AN: I took a bit of creative license in this chapter. There was not, to my knowledge, an incident such as the one described here, in 1966. It's a plot device, and I hope you think that I've used it well.
The Truth
August, 1966
Han was sitting in the cramped office of the moving company, eating the sandwiches he'd brought for lunch. The tiny television was tuned in to the twelve o'clock news, but nobody was paying much attention to it. Han was trying to figure out what kind of evening he'd have to plan to convince Leia to blow off work for the second night in a row when the 'breaking news' icon began flashing. The sight caught Han's attention immediately.
It was the office building where Leia worked. The banner at the bottom of the screen read 'Bombing at Senate Offices Linked to Civil Rights Vote.' His hand shot out for the volume knob, and he cranked it to 'full'.
"…Device detonated at 11:46 this morning. So far no deaths have been reported, but several congressmen, paralegals, secretarial staff, and maintenance workers were injured. The fire department is still working to get the fire under control.
"Authorities received an anonymous telephone call at the time of the explosion. While specifics of this call have not been released at this time, police say that several senators and their staff were targeted due to their stance on civil rights, including Senator John Dodonna of Georgia, Senator Aaron Cracken of Maryland, and Senators Monique Mothma and Carl Rieekan of Alabama."
Leia worked for Carl Rieekan. Her office had been targeted.
Han was in his station wagon before the others had even registered what was happening. He drove the distance quickly, parking in the lot of a dentist's office when he reached the police line.
Leia, where are you?
There were fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars everywhere. Men in sooty suits and women in dusty skirts and blouses stood in groups, huddled together against the fear that was palpable around the building. The structure was still smoldering, and firemen were hurrying about purposefully, getting the last of the fire under control. Off in the grassy area across the street, EMTs were helping injured people. But he couldn't find her anywhere. Please be alright, sweetheart, he begged. As one minute turned to five, his panic increased.
He finally found her standing in the far corner of the parking lot with Carl Rieekan and a few other professionally-dressed people, stoically looking at the scene with practiced indifference. Her quiet inner strength astounded him more than her physical strength did.
She didn't hear him approach, and when he called to her quietly, she turned, startled, as if he'd screamed at her. It was only then that he saw the immense fear in her eyes. She practically fell into his arms, her façade fading as she burrowed into the safety of his chest. Han pressed kisses into her hair, mumbling comforting words.
"I've got you. Let it out, it's alright," he assured her as eerily silent sobs wracked her tiny form, as if she was practiced at hiding her sorrow.
Mr. Rieekan looked over at the pair and exchanged a significant look with a woman standing nearby.
"You'll see she gets home alright, son?" Rieekan asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Will you be alright, dear?" The woman put a hand to Leia's cheek.
"I'll be fine, Monique," she promised. Rieekan and Mothma nodded, moving toward a fireman who was beckoning them. "I…I don't want to go back to my apartment," Leia whispered. He nodded, tucking her under his arm and pointing her towards his station wagon.
They were quiet on the ride back to Han's house. Chewbacca greeted them warmly when Han unlocked the door.
"I'd like to take a shower," she stated, her voice back to the strong and even tone that he recognized.
"Sure. Did you have lunch? I can find us something…"
"That's alright, I'm not really hungry," she answered. The door clicked closed behind her, and he heard the water turn on. Han kicked around in the kitchen for a few minutes, moving his breakfast dishes from the table to the counter and then from the counter to the sink before deciding to just wash them quickly before she got out of the shower.
He finally turned the TV on, turning it from coverage of the bombing to a The Newlywed Game and settling on the lime-green couch when he heard the bathroom door open. She had pulled on one of his shirts and her short hair was still damp. She'd washed off her makeup along with the soot. Han had never seen her without make up on, but he thought she was just as pretty without it.
"C'mere," he beckoned. Leia sat down next to him and leaned into his embrace with no urging on his part, nestling into his chest and wrapping her arms around him. He reciprocated the embrace and they sat, listening to Bob Eubanks ask the husbands questions. "You okay?"
"Yeah. It was a few offices down the hall, so I wasn't close enough to be hurt in the blast."
"That's not what I meant."
"Am I okay with the fact that people want to blow me up because I work for a man who doesn't believe in hating people based on the color of their skin?" she asked dangerously. Han cleared his throat.
