Chapter Thirteen
When Leia woke up, she found a plate of food by her bedside. It was still hot. She frowned, wondering what was it that had made Han cook for her. But he had always liked to cook, so she shook it away and looked at the crono on the wall.
Damnit, Han!
Seeing that eleven of the twelve hours of their jump had passed, she got out of bed and pulled her jacket on over her undershirt, leaving her boots on the floor. She stood in the doorway and shouted for him.
He leaned out of the galley. "What d'you want? You know, you don't have to scream so loud. This ship ain't that big."
"You let me sleep for eleven hours?"
He shrugged. "Actually, it's more like ten-and-a-half."
She hated him, and his casual indifference. "Han, because you didn't get any sleep, it's going to take us that much longer to find Hanna and Luke. If you're too tired--"
"Hey, settle down, sweetheart. I slept in the lounge. I only got four hours, but I'm okay. I didn't want to wake you up, and I didn't want you to have to wake up with me across from you."
Leia sighed and ran her fingers through her lose hair. She didn't bother putting it up. She was jumping at nothing. She was so suspicious of Han's intentions, so edgy being on a ship with just him, so scared of what may be happening to her family that she was questioning his every word and move.
"I'm sorry," she breathed.
"What?"
She took a deep breath. She didn't like apologizing. "I'm sorry I overreacted. I'm just...stressed."
Han nodded. "I know how you get. That's why I let you sleep. Eat your food, all right?"
With that, he ducked back into the galley.
******************
Leia's head was clearer when they dropped out of hyperspace. She was wide awake now, and she had had a meal. Han was still closed up inside of himself, the way he had been all yesterday as they worked on the ship. Leia found it upsetting. She felt like she was being accused of something, and punished for it, without knowing what it was. She knew that wasn't it, but it was unnerving, nonetheless.
The blue and gray cloudy lightning of hyperspace drew out into streaks, and finally resolved themselves into stars. Han sat patiently as Leia meditated and reached hard for some faint trace of Hanna and Luke, Luke especially. She could usually feel some sort of connection with him, no matter where he was. He was always there, in some ethereal plane of her existence, as if he constantly had a hand on her shoulder. She had gotten used to it. It comforted her. But now...it was different. Like she was feeling the hand on her shoulder through a thick coat. She could usually reach out to Hanna, too, or at least have the vague sense that somewhere, she had a daughter, a Jedi daughter who was constantly seeping rays of light into the universe. The light was so dim now that she had trouble seeing it.
She opened her eyes to find them blurry with unshed tears. "They're here somewhere. We came to the right sector, it's just...it's like I'm seeing them through smoke."
Han sighed something that sounded somewhat like a Huttese curse, but Leia didn't understand Huttese very well. "Think...if we get any closer to them, you'd be able to tell better?"
She shrugged. "Maybe. But the...cloudiness isn't caused by distance. It's like...like you felt when you were in carbonate. Like they're in some sort of hibernation state. How they feel when they sleep but don't dream."
"And that makes 'em harder to find?"
"I can't touch their minds when they have no thoughts or emotions. They're not sending anything...there's nothing to grab hold of."
Han nodded. "Okay...let's do this the long way. Got any general ideas? Point in a direction, or something?"
She meditated again for several minutes while Han sat patiently and waited. When she opened her eyes, she pointed hard to starboard and said, "There, somewhere."
Han checked the starcharts. "That'd be Womrik or Klatooine."
"Not much on either of those planets."
"No...well, Klatooine's closer. About an hour jump away. Once we're there, think you'll know?"
"I think I'll know if they're on planet or not."
"Good enough for me, doll."
***********
Leia got Han to take a nap while they were in hyperspace. He wasn't young anymore, she had told him, and he had to stop acting like he was.
That was a novel idea, Han thought. If that's what she had wanted, why did she let him go? Why hadn't she tried to tie him down?
Without Leia he had lived the life of the twenty-eight-year-old smuggler she had met all those years ago. He wondered if Leia had ever realized the real reason he had quit smuggling. For the cause, certainly. He had hated the Empire almost as much as she did, because, even though he hated to admit it, he had a conscience. For the kid too. He had made it his personal responsibility to make sure Luke got enough flight and combat training in the old days to make it to twenty, and Han took partial credit that Luke was still alive now. But the biggest reason that he had never been able to go back to smuggling until Leia turned him away was Leia herself. He had never liked to admit it, especially back then, but she had stolen his heart from the get-go, and he wouldn't have been able to leave if he had tried.
