Week 2 (07.14.06) - UDC1 - Irek Ismaren (AU... very, very AU)
6. hours
In the small hours of the morning, a little boy sits, his back to a bulkhead, and shivers at memory. It is hours since the pilot found him sitting amid debris, and hours since he lost everything he ever knew. The only thing he knows right now is his name, Irek, and who the pilot and his big furry friend are. The pilot-captain insisted that he come with them, and so here he sits, on a ship that reminds him of his missing mother. Thinking about her brings everything up all over again, and he can't help but cry silently.
7. days
It is a few days later when they land somewhere cold and the pilot he won't call by name hands him an oversized jacket. Irek takes it, puzzled as can be, and put's it on. Then he follows the pilot down the ramp and out into a very cold and very white inside space. "Is this... snow?"
The pilot stops and looks down at him, eyebrows raised. "Yes. This your first time seeing it, Irek?"
"Yes."
The pilot nodds knowingly. "Come on. We'll check in and then find something to eat."
"Eat the snow?"
A chuckle. "Not this week, no..."
8. weeks
"Irek?"
He looks up from the game table to find that senator friend of his mother's looking at him in concern. "Senator?"
She sighs. "You don't have to call me that. Call me Leia."
"Momma said to be respectful." It's the first time in weeks that thinking of her hasn't made him begin to cry, but Leia pulls him into an embrace.
"I know," Leia told him. "And you are. You are."
They sit like that until yelling commences from the engine compartment, making Irek blink. "More fixing?"
"Yes," Leia sighed. "More fixing."
9. months
The boarding ramp was barely even down when he heard his name being yelled out by a young, excited voice. Amused and very glad to see him, Han scooped the boy up. "Woah there, Irek."
"They got you back! Just like they said they would!"
Han blinked down at him. "Yes..."
"Thought you were gone. Like Momma."
And that's when it fell into place, what this little boy had been thinking the entire time. "Well I'm back now."
"For good?"
As he walked down the boarding ramp, Han nodded. There was nothing else he could say.
10. years
It has been years since he was adopted. Years since he became Irek Ismaren Solo officially, child of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo. Years since it mattered that this family formed out of strangers seeking the same goal wasn't really his own. Years since he accepted that the dull ache of losing the only family he'd had before would always be there...
Now, as he gazes upon his new baby siblings for the first time, it feels like it should matter. Should, but as Han, now father and Dad, and not Pilot, touches his shoulder and welcomes him closer, he finds it doesn't. That it never has and never will.
