When the phone rang, Han wasn't asleep. He was on the kitchen floor, where he couldn't see the clock or the windows revealing the blowing snow; if he looked at those, he'd go nuts. So Han sat with knees drawn up under elbows, back against a lower cabinet. Incessantly turning the situation over in his mind like a stray bolt in his hands. Fix fix fix. Han thumped the back of his head against wood to the inescapable march of this thought. He could not exhaust himself and his frustration with this had exhausted him. Great. Now he was starting to think in crazy riddles like Luke or Chew—

Han was on his feet and seizing the yellow receiver before the ring had cleared three seconds.

The caller was Chewie, his thick speech articulated with touching effort. Han knew how deeply his best friend dreaded the phone, that he didn't even keep one in his home. He'd noticed that Chewie relied on the businesslike Suzette or the garrulous Janson to field and make all the diner's calls. But Chewie would be humiliated to know Han noticed; it was as though Chewie felt no worry was allowable when you were built to his scale. Han could almost see the resolute set of Chewie's massive shoulders as he approached the hated device bolted to the diner's wall. Han exhaled. It wasn't relief Han felt—no, he couldn't get there right now, not when Leia and Luke had been gone in a near-blizzard for almost three hours—but whatever Han felt at Chewie's gesture, he leaned a forearm on the refrigerator under its weight.

Han went through the problem, reverting to a rapid summarizing style they'd been taught in the army. Chewie stopped him with a thoughtful grunt as Han said Leia must have had a phone call from Ben. When Chewie suggested Han trace back the last numbers that had called the cabin, get the locations, all Han's fondness and gratitude combusted into stress-fuelled indignation. The phone was an arm of the devil, Chewie would warn anyone who'd listen—but he loved his television programs.

"You and that fuckin' box, I swea...rrrrggggrrrrghhh!" Han ground his teeth, ground his knuckles between his brows. "Who'n the hell you think I am, Chewie? Peter Gunn?"

One of the most infuriating things about Chewie, to Han, was that he never took Han's sarcastic bait. He'd just wait, forcing Han to either honestly engage or storm away, pride intact. Tonight Han reined his sharp tongue, both men knowing that Leia could at any moment be getting a busy signal. His grip tightened on the receiver until cracked Bakelite bit at his calloused fingers. "C'mon, man," Han said. It was a gritted-out plea. "I can't just trace a—"

Chewie said, with unflappable patience, that maybe a cop could.

Instantly, intolerably provoked again, Han snapped, "What an idea!" He did a manic dance of fury in his sock feet. "Lemme check the damn Cheerios for my very own sheriff's badg"

And stopped. Blinked.

"You should be on TV." Han said, into the even silence Chewie maintained for compliments as well as insults. "Chewie's Viking Detective Hour, once a week." Stretching the phone cord, receiver clamped between ear and shoulder, Han lunged for the peacoat thrown across a kitchen chair. "First you crack that wedding bullshit, now this." Delving into the pocket where he kept his wallet, Han twisted leather almost inside out until he found the small card. "Where would I be without you, pal?"

Chewie rumbled that he didn't know that. But what he did know was that without Han, Chewie would be long dead, left broken-legged and frozen, far from home. Certainly not in the well-kept diner he owned himself, warm and fed; pie in the oven, money in the bank. So Han could think of Chewie's help as interest on a debt.

"Ah, shit. Ain't no debt." Han croaked. "I'm sure glad we're—" Savagely he pinched the stinging bridge of his nose until he managed a shaky jocularity. "You wouldn'ta froze, you ham. Not with that damn fur coat."

Chewie grinned gently to himself, and did not force further emotion on his overloading friend. He said he had to go; he was understaffed at the diner, and "Gunsmoke" started in an hour.

Scanning the card, Han clapped the receiver down. Lifted it again and dialled Crix Madine.

XXXXXXXXXX

Throwing on his coat a half-hour later, Han paused. Madine had provided him a place to look, but there was no guarantee Leia and Luke were still there, or that they'd found the old man at all. Han faced the same problem as before: what if Leia called home and no one answered? He chewed the inside of his cheek, then swiftly thrust his feet into his winter boots. The hell with it all, he was going. It was well below freezing, and his girl was out in it.

As Han slipped his knife into the inside pull-up strap of his right boot, where it rode hidden at the top of his calf, there was a knock at the door. Han stood and jerked it open. On the porch, a typically stoic Wedge Antilles stood dusted in snow; behind him Wes Janson lounged against a post.

"Mr. Chewie said you needed someone to answer the phones?" Janson simpered. Then he cringed, reflexively looking around as though Leia could hear him. She really taxed him in mockery dollars when he did his sexy secretary bit. Leia wasn't here now to gear him about it, but Wedge's lowering brows did her work for her. What was it Antilles had said to him, on the snowy drive? Christ, Wes, cut Solo some slack tonight. And he'd meant to! Janson cared deeply for Luke and Leia too, and Ben Kenobi was one of their own. Plus, Solo still kinda freaked him out. After Theo Isolder's face?! Janson was respectably tough, Wedge a legit scrapper, but Solo had professionally fucked Richie Rich up.

Falling back a step to let the two Rogues inside the cabin, Han felt surprise and relief color his neck and cheeks; instinctively he wanted to stop it, though he knew his...his friends were entitled to see it. "Nice of you guys to drop by," Han drawled, planting a huge foot on the bench just inside the door and tying his boot. As he switched sides, he wondered: why was thank you so goddamned hard to get his tongue around?

Seeing the broad shoulders shift in Solo's coat as he tightened his laces like garrottes, Janson thought of Isolder again. Even pitied him, the stupid prick, even though he'd picked on everyone all his life. Solo would always carry a little threat in the set of his back and y'know the guy had something stashed. Who'd wanna get between Leia Organa and that? But Solo's face—his hard face looked, to Janson, kinda off. He'd never seen it like that, sort of...hurt, or hurtable, at least.

"Hey, whack," Janson said, making a rare and mighty effort to modulate his voice. "Y'know she's alright. Go get 'em, yeah? They're alright."

Nodding, Solo blew out his breath as though rejecting any chance of the alternative.

"Got tire chains, Solo?" was all Antilles said, his fox-shrewd face contained as ever. Han put his boot to the floor and his shoulders back. He flashed both men a brief, thankful grin, faint but real. "Y'know I do."

Wedge clapped Han on the shoulder like he was clearing him for action. Han slapped him back and strode through the door into blowing snow. The two Rogues watched him go.

"We're just here to get the jukebox," Janson called after the tall figure, then gave his scowling best friend a careless shrug, like the ones that Solo used to pull off all cool before he fell in love. "Look, pal. I am what I a...aaahhhiigghh!"

Hard fingers mercilessly pincered Wes' earlobe, then pulled.

"No," Wedge Antilles ordered.