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His blanket was falling off of his left leg. Maybe that was what initially woke him up, a chill over his skin where it was once covered. He damned whatever it was because now he was unable to find any rest again. He thought about getting up, maybe going into the kitchen for a late snack or something to drink. He decided against it when he realized that would make him have to get up. Although he couldn't be pulled back into dreamland, he was still too tired to consider anything other than continuing to lay there and stare into the void.
The ceiling was slightly domed, a feature he didn't originally pick up on. But now it held his full attention as he laid on the sofa on his back, blanket readjusted so it covered him fully, mind wide awake.
About an hour had passed in this state before something other than the usual apartment sounds met his ears.
It was quiet, muffled. But the faint sound reached all the way to the living room. His first thought was his daughter. She had been doing very well sleeping through the night, but maybe this was something she did occasionally. Or maybe she was hurt or in trouble.
That last thought sprung him to action, throwing the covers onto the back of the sofa and padding his bare feet through the dark into the hallway.
The space was clear, no obvious danger or disruption. He still approached the nursery door cautiously, taking a pause to heighten his muscle reactions before palming it open.
His tension was met with serenity. Everything in the room was as it should be, clothes tidied and put away, toys safely in their places, window covering secured, and a peacefully sleeping child tucked into her crib.
He waited a few moments, his eyes scanning the room to make sure there was nothing he missed. He trusted his auditory skills, they hadn't let him down yet. So he must have heard something.
He took a step backwards, taking one last look at the sleeping girl before palming the door closed again.
The sound definitely came from somewhere in this hallway. Maybe it was just another of the sounds an apartment made. He had heard and identified most of them through the past week, but something told him this was different. This sounded more human.
He turned to the door where the other known human slept. Maybe she was awake too, unable to get back to sleep? He debated with himself and decided rather quickly. There was absolutely no chance now of him ever getting back to sleep and not knowing what he heard. And so he stepped across the hallway and raised a fist to knock gently on her door.
The rapt was clear and then he whispered with a strong voice he hoped would carry, "Leia, you okay?"
He listened, ear turned towards the door. It was quiet for a moment and he thought he might have reached another dead end on his quest. But then he heard a shuffle, like the bedsheets rustling, paired with a gagging moan.
He didn't hesitate a second, immediately putting those tense muscles to action as he palmed the door open and stepped inside.
"Leia?" His voice was layered in fear and concern as his eyes found her contorted on the bed.
Her head was tilted back to the right in a position that no one could consider comfortable. Her arms were held close to her chest while her one leg was strewn outside the covers and dangling off the edge. The rest of her body was barely covered by the mussed up sheets that had rearranged themselves diagonally somehow. He was now confident the sounds he heard were coming from her mouth. Taking a step closer, he watched as her eyes moved rapidly behind her lids and how her mouth twitched with each shallow breath.
He didn't like her like this. She looked to be in pain with no physical evidence of it and no way to stop it except to pull her from her own mind.
Where was she? What dark thoughts must be swirling through her mind to give her such a visceral reaction? He didn't want to know and at the same time he needed to know.
"Leia." His voice rose as he tried to break through.
Her head rolled forward as a deep wail came up from her chest. Her body followed her head as her spine crunched into a fetal position, lurching to her right side, eyes is still shut and mind still in another place.
He acted. Because he had to. He would always protect her from any and all harm, and that included protection from her mental self.
He moved to the side of the bed, immediately sitting next to her cocoon. One hand rubbed against her arm while the other ran across her forehead, feeling the heat and the sweat that pooled there. "You're dreaming."
He didn't like it. She wouldn't wake up. His hands moved to her upper arms clutching them as he lifted her from the mattress and shook her gently but firmly. "Wake up, Leia."
Eyes flashed open, crazed with the visions behind her lids. She gasped, jaw open, muscles tensed into fight mode. Her hands jumped to his elbows. He couldn't tell if she was trying to pull him closer or push him away.
Her eyes blinked, scrolling up and down. She inhaled, her breaths deeper and more controlled, slowly coming back into consciousness.
He waited until he was sure she was seeing straight, until she could see the concern in his eyes, before pulling her shoulders to him. "Shhhh," he quieted, his hands moving to wrap around her back. "S'okay. You're okay."
He heard her take in a long inhale, his heart leapt at the strained voice that came out on the exhale. "Han…"
He held her tighter, finding his nose buried in the tresses of hair across her shoulder. "You were havin' a nightmare."
He felt her hand pat against his back as her throat cleared. "I guess I was." She patted him again as he felt her regain control of herself. She pulled back. "I'm okay now."
Reluctantly, he watched her pull away. She immediately shuffled herself back against the headboard, sitting up as her legs stretched out beside him. His eyes stayed on her as she brought one of her hands to her rose colored cheeks. Her other hand wiped beneath her eye. Her nose sniffled, tidying up anything that was leaking.
She was quiet. Too quiet for what just happened.
His mouth pressed together. "You wanna talk about it?"
"Not really, no." She almost answered him before he even began the question.
He changed tactics. "SHOULD you talk about it?"
Her eyebrows creased together as she angrily played his game. "WILL I talk about it? Let's see…"
Only he wasn't playing a game.