Han didn't sleep at all. He lay awake, thinking, eyes closed. He realized as soon as he lay down that he had chosen the bunk that Leia had slept on, but he was too tired to get up and move. That, and he liked the way Leia and Luke's smells combined on the pillow. But he didn't admit that to himself either.
Her smell. It still made him crazy. And Luke's smell made him happy, the way that gawky teenage boy once had.
When the ship's computer started beeping, he put his boots and jacket back on and hurried to the cockpit.
Leia was already in a trance, searching for her brother's glowing Force-sense. Han had always wished he could feel it too, could share it with them, especially her. He wished that, even though he had never met his daughter, he could have some kind of connection with her, and know that she was safe all the time. He had thought about her very day since he left.
He dropped the ship out of hyperspace and orbited the planet, waiting for Leia to give him a direction. Ten minutes later, without opening her eyes, Leia said softly, "Land."
"Where?"
"I'll tell you."
Twenty minutes passed, and the Falcon orbited Klatooine.
"Now. Land right under us."
"Right under us?"
She nodded, opening her eyes.
All they could see from space was crystalline clouds, brilliant with ice and chemicals. Only the lower atmosphere did not posses this thick concentration of crystal toxins. At ground level, it was breathable. Han knew about the atmosphere, but he didn't know the number it could do on exposed parts of a ship.
"Sith!" he shouted as he tried to maintain control of a freighter with no stabilizers. It was near impossible. He knew he'd be able to land her in one piece, but where? And with how much outer damage? A YT-1300 was not like the newer ships, with a "skin" over everything, smooth and chrome and aerodynamic. Han thought it was ridiculous--as if a ship needed to be aerodynamic in space.
Neither of them spoke as the ship made its bumpy landing. They just held their breath and tightened their restraints.
And they made it.
They had cleared a nice path through the forest with their landing, but as far as Leia knew, there was no one to hide from on this planet, she explained. She only felt Luke, maybe Hanna and a few others.
The forest was comprised of six-foot tall "trees" with white bark and sickly yellow leaves. If they had grown in her garden, Leia would have called them bushes, and given them special plant food to make them better.
They had to crawl hands and knees to a clearing or the end of the forest that they could see through the trees, because the trees were too tall to see above, and too short to walk beneath without getting hit in the head.
When they got to the end of the forest after half an hour of crawling, they took one another's hand. What they saw was too impossibly beautiful to be true.
"My stars..." Leia breathed.
"No kidding," Han agreed, squeezing her hand.
The end of the forest was on top of a ridge. At the end of the forest, no grass or flowers or anything covered the ground except little twinkling ice and quartz crystals mixed with the dry soil. But the real quartz was out there, off the cliff. The ground was covered, down below, with the little trees as far as the eye could see, which was not very far, because a slightly shimmery mist floated and swirled everywhere. Here and there, huge crystals rose out of the forest below, flat on top and covered in trees. Some were taller than the ridge, some were only ten feet above the forest floor. Some were crystal-shaped, faseted. Others were eroded away to be thinner in the center, smooth, specks of crystal carried away by the wind over thousands of years.
Neither of them said anything. The sun was setting in the direction they were looking, casting streams of light about the mist and through the crystals. Little rainbows danced in the air, coming and going. As they watched, the sunset turned purple through the chemicals in the clouds.
Han turned to look at Leia at long last, really look at her. She was still staring at the landscape, looking as if she had just seen a miracle. Still holding her hand, Han leaned closer to her, breathing in her smell along with the thick vapors in the air. He nuzzled her lose hair, dropping little kisses on her head and neck. She stiffened momentarily, then relaxed. But she did not move.
He took her in his arms and kissed all over her face, and finally her lips, she kissing him back. He couldn't think--he didn't think. He just kissed her.
And a few minutes later, when they fell to the ground, he didn't feel the cold of the crystals. The whole universe could have come to an end at that point, and he wouldn't know or care.
When Leia woke up, she found a plate of food by her bedside. It was still hot. She frowned, wondering what was it that had made Han cook for her. But he had always liked to cook, so she shook it away and looked at the crono on the wall.
Damnit, Han!
Seeing that eleven of the twelve hours of their jump had passed, she got out of bed and pulled her jacket on over her undershirt, leaving her boots on the floor. She stood in the doorway and shouted for him.
He leaned out of the galley. "What d'you want? You know, you don't have to scream so loud. This ship ain't that big."
"You let me sleep for eleven hours?"
He shrugged. "Actually, it's more like ten-and-a-half."