"Yeah."
"I need to tell you something," she began slowly, sitting up and taking on a business-like stance.
Han turned down the volume on the game show and nodded for her to continue, sensing that she was about to divulge some dark and deeply hidden part of herself.
"My father was a lawyer in Alabama. He was well liked by everyone. Even if someone didn't agree with him, he could still convince them to do what was right in the end. He was…he was a real-life Atticus Finch, Han. And I was Scout. I wanted to be exactly like him. So I studied hard and got into a boarding school in New York, and then Harvard.
"He and my mother raised me to believe that it's the quality of people's minds that makes them different. Important. Special, even. It's not the color of their skin or their gender or anything superficial like that. So when I passed the bar, I wanted nothing more than to go into practice with him and start fixing the problem in Alabama. I was so young and innocent, thinking that I could change the world, like that, just out of law school with my father.
"My dad took a case for a black man named Roger Clemens. He was accused of holding up a convenience store and shooting the attendant. It was straight out of Harper Lee. Daddy knew it wasn't him, and the judge was starting to believe him, too.
"One night, during the trial, Mama called and asked us to pick up some milk on the way home. We stopped at the A&P…and I don't know how, but he knew they were there. Daddy told me that Mama needed a new bar of Ivory Soap. That sent me across the store; it kept me safe." She stopped and heaved a heavy breath. He wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about, but he could see tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "But I still heard the shots. I heard him cry out. I ran back, but it was too late. There was so much…blood," she breathed. "There was just such a cruel irony to it. The whole thing was started because someone was shot in a grocery store. It ended the same way for Daddy." The tears spilled over then, dragging sparkling tracks down her ghost-like cheeks. "I took over the case. I got him acquitted. I cleared Roger Clemens' name. For a few days, I thought that it might all be part of some big plan for me to step into my father's footsteps."
"And…"
"And then they…they got him, too. Three days after he went free, they lynched him." Her voice hitched. "It was a man known as Darrin Vader; I know it was him. He was a powerful business man in our town, and he had always hated my father for his beliefs on civil rights. He was the Klan leader in our area. He was probably behind my father's death, too, but the police were never able to prove anything. One Sunday, Mama and I came home from church to find all the windows broken in the house. Mama moved in with my Daddy's three sisters on the other side of the state, and I took the job here, working with Carl Rieekan. And I vowed on that day that I would never stop fighting this. Them." Her voice was tiny, practically nonexistent. He pulled her to rest against his chest.
"It's easy to remember that, some days," she continued. "But not every day. Like today. Today feels like the day I learned what it sounds like when you fire a Colt 45 in an A&P."
"Leia…" he whispered again, holding her tighter. He'd known, very vaguely, the circumstances of her father's death. But he hadn't known she'd almost seen it happen or heard his last breath.
"Now you know," she finished, wiping away her tears. Her strength amazed him once again as she composed herself. Han had absolutely no idea what to say. There was nothing to say, not a single cluster of words in the English language that could even begin to ease this woman's pain.
"One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning," he sang. She gave a watery smile as he continued to sing. Han ran his fingers through her damp hair as he continued his off-key crooning. "So come with me and we'll go and see the big rock candy mountain." Her head fell to his chest as she took a few deep breaths.
She was asleep before the last chorus.
00
Before that day, Han would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that Leia Organa was always 100% collected. Whether she was being chased by a giant dog or facing down an ignorant passerby, she always looked like she knew exactly what she was doing, like she was completely in control of herself and the situation. Hell, just today she'd been barely rattled when a bomb had gone off twenty feet from her office or when she'd told him about the KKK murdering her father. He would have readily believed that she could walk off a battle field, straighten her skirt, put on a fresh layer of lipstick, and continue taking the world by storm.
But all of that was before she'd fallen asleep on his chest and subsequently awoken after a two-hour nap, more adorable than a kitten.
Han had pulled his granny's crocheted afghan down over their legs when Leia started shivering. Leia's hair had dried in a strange little curl where he'd been playing with it. She stretched against him, causing some delicious friction, before her brown eyes opened and searched sleepily for his. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes like a child, scrunching up her pert little nose. Her fine stockings were bunched up around the ankles, making her already tiny feet looked even smaller. Her cheek was red and had little button-shaped indentations from where it had been pressed into his shirt, and her mouth curved up into a small smile when he ran his thumb down her jawline.
