Han and Chewie.

The Death Star.

Alderaan.

Me.

Leia was writing to the goddess Time. It was her new list.

War.

Luke.

These were things she thought she had, or things that wouldn't be, if not for her.

I don't have my parents, she wrote, but I have their love.

A god, of irony and truth.

Memory.

She looked over her screen, saw the words Time and Memory. She was not able to add Forgiveness.


She came out to the lounge to set the training remote up. "Do you mind if I practice with the target?" she asked Han and Chewie. They were playing a game of holochess.

Chewie waved accommodatingly at her.

"Just don't let it zap us," Han said.

"Of course not."

Han and Chewie chatted amongst themselves while she worked.

"Whatever," Han answered his partner. He signaled a player to seek a match on the board. "Eat that baningka if you want."

She knew what Chewie answered because she had seen him eat it.

"Already?" Han shot his eyes to her as Leia smiled. "You didn't waste any time."

Leia bounced the light training pistol in her palm as the unit powered up.

"I know you do. Yeah," Han told his partner. "Ate it in town." Then, after Chewie asked something, he said, "The fruit one." After a teasing growl, "Yeah, yeah. I like the sweet ones."

Leia set it on level one. She wanted to warm up a bit. She rolled her shoulders and took aim as Chewie growled a question.

"A few," was Han's answer. He sounded like he was hedging. "You gonna make a move?" he added, possibly hoping to redirect the conversation.

She couldn't guess what he meant. A few... bakeries? YT freighters? Imperial troopers?

Chewie pressed for more information and Leia fired until Han answered.

"No, I wouldn't say it's fashionable," Han said. "Not like it used to be. Probably because most got claimed for labor. Not bad, Princess."

Fashionable. Leia ignored Han and wondered which sound in Chewie's language was that word. Han's Shyriiwook vocabulary was excellent. She tried to be like Luke, and let the context wash over her. Freighters was the best guess. This particular YT was definitely out of fashion. Yet Han told Leia Luke had, at least once, been far off the mark in understanding Chewie's meaning.

And she wondered, labor? Han was watching her, waiting for her to shoot. Level two was a mobile target without return fire.

This time Leia heard the word 'again' from Chewie.

"No," Han's voice was under the table; he had ducked his head to pick something up from the floor. "I was thinking about the ones we did, but." There came a silence. "Didn't seem like a good time." He added, after Chewie said something, "I don't know, with the other stuff..." he waved a hand. "Not the right time."

Leia lowered the pistol and looked at the two.

"Not the right time," Han repeated over Chewie, sterner and more like a captain. "It's different now, right? It's not just you and me, causing a little mischief. We got other things to worry about."

Me, Leia thought. The remote had changed direction six times during that exchange, and Leia had hit it four times.

"What are you two talking about?" Leia asked.

"Nothin'," Han mumbled. "Chewie's asking about Imperial City."

"What labor?" Leia asked. "What do you mean, mischief?"

"Oh, you know," Han waved a hand nonchalantly. "Just two single guys getting it up in Imperial City. Eating baningkas and making mischief."

"Sounds like a great time," Leia said dryly. "But what kind of mischief?" His reluctance was obvious, and Leia wanted to know why. "Throwing stones at windows?"

"Ah, now," his smile was private, "that'd be vandalism."

"I didn't know you knew where to draw the line."

Chewie was tapping his chest while he spoke, and then whirling his arm above his head. Han was staring at the board, stonily avoiding translating for Leia.

Chewie now pointed at his chest, and mimed picking up something, and moving it elsewhere.

Leia's brow was furrowed, but she let her thoughts wander and situations of context came to her. Two single... not guys, but specifically a man and a Wookiee, a rare partnership; a history, a debt. Chewie rubbing the back of the captain seat and pointing at himself... 'again'...

"You break shock collars?" she guessed.

Han's mouth dropped open and Chewie hooted. "Fuck," Han swore. "Where'd that come from?"

She gave him a dazzling, fake smile. "I'm brilliant."

"You're somethin'," Han grumbled.

"It wasn't that hard," Leia explained. "I saw Wookiees in the Corellian district. While I was waiting for you at the bakery. They're private slaves, aren't they. And that's your mischief. You liberate."

"I deprive the owner."

Was there a difference? "There weren't any at the press conference, because they couldn't come on their own," Leia was nodding to herself at her own explanation. "Why don't you have a harem of indebted Wookiees?"

Chewie woofed in laughter.

"Shut up," Han told him. He was humorless. "Seriously, how'd you guess that?"

"I don't know. I've always been good at things like that, associations. I think it's a large part of being a princess."

Han's player was being jumped on by one of Chewie's, and he growled, though probably at Leia. Nothing was going right for him, she thought.

"Seriously, Captain. How many life debts do you own?"

"I'm not in the business of collecting life debts," Han snapped. "Not much return in that."

"Oh, I see a great deal," Leia observed mildly. "Has your mischief expanded to other enslaved beings, or just Wookiees?"

Han jerked a thumb at Chewie. "Ask him," and Chewie answered even though Leia hadn't asked.

"Chewie came first," Leia said. She thought she understood. "So it's Chewie. But still. You didn't have Chewie to spur you on the first time. You weren't humoring him, then."

Liberate versus deprive. It depended on the point of view, Leia thought. Chewie saw a fellow being enslaved, and sought to remove him from that unjust situation. Han saw a fellow being grinding his heel against another, and wanted to take him down a peg.