"Leia…" Her name was a plea on his lips as it croaked from his throat. He wasn't ready to leave her like this. He was in this now, with her, and wasn't walking out.
He watched as her head rolled, clearly not wanting to do this. Not wanting to talk, not wanting to let him see her like this.
But he stayed steady, his palm finding her ankle under the sheet as he anchored himself to her. Both physically and emotionally, he wanted to be there for her.
"I knew it would happen tonight."
Her head fell as her mouth opened. It sounded like such a straining effort to speak. She held her arms in close to her body as her knees drew up, sliding out from his touch. Her chin rested on her knees, her eyes anywhere but on him.
"All this talk of Alderaan and the…"
The shallow breathing started again. He could hear it and saw it in the hunch of her back.
"I watched it." Her eyes weren't teary, but glassy and he had to lean in to hear her. "I watched them destroy my entire planet… My family… My home…" Her voice cut the last line like a knife through her own heart. "And I didn't do anything."
"Hey, hey…"
He wasn't going to let her go on, not if she was going to talk like that.
Deep down he knew she wasn't okay after the Death Star. She was like him, they projected the strength they wanted people to see to hide any perceived weakness. But he suspected her hurt still lingered, and he was right. Gods, he wished nothing in her life could have given her so visceral and haunting a reaction as her emotional state indicated. But it did, and now he wanted to be there with her, supporting her through the darkest of her memories.
He made a move, hoping it would be accepted. Standing briefly, he shifted his hips to meet hers near the top of the bed and sat once again on the edge, this time with his right hip beside her left. He raised an arm, not so rapidly as to scare her but quickly enough that she wouldn't have enough time to reject him. Lowering it around her, his left hand came to press against her far leg, pulling her into the best embrace her could at the moment.
"There was noting you could have done." He made sure his voice was firm and extended complete honesty. "Yeah, I read that report. They were gonna take action no matter what base location you gave."
He held his position and she didn't resist, only shaking her head against her knees. "It doesn't make me feel any better."
"I know it doesn't."
He waited, practicing his patience and testing her resolve. She didn't move or speak for a long time. But when she did, it was only to dip her head towards him and shift her body further into his, her cheek coming to rest on his chest as her bent legs fell into his lap.
His hold on her adjusted to the new position, leaning back into the headboard to better support her weight. With slow deliberate movements, his hand stroked her back.
"What do you see in your dreams?"
He decided to ask, to test the water, see if she would answer.
To his surprise, she did, her voice quieter than he ever heard it.
"I'm back on the Death Star… staring down that interrogator with all those people watching."
He knew he needed to hear it, but he despised that he had to. His lips lowered to her head as his back hand moved to stroke the long locks at the base of her skull. "I hate that you were hurt."
"I still have scars."
He didn't think about that. So not only was there emotional effect, but also clear physical.
She kept talking. "I checked the first night of our amnesia. Even after… what, seven years now, this body is forever marked."
Continuing his ministrations quietly and with reassurance, he waited, giving her time to decide on her own to continue.
"When their interrogator got nothing out of me… Vader stepped in."
His right arm unconsciously pulled her tighter, reacting to the name that dripped from her lips with such vile contempt.
Her hand raised, digits bending in demonstration. "It was like fingernails scraping me, but inside my head."
It was worse than he imagined. He could inherently feel her pain, pain from the act and pain from living with this trauma ever day.
"I'm so sorry, Leia." It was all he could say as anger overtook his feelings of empathy.
She tried to snicker, but it came out as more of a sniffle. "It wasn't your fault."
"But I hate that it happened." He let his mind spin into 'what if's.' "Maybe… if we would have gotten there sooner we could have…"
She put a surprising quick stop to that with a rapt of her knuckles against his chest. "Now who's baselessly blaming themselves?"
Now he did snicker. She was right, neither of them were to blame. "But apparently we caught the guys who did it. Palpatine and Vader are gone." That was more than a satisfying ending to this gruesome tale, he was almost glad to simply flip to the end of the story and know the heroes were the victors.
"And now the scraps of that killing machine will be used to help people heal." Her voice got smaller. "I just wish I could heal that quickly."
He wished so too.
She sighed, a sigh that sounded much more like her own. "I think I'm okay now."
With a firm, thankful hand, she patted his shoulder as she sat up from her human pillow. That was his cue to leave.
"Are you sure?" He wasn't ready to go yet, content with holding her for a while longer, like until she fell asleep or forever.
But Leia nodded as he took her cue and stood from the bed. "I'm sure." She shifted the covers back around her lower half as she sat up against the headboard and pillows. "I've been dealing with these nightmares alone for three years."
He expected that her aim with that last line was to show her singular strength, and it did. He already knew what a strong woman she was. Of course she dealt with her struggles alone, as did he. But was that strength? Or was strength knowing and not being afraid of asking for help when help was needed?
And the word 'alone' struck him, the word he would once have used to describe himself. But those days were over.
He glanced back over his shoulder, halting his retreating steps to shoot his message through a focused gaze, directly from his lips to her heart.
"You're not alone now, Princess. And you never were."