"Feeling better?" he asked.
"I don't want to talk about that anymore," she replied sharply. "I just want to…be a normal person for one night. Please?" He nodded quickly and ran his fingers through her hair short hair. She practically purred in response, and her lips found his a moment later.
"Telephone's ringing," she mumbled between kisses.
"Chewie'll get it," he teased, recapturing her full attention. The telephone continued to ring and the dog began barking at it. He pushed Leia gently to the end of the couch, muttering curse words. "Told you Chewie'd answer it. Don't forget where we were," he demanded, stomping into the kitchen to answer the phone.
She was too distracted to pay attention to the one-sided conversation.
"That was Jen. She's on her way over. Why don't we find something to eat?" he said when he returned.
They made dinner—well, Han made dinner. Leia mostly just sat on the counter, trying and failing at not being in his way. Not that he minded having her so close. Adorable Leia had retreated, but she was still more cuddly than he'd ever seen her.
Jen, Leia's new roommate, rang the bell at 5 o'clock. She'd brought Leia some clothes and a hairbrush.
"Your mom has called about eight times, Leia. She's worried sick," Jen informed her before going back to the apartment. Han pointed her to the blue telephone on the counter while he put plates and silverware on the little vinyl table.
He listened with amusement as Leia was passed around between her three aunts several times before finally being handed to her mother. She assured Breha that she was fine, not alone, and being well-taken care of.
"I'll call you later this week, Mama…Love you, too." She hung the receiver back on the hook. "Too many hens in the damn hen house, as Daddy would say," Leia muttered, drawing her chair closer to his at the table.
They ate the Mexican food that Han prepared, did the dishes, and curled back up on the couch. She was surprisingly willing to answer all the questions he asked about growing up in Alabama, about her parents, about reuniting with her brother after 20 years. He tried to stay strictly on happy topics and good memories, and she seemed to be happy telling him.
"I have an idea. I got some Rocky Road ice cream in the freezer. Let's make milkshakes," he suggested. Leia giggled. "My granny used to grind up Rocky Road and call it a 'Dusty Trail,' or somethin' like that."
"That's sweet. I'll take one." Han pulled her off the couch and led her the five steps to the citrus-colored kitchen.
She looked around the room as he made their dessert, her eyes finally falling on a shelf of dusty books. There was a dictionary, the red-gingham Betty Crocker cookbook that her mother swore by and her aunts detested, a telephone book, and an ancient-looking book bound in leather.
"What is this?" Leia asked, tapping the spine of the leather volume.
"Granny's old photo album. My uncle gave it to me after they cleaned out her house. You can look at it, if you want," he offered, turning back to the blender. She took it gently from the shelf and reclaimed her earlier place on the counter. Leia opened the cover, appreciating the way the leather spine crackled as she opened it and the way the fractured cover felt under her fingers, like the books in her father's library. It smelled musty and old, and faintly of perfume.
The first picture held a wedding portrait, taken in the early 1900's, based on the style of dress. Leia looked from the man in the portrait to her man at the counter. Despite the man's unruly hair and long beard, the resemblance was obvious, and it made her smile. The bride, no doubt Han's granny, was petite and delicate, with a head of light-colored hair and thick, wire-rimmed spectacles on her nose. Granny Solo was tucked protectively against her new husband's side, holding her bouquet in front of them. The photograph was loose, and Leia flipped it over to read the inscription on the back: 'Wedding of Mazie Kanata and Charlie Solo, August 8, 1912.'
The next page was covered with baby pictures, the name and birth date of each baby written in faded cursive in the white border of the photo. After that, there were photographs of those babies growing up: birthdays, proms, graduations. One page had several wedding photographs from the 30's sitting loose, pressed between the pages. They were all quite lovely: simple, but elegant, much like the tinted photograph of her parents' wedding that sat in the metal frame on the table by their bed. Leia liked the style of the gowns from that era. Breha had promised her dress to her daughter, when Leia's time came. She leafed through the portraits, finally finding Han's parents' portrait in the back. They were a lovely couple, and they were married the same year as her parents, according to the inscription. She could see where Han got his good looks.
