A/N: Apologies for the delay in updating - was off playing in the woods for most of July! Hope you enjoy ...
Underneath it All
When Han and Leia reached the platform for honored guests, Luke shoved a large datapad into his sister's hands.
"Your own brother has to find out from the holonews?"
Leia looked down at the image on the device's screen: a holo of Han kissing her, taken only minutes ago.
"That isn't what it looks like."
Luke gave her his best 'incredulous brother' look before turning his attention to Leia's companion, "Han?"
"Don't look at me, Kid."
"Uh huh. Right," he sat down, gesturing for Han and Leia to do the same, "Well, when you're ready to tell me, you know where to find me."
"There's nothing to tell."
"And don't forget to invite me to the bonding ceremony."
"Cute."
"Unless that's already happened," the Jedi deadpanned.
Leia rolled her eyes, miffed. Was the whole galaxy conspiring against her? She decided that she didn't want to think about it too hard. She also didn't want to think about the man sitting just a bit too close to her, as if he had every privilege to do such a thing. She scooted a hairsbreadth toward her brother.
"I ain't gonna bite, Your Worship. Maybe if you want me to, but I don't remember you being into that kind of thing in public."
"Shut up, Han."
"Easy."
Luke kept his eyes forward, staring at the dramatic white draping on the monument and shaking his head.
"You know Chewie asked me to say a few words."
"Why didn't you tell me, Luke?"
"Because you'd try to give me advice."
Physically shoving him would have been indecorous, so she gave him a mental slap through the Force. Unaware of the connection between the twins, Han chuckled.
Hey, you know that is exactly what you would have done, Luke's thought came through loud and clear.
"I could have given you good advice."
Han casually draped his arm on the back of Leia's seat and leaned behind her head to speak to the Jedi, "For the record, my advice would be to leave the talking to the politicians like Her Highnessness. Two mynocks, one boulder."
"Normally I'd be with you, Han, but Chewie asked me personally."
Leia didn't catch all of her date's reply over the loud conversation of three howling Wookiees approaching them, but heard the words, 'lucky', 'Wookiee kinda persuasion', and 'stupid'. She still wondered why Chewie was tolerating Han's presence at the event; after all, she was barely tolerating him.
She caught Chewbacca's eye in the approaching group. He glanced quickly from her to Han and back again and bared his teeth ever so slightly. To humans who hadn't been around Wookiees very much, the expression would have been interpreted as threatening. Leia wasn't absolutely certain, but she would have bet a good number of credits that that was a smirk. She'd seen her friend use it to good effect in a variety of circumstances, including several Sabaac games.
Still, she was confused about Chewie's relative warmth toward Han. During the ride from her office, he had insisted repeatedly that things really were okay between him and his former partner. In fact, she didn't believe him until the Wookiee ruffled Han's hair in greeting.
["I am glad you made it, little one,"] he addressed her directly.
"I am honored, Governor."
["We will begin soon. Are you well?"]
"Yes, yes," she glanced at Han, who still had his arm draped behind her, "I am. I look forward to the ceremony."
Chewie reached out and placed a great paw on her shoulder, crushing the fabric just slightly, ["I'm glad."]
Leia wasn't quite sure to what he was referring.
It was probably some trick of the Force, but Luke Skywalker projected an enviable amount of authority behind the podium. They had settled into a reality that traced Luke's various talents to Anakin Skywalker and her's to Padme Amidala, but Leia knew her brother had none of their father's legendary recklessness and more than a bit of their mother's way with words.
"Friends, gentlebeings," he began, scanning the large, diverse crowd, "I am honored to be a part of this celebration tonight, when we commemorate – with no pause and no reservation – the bravery of Wookiees, their past and continued defense of galactic freedom, and the sacrifices made by so many of them in that defense.
