A.N.: Almost done.
This story was SO much fun to write.
I hope you guys liked it as much as I loved composing it!
Chapter 7
That was too close.
Way too close.
I can't risk falling for him again. I admitted my love, and look where it almost landed me?
So now I am as cold and icy as I can manage.
"Leia?" He taps me on the shoulder. I turn to face him.
"Yes," I say in a clipped voice. He blinks, probably at the sudden change from my behavior only yesterday.
"Um," he says awkwardly. "What happened, before?"
I stare at his hazel eyes, and a torrent of emotion rips through me. Despair. Relief. Anger, disbelief. Love.
No, no, no. Not love.
"You came to my rooms and bugged me a while, I opened the door when an avalanche fell on me, I got injured, we had to escape to the fresher. We survived for a few nights before we were buried by a disruption from the search party's drills. They found us and they healed us. You went crazy..." I trail off, refusing to look at Han anymore.
"Oh," he says, a layer of confusion still covering his words. "That's...it?" I hear hopefulness, and disappointment. "Because...I think I remember-"
"Nothing happened, okay?" My voice breaks, and I turn so my back to him. Tears threaten to burst forwards, and I bite back a wail. "Nothing."
There is a thick, sticky silence that is slowly drowning me in my own sorrow.
"Okay," Han's voice is as frigid, if even more, as mine. "Thanks for telling me, sweetheart."
I can't take it any longer. I take one last, tear-blurred glance before bolting away from him, back to my temporary rooms to scream my hysteria out.
Sure, I had lost my mind for a week or two, but I swear, I remember some of it.
Fragments, bits and pieces of a frame of time that we have dropped on the ground. It has shattered into a billion pieces, and now it is a danger to our feet. Tread quietly, carefully.
Now, it is my turn for the nightmares. And ironically, I dream of Alderaan.
I am walking on the black fabric that is the universe. Passing stars and planets. Even black holes cannot drag me down.
Then I see the Death Star, the fateful green bolt hitting the planet of Alderaan, as Leia had described to me so vividly.
It bursts in a great white light, spreading razor sharp pieces of it all over the galaxy. No matter how hard I try, I have stepped on one.
Blood pours from the soles of my feet, rising up, coating my body, my face. Filling my nostrils and choking me.
And I see nothing but scarlet until it shifts and warps into a fuzzy, wavering image, like a scene seen through a heat wave.
Leia. She is holding on to my arm. Warm sensations as her light fingers trace the features of my face. Her soft, tickling whisper on my ear. Her warm brown gaze.
Her soft, beautiful, beautiful lips on mine.
And suddenly it is like I am falling away from it.
No. It is falling away from me. It turns clear and blue. A perfect, coldly beautiful crystal of ice that is twisting and spiraling steadily down to the tough, unyielding, cruel fabric of the universe.
It shatters.
The millions upon millions of fragments embed in my flesh, causing sharp flashes of pain throughout my body, stabbing at my heart.
I wake, breathing heavily, sweat covering my body.
Sitting up, I realize I am trembling from head to toe. There is still a dull throbbing pain in my chest. I look up and see that faithful golden medal on my dresser.
I take it, clasping it in my hand, slowly changing the coldness of the metal to the same warmth of my living hand.
Is Leia like that golden medal?
Is all she really needs is warmth?
If that is the case,
I can help her.
A.N.: Epilogue still awaits!
And reviews?