"What did you mean by fashionable?" Leia asked.

He hoped spreading his hands like the answer was obvious would be enough, but Leia stepped towards him. "You know," he grumbled.

"Perhaps you could elaborate."

"Corellian families... it was status. Showed you had money. Showed what a fine human you were because you kept a being who could kill you in a second but didn't."

"Because of the shock collar."

"No, before the Empire that wasn't the fashion. Wookiees live a long time you know and they were passed down."

"Did your family own a Wookiee?"

"I don't remember my family, Princess."

"Oh." Leia appraised him thoughtfully a moment. "Chewie, what did you mean by this," and Leia repeated his gesture of picking something up and moving it aside.

Chewie explained, and Leia closed her eyes to listen, but she didn't get it. She opened her eyes and looked to Han.

"Wookiees got a problem with giving their lives away, if you ask me," Han said. "If one freed bastard wanted to offer a life debt, Chewie told him he'd take it on for him and to go home. That's really what he wants, that they're able to go home."

Leia considered Chewie quietly. She was both heartbroken for him but also proud. She stepped all the way to the table and rubbed the fur on the Wookiee's forearm. "You don't get to go, do you, Chewie," she said. "Han wants you to."

Chewie jabbed his finger into the table and then he swiped the air dismissively in front of Han's face. Leia heard Han.

She smiled sadly at Han. "You should have told me about this mischief."

"You'd make it a cause."

"Why does that sound like an insult?" Leia wondered. "Whether mischief or a cause, the job gets done. I bet I could hit a shock collar." She turned rapidly and fired at the remote, which had entered power saving mode while she talked.

Han's grin was sad, too. "Even I don't try for the shock collar. You wanna kill a Wookiee by accident? You aim for the control box. The owners usually wear it on their waist. Hurts like a bitch but just for a few days."


Three day's journey.

"I shoulda bought more baningkas," Han rued while they ate ration bars.

While they traveled, Leia did several things. She touched Han. Not to have her affection returned, which wasn't, though Han looked at her a lot. He didn't try to hide this as he did so many other things. His eyes were clouded from whatever swirled around in that muddied brain of his. She returned his gaze openly.

She touched him to continue the unspoken level of communication they had achieved in the city. His desire to hold her hand wasn't a seduction, though if it were, she smiled to herself, it would be a very slow one... and what if she-

No. He had seen how everything was a ransacking of her very soul. He watched her fight panic in the lift tube, give Jargist away and sift through the ruin of her family apartment. All the while she pursued a civil death suit, instigated a battle of will and truth, and avoided falling into the hands of the Empire again.

It was here, too, in the Falcon; a faint memory of pain and anguish that bound Han and Chewie and could never leave. She saw him as he had seen her. Han retreated here, back to casual and defensive, and Leia offered touch to show him there was another thing. She couldn't name it yet, but wanted to believe where there was bad, something good might be born.

They were alike in a way, she thought. Han tried to do the right thing, even though there was no such thing. It was the same for Leia. Every signature she had to affix, every candle she distrubuted, something unhelpful whispered, I am gone forever.

Whatever kind of touch it was, whether a squeeze of the shoulder or a covering his large hand with her own, the gesture was one of understanding. I know.

She also kept a small data pad nearby, the stylus stuck through one of her braids when not in use. She was writing. Her list had stopped growing but she had a separate file for each one, to describe it. Living history, she thought, because was she writing it, and she was alive.

And she spent hours with Chewie. She asked for words which concerned the home. He led her around the ship, listing 'hammock', 'chair', 'food'. Under his tab, she kept audio files so she could play back the sounds later.

Han often listened in. Her lessons amused him.

"What about this?" Leia rapped a knuckle on the door of the 'fresher.

Chewie lifted his shoulders.

"They don't build 'freshers on Kasshyyk," Han said. His smile was sardonic, only half-formed, attractive.

"Oh," Leia giggled. "What do- how do they call-"

Chewie made a noise, and Han said, "They say something like, "I go empty."

She learned Chewie had a life mate, and their union had produced a son fifty-two years ago. Malla was the mate's name. Chewie's eyes got starry and moist when he described her, Han passing along the description to Leia.

"Her fur is as dark as yours, with...kriff, you writin' a poem? with streaks the color of ika fish scales flashing in the- I ain't saying this crap!"

"Do you have a holo, Chewie?" Leia asked as she laughed at Han.

*No,* Chewie indicated.

"Have you been back?" Leia asked. She glanced at Han. "Since?"

Chewie had his own Since. Probably all of us do, Leia thought.

"We've been back," Han said. "We'll go again when Chewie hits two hundred fifty, the latest."

"Why then?"

Han made a noise. "Had to take him at two-twenty-five."

Leia frowned. "Every quarter century? Why?"

He gave her a look out of lowered brows. "Reproductive instinct."

"Oh," Leia laughed as Chewie rubbed his hands together.

"Thought he was gonna rip the ship apart."

Chewie was trying to give her a new phrase. "Chchkrry," it sounded like. Leia did her best to repeat it. "Ship?" she guessed at the way his arms took in the whole room.

"Kinda," Han said. "There's an extra 'ch'. *Chkrry* he pronounced, and Chewie nodded, "is life hut. Home. *Chchkrry* is... flying life hut. You never say that," Han accused. "No you don't," he argued over Chewie's protests, "I never heard you say 'let's return to the flying life hut. You say Falcon. Clear as day."

He turned to Leia. "There's falcons on Kasshyyk."