"I stand before you, a Jedi, today as a testament to the bravery of Wookiees. Now, I wasn't born until several days after the battle, but I would not be here – we would not be here, in fact – if not for what happened on the forested beaches of your home. Leading the clone army and Wookiee forces during those long days was Jedi Master Yoda. Now, Master Yoda was as opposite a Wookiee as a being could be: short, green, and not very furry. But the Wookiees had extraordinary respect for Master Yoda and when Order 66 went to the clone troops, the order to kill the Jedi, Wookiees – including two among us today who I count as friends – sheltered him and saw to his safe passage off-planet. General Tarfful, General Chewbacca, let us recognize you."
The crowd erupted with war-whoops and clapping. The two Wookiee war heroes seemed delighted and humbled by the praise, but Leia was shocked. She had no idea Chewie had played such a key role in the Republic or in her own life (aside from the obvious). She caught a glimpse of Han, who was whooping along with the Wookiees, in her peripheral vision. He knows. He knew. Chewie's position isn't new. He's always been a leader.
"So," Luke cleared his throat, "When I knew him, Master Yoda was living in the Dagobah system, a hermit. It was from him, the very last of the Jedi, that I received my training. But over twenty years before that, he had fought Emperor Palpatine to a draw and distracted the fledging Empire just long enough to save my sister and me from its clutches. I think it's right to say that I have Wookiees to thank for my life, Wookiees who defied authority for the greater good and at great sacrifice to themselves.
"But Wookiee sacrifices didn't end with the withdrawal of the Separatist army from their planet. Kashyyyk ultimately fell to Imperial occupation and the Empire enslaved thousands of Wookiees even though the slave trade was legally forbidden. Yet, their spirit endured. At the end of the Galactic Civil War, tens of thousands of Wookiees were freed from the spice mines of Kessel, from the fuel harvesting stations of Gnostus, and from the lower-level factories of Coruscant's outer 17th. Scattered throughout the galaxy so few years ago, most Wookiees have returned from their diaspora to Kashyyyk. I am happy to say that Kashyyyk has become an invaluable founding member of the New Republic and tonight, we honor the entire Wookiee race with a monument in the heart of the galactic capital."
The material covering the giant memorial fell away, and Leia heard the crowd gasp around her. A massive ball of sculpted roots gave way to two polished durasteel trunks that role well over a hundred meters into the purple sky, supporting a huge stylized canopy.
"There is a saying in Shyriiwook that I will do my best to translate," a smiling Luke continued over the din, "That says, 'Once two branches grow together, they cannot be torn apart.' May it be so for the past and the future, for heroism and sacrifice, for Kashyyyk and the Republic"
Leia smiled up at her brother and sent him a message, Proud of you.
Han squeezed her arm lightly. As she turned to face him, he was already moving away.
Leia's heels clicked on the polished Tsugian stone as she struggled to keep up with Han's long strides. She didn't know why he had suddenly excused himself after the unveiling but wanted to find out. Deep down, the Minister of State was afraid he would just keep walking, would ditch her, and she would be stuck explaining his absence to their friends.
"Han!" She called, her voice reverberating in the empty plaza.
He stopped and spun to face her, "Why are you following me?"
"You knew I'd follow you. Why are you out here? Hiding?"
He didn't answer, so she assumed she was right.
"Han," she gentled her voice, "What's wrong?"
"When I was a kid, I had this Wookiee doll named Mobo – not a Shyriiwook name at all. I took it everywhere with me. Before … I was real little and that thing was my best friend."
Leia almost laughed; the idea of a young Han with a stuffed Wookiee companion was too much. But, the occasions he even mentioned his childhood were rare, so she held it in.
"What happened to it?"
"Dunno. I grew up."
That said it all. He wasn't looking at her. Instead, his eyes were fixed back on the war monument, on the twisting durasteel in the shape of soaring, but much smaller than lifesize, wroshyr trees, their branches entwined.
"Han."
"Wookiees were legendary until the Empire changed things."
His genuine affection for Wookiees was touching. One of their first conversations after the destruction of the first Death Star had been about Wilhuff Tarkin's personal involvement in widespread Wookiee enslavement. He'd surprised her then; she'd expected him to shrug and say something about 'whatever's profitable, Your Worship.' What she got was a loud, lengthy diatribe, punctuated by breaking a hydrospanner on the Falcon's hull.
