presence, gasping in a breath to scream as the sickly green beam hit Alderaan again, just as it does every night.
The holocharts keep blurring in front of his eyes no matter how much he blinks.
And then there's someone behind him.
...
"Whatcha looking at, Your Highness?" She asks, walking up behind him until she's obnoxiously close, her chest almost touching his back.
He shifts away uneasily. She moves again until she's in the same position, pretending not to notice his discomfort.
"Holocharts," he says. "I'd think you'd be able to see that, even with your level of intellect."
He's feeling feisty today. Okay. She could use a good fight.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She asks, pretending to be hurt.
"If you don't know what it means, you're even dumber than I gave you credit for just now."
He isn't even looking at her; he's dismissing her without even bothering to glance her way.
This is the real insult, she thinks. His lack of attention. Or, at least, his pretense of lack of attention. She's wearing her good shirt today, the one she happens to be wearing whenever she catches Luke staring at her.
Then again, she's been wearing this shirt a lot lately. Maybe it's losing its charm.
"Well, the least you could do is look at me while you insult me." Her voice turns low and smooth, a husky sound designed to distract.
His back stiffens. For a moment, she thinks he won't rise to her unspoken challenge, but then he turns ever so slowly, straightening to his full height until he's standing a good six inches taller than her. His eyes are the bluest she's ever seen today, his hair unusually unkempt. He's been unsuccessful in his work. She can always tell; he always looks like he's especially irritated.
"There," he says. His eyes transfix her, freeze her; for a moment, she forgets to move, to breathe. "Now I'm looking at you. Can you leave me alone now? Some of us are actually trying to work."
He turns back to the holocharts and the moment is gone; she's freed.
"You'd think you'd be grateful," she says and she's already starting to smile because she knows what his response is going to be to this next taunt. He's going to tell her that he wishes "Here I am, putting my life on the line for your Rebellion, and what do I get? Nothing but insults." She can hear him start to measure his breathing, carefully drawing in and blowing out, drawing in and blowing out, drawing in— "What does a girl have to do to get treated right around here? Actually die?"
He's silent for a moment. His fists are clenched and he's shaking and she realizes that she's gone too far this time, that this isn't what she was expecting.
"Don't play that kriffing game with me, Hana," he says, and he's deadly quiet. He spits his response through gritted teeth. "We both know why you're here. It's not to be 'treated right.' You're getting paid handsomely for the work you're doing, or at least as handsomely as we can afford. You're draining our funds – credits we need for supplies and food and everything else we don't have enough of. You don't deserve to be treated well for that, or for anything you're doing here. You speak of death like you'd die the death of a hero, like all the others who've died for this cause. But you wouldn't. You stand for nothing and no one but yourself. And you would die for nothing and no one but yourself." He draws a breath. The last thing he says is so quiet, she has to strain to hear him. "So if you're looking to be treated right, I think I've already helped you with that."
The room is quiet now. Everyone has left their work to listen. He's left her breathless, small. He walks away from her then and doesn't bother looking back as he leaves, intent on getting away, on continuing his work, on doing something, anything, except remember what it felt like to watch billions of people, his people, be dissipated into oblivion in a single moment.
She leaves by another door, head down.
…
He wanders to the hangar bay. He finds Leia deep in the mechanical guts of her X-Wing, staring and motionless. She startles when he says her name and her eyes are wide when she finally sees him.
"I didn't hear you coming," she says, and wipes at her cheek. She's trying to hide the tears that have been flowing since long before he arrived, but he sees them and knows. He lets her hide in herself for a moment longer and pretends not to notice as he sits next to her, folding his legs.
"How are the repairs coming?" He asks.
"What?" She's confused, forgetting for the moment what she had meant to be doing. "Oh. Good. I mean, great."
There's a pause. He's thinking about her again, the girl with the low-cut cream shirt and the laughing hazel eyes. Laughing at him. Laughing at death. Laughing at the whole lot of them.
"Why are you still here, Leia?" He asks. The question comes pouring out of him. It's one of the few moments he forgets his diplomacy, his training. It's a slip that a skilled tactician would read into, pry into, use to understand him better, use to their advantage. It betrays his loneliness, his sense of disillusionment in the people around him.
How can everyone carry on when his world has fallen apart, been blasted apart? How can they speak of the Alderaanian refugees in practical terms? These were his people. These are his people, freshly extinguished from the galaxy. And the world is moving on. The fight is pressing forward.
"Well," Leia says slowly. "I guess it was either you or them. And it couldn't be them."
There was a side to pick in this great war, in this fight that had already extinguished a world and a half, a planet and a 'death star.'
He recognizes this black-and-white approach for what it is; innocence.
"Who'd you lose?" He asks, knowing it goes deeper than her loss of the old man, the shell of grief that had once been Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"My family," is her answer. "My whole family. My aunt and uncle."
He knows better than to speak during the pause that follows. He knows there's more coming.
"I saw their bodies burned. Our house burned. Their skeletons were still smoking when I found them." Her eyes are burning dry now, tears gone. The moments when she wants to cry the most are the moments the tears won't come. "I was too late."
The moments they do are the moments she remembers the kindness in Aunt Beru's face, the laugh wrinkles around Uncle Owen's eyes. How they were both cracked and dry from desert life, resigned to a destiny of hard work and thankless toil.
He puts his arm around her thin shoulders and she starts to shake, just as he did when Hana spoke to him the way she had.
He knows he'd been harsh to Hana, knows Hana won't understand why, knows that he'd overreacted according to the terms she'd silently set forth. They'd only been sparring. He'd taken it too far.
Leia turns to him, seeking out his warmth, and hides her face in his tunic. He isn't used to comforting; he pets her hair gently at first, stiffly, before he fully embraces her.
They recognize their own grief in each other. They'd both let down the people who were the most important to them.
…
Hana goes in search of Luke. Why, she isn't sure. Perhaps to apologize, perhaps to stand in silence and offer peace, perhaps to try to wipe away her previous words with stilted conversation.
She finds him in the hangar bay holding Leia and she hesitates before she turns away to begin searching for something, anything to do, any mission to venture, any supply run to make.
When Commander Wos'Eck approaches her with the reward for a successful mission the next day, she shakes her head and walks away.
"Put it to good use," she calls over her shoulder. "I've got enough."