"Here's your Dusty Trail, sweetheart."
"Thank you. It looks delicious," she replied, balancing the leather album on her knees and peering into the glass he passed her. Han took the album from her so she could stand and follow him back to the couch. He spread it open across their laps as they settled in with their milkshakes.
The next several pages were, to Leia's delight, pictures of Han's boyhood. His mother had died giving birth to Han's little sister, the baby surviving only a few days, and his father had been killed over France in the war, so he'd been raised by his Granny from the age of two.
There were pictures of Han's birthday cakes and first days of school. There was a picture of the day he finally passed the tiny, bespectacled woman in height, grinning his signature grin while standing back to back with her in front of a kitchen table. They found his graduation picture, young Han in a cap and gown and Granny Solo beaming from behind her thick glasses. There were a few pictures of Han in uniform, and Leia had to admit the sight made her heart flutter.
The final picture in the album was of Han holding Mazie like a man might his new bride. Both of them were obviously laughing, and Leia was pleased to realize that the look of happiness on Han's face in the snapshot was one she recognized, one she caused. He plucked the picture from the album and tucked it in his pocket, patting it lovingly.
Han enchanted Leia with tales of his childhood as the young and wiry sidekick of Mazie Kanata-Solo, and Leia decided she would have loved a chance to meet the tiny lady. She laughed till her sides ached and tears streamed from her eyes when Han jumped up from the couch and did an impression of his 4'11 care-giver hitting Han's uncle with a broom when he tracked mud into the house.
"She used to whack us all when we got out of line. All my uncles are taller'n I am, and she'd hit 'em with her wooden spoon or stand on a chair to cuff'em if they talked back to her. I remember once she made me bend down so she could smack me upside the head."
"Did you deserve it?" Leia asked.
"Oh, probably," he conceded, settling back in beside her.
"Well, then, I don't feel bad for you."
"Not even a little bit? Not even enough to kiss it better?" Han mock-pleaded, nuzzling his nose against her cheek.
"Oh, alright. Where does it hurt?" she acquiesced. He pointed to a spot on his head and she kissed it gently.
"And here," he added, pointing to his shoulder. Leia smiled and dropped her lips to his shoulder. "Here, too." Han touched his lips. Just as Leia was leaning in to kiss him, Chewbacca threw his front feet in Han's lap and licked his master's face. Leia rolled back on the couch, out of the way of the massive dog, shrieking with laughter. Han was busy wiping the dog slobber off his face, and Chewie was turning excitedly in circles, barking at the hullabaloo. "Come on, you crazy mutt. I'll let you out," Han relented, going into the kitchen to let Chewie out the back door.
Leia followed a minute later and found him leaned up against the counter, waiting for the dog to finish his business and come back. She leaned against him, winding her arms around his torso and putting her head against his chest. Han closed her in his embrace, too, and dropped a kiss into her hair.
The sunburst clock on the wall above the table showed that it was nearing 10 o'clock.
"You…want me to take you home?" he asked tentatively. Leia thought for a few moments and then shook her head against his torso. "I'll sleep on the couch," he offered. She shook her head again.
They went to bed after Chewie came back in. It seemed very domestic, very intimate, getting ready for bed with a woman. Han had been with other women before, but that had been entirely different from this. He'd never spent the entire night with anyone, not even his fiancée back in high school. He wasn't exactly sure what to say or do, but she nestled into his chest and closed her eyes.
As he fell asleep to the sound of her soft breathing, he knew in the back of his mind that he was holding the next 70 years of his life in his arms.
00
It started differently than her normal nightmares. The supermarket was empty, and she was walking through it alone, searching, searching. She called for him, knowing he had to be nearby. Daddy. Daddy? The final aisle. She turned. He was all in white, a pointed hood with little eye holes perched on his head. Black gloves on his hands that held the revolver. Behind him on the floor was the pool of blood and the white sheet. Daddy! she called to him again. The black-gloved hand raised the revolver and Leia screamed.
AN: So now you know! Next week: Some admissions and another argument...Final chapter in two weeks (yikes, how is it time for that already?) Please leave me a comment!