"Did you know about Chewie?"
"Of course I knew."
"Can you tell me why he stuck around with you for so long?"
"Why did you?"
"Excuse me?"
"Why did you stick around me for so long?"
"I – this isn't about me. This is about Chewie."
"No, no, no. I know you. You're ain't wonderin' about Chewie," he waved a hand in the space between them,"You're wonderin' about Chewbacca, Grand General of the Order of the Kin-Root of Kashyyyk, and you wanna know why such a decorated and respectable Wookiee wound up smugglin' spice with a worthless idiot like me."
She shook her head, eyes wide, "That's not what I meant."
He crossed his arms and leaned against a duracrete post that seemed to have suddenly appeared just for that purpose, "Think about it, Princess."
Leia turned her head to study the reflection of the giant monument on the soaring transparisteel walls of the Devaronian embassy. She understood what he was saying, and was ashamed that she questioned him, questioned Chewie, and inadvertently questioned herself.
"Look, you know this better than anyone. Doesn't matter who you were in some other life when you're on the run. And it ain't like any of the Imps could tell one Wookiee from another, but livin' below the law was the safest place for Chewie to be."
"Really, Han. How could he have deigned to take orders from you for so long?"
The former smuggler laughed – a resonating, hearty sound, "You really think Chewie took orders from me?"
"I remember you ordering him around more times than I can count."
"Yeah, you ordered me around all the time, too. Doesn't mean I took orders from you."
"Good point."
Han relaxed into the duracrete.
"We didn't ask questions for a long time, not until we got in our first real scrape. Locked up in a semi-legal prison on some backwater moon with no name," he shook his head and dropped his gaze back to her, "Somehow the tall tales became actual life stories and that was that. What? You never noticed the big oaf had military training?"
"I … I guess I did. I just assumed it was the Wookiee warrior tradition."
"Yeah, well."
They stood in silence, uncertain how to continue the conversation.
"What did you tell him?"
"What?"
"Chewie isn't mad at you. What did you tell him?"
"C'mon, isn't it obvious?"
"Obviously not to me."
"He deserved better."
Leia was thrown, "You mean better than the way you treated him?"
"That too. But with taking Coruscant … I dunno … he didn't need to be hangin' around me anymore. Fifteen years in the life of a Wookiee isn't much, but he needed to be able to go off, do his own thing," he shrugged, "He woulda come with me if I'd told him."
The casual, off-handed way he spoke masked the gravity of what he was telling her, and it took Leia a moment to realize just exactly what he was saying.
"You left him like that on purpose?"
"He was pissed, but he gets it. And look," he jerked a thumb toward the floodlamps illuminating the big celebration a couple hundred meters away, "He's a governor for Sith's sake. It's what he wanted. Fallin' in with me was an accident, and I sure as shit wasn't gonna let him throw his life away bein' my bodyguard."
For seven years, the way Han had left Chewbacca had grated her more than the way he'd left her. She'd been hurt, deeply, but at least they'd fought, at least there was some chain of events she could trace. When she'd reflected on it, after the months of shock, she could find comfort in her own mistakes. But Chewie … Leia could still hear him yelling at her in Shryiiwook so furious she could hardly understand him. It was an education, though: she'd quickly learned the Wookiee word for 'stupid human'.
Han was doing more explaining today than he had in the four years he'd been her almost-constant companion This mature, non-combative – confessional – side of him made her skin itch from the inside. Who was she dealing with, anyway? He looked and talked like Han Solo, but he wasn't the same man, and she shouldn't have been so naïve to think he was. But what could she do with this man standing in front of her, this man making her so physically and psychologically uncomfortable?
"I think we should go back, Han. The party is about to move into the embassy."
"You know, Sweetheart, I don't really wanna go back there."
"Where do you want to go, then?"
"I was thinkin' maybe your place."