She hated him, and his casual indifference. "Han, because you didn't get any sleep, it's going to take us that much longer to find Hanna and Luke. If you're too tired--"
"Hey, settle down, sweetheart. I slept in the lounge. I only got four hours, but I'm okay. I didn't want to wake you up, and I didn't want you to have to wake up with me across from you."
Leia sighed and ran her fingers through her lose hair. She didn't bother putting it up. She was jumping at nothing. She was so suspicious of Han's intentions, so edgy being on a ship with just him, so scared of what may be happening to her family that she was questioning his every word and move.
"I'm sorry," she breathed.
"What?"
She took a deep breath. She didn't like apologizing. "I'm sorry I overreacted. I'm just...stressed."
Han nodded. "I know how you get. That's why I let you sleep. Eat your food, all right?"
With that, he ducked back into the galley.
******************
Leia's head was clearer when they dropped out of hyperspace. She was wide awake now, and she had had a meal. Han was still closed up inside of himself, the way he had been all yesterday as they worked on the ship. Leia found it upsetting. She felt like she was being accused of something, and punished for it, without knowing what it was. She knew that wasn't it, but it was unnerving, nonetheless.
The blue and gray cloudy lightning of hyperspace drew out into streaks, and finally resolved themselves into stars. Han sat patiently as Leia meditated and reached hard for some faint trace of Hanna and Luke, Luke especially. She could usually feel some sort of connection with him, no matter where he was. He was always there, in some ethereal plane of her existence, as if he constantly had a hand on her shoulder. She had gotten used to it. It comforted her. But now...it was different. Like she was feeling the hand on her shoulder through a thick coat. She could usually reach out to Hanna, too, or at least have the vague sense that somewhere, she had a daughter, a Jedi daughter who was constantly seeping rays of light into the universe. The light was so dim now that she had trouble seeing it.
She opened her eyes to find them blurry with unshed tears. "They're here somewhere. We came to the right sector, it's just...it's like I'm seeing them through smoke."
Han sighed something that sounded somewhat like a Huttese curse, but Leia didn't understand Huttese very well. "Think...if we get any closer to them, you'd be able to tell better?"
She shrugged. "Maybe. But the...cloudiness isn't caused by distance. It's like...like you felt when you were in carbonate. Like they're in some sort of hibernation state. How they feel when they sleep but don't dream."
"And that makes 'em harder to find?"
"I can't touch their minds when they have no thoughts or emotions. They're not sending anything...there's nothing to grab hold of."
Han nodded. "Okay...let's do this the long way. Got any general ideas? Point in a direction, or something?"
She meditated again for several minutes while Han sat patiently and waited. When she opened her eyes, she pointed hard to starboard and said, "There, somewhere."
Han checked the starcharts. "That'd be Womrik or Klatooine."
"Not much on either of those planets."
"No...well, Klatooine's closer. About an hour jump away. Once we're there, think you'll know?"
"I think I'll know if they're on planet or not."
"Good enough for me, doll."
***********
Leia got Han to take a nap while they were in hyperspace. He wasn't young anymore, she had told him, and he had to stop acting like he was.
That was a novel idea, Han thought. If that's what she had wanted, why did she let him go? Why hadn't she tried to tie him down?
Without Leia he had lived the life of the twenty-eight-year-old smuggler she had met all those years ago. He wondered if Leia had ever realized the real reason he had quit smuggling. For the cause, certainly. He had hated the Empire almost as much as she did, because, even though he hated to admit it, he had a conscience. For the kid too. He had made it his personal responsibility to make sure Luke got enough flight and combat training in the old days to make it to twenty, and Han took partial credit that Luke was still alive now. But the biggest reason that he had never been able to go back to smuggling until Leia turned him away was Leia herself. He had never liked to admit it, especially back then, but she had stolen his heart from the get-go, and he wouldn't have been able to leave if he had tried.
Han didn't sleep at all. He lay awake, thinking, eyes closed. He realized as soon as he lay down that he had chosen the bunk that Leia had slept on, but he was too tired to get up and move. That, and he liked the way Leia and Luke's smells combined on the pillow. But he didn't admit that to himself either.
Her smell. It still made him crazy. And Luke's smell made him happy, the way that gawky teenage boy once had.
When the ship's computer started beeping, he put his boots and jacket back on and hurried to the cockpit.
Leia was already in a trance, searching for her brother's glowing Force-sense. Han had always wished he could feel it too, could share it with them, especially her. He wished that, even though he had never met his daughter, he could have some kind of connection with her, and know that she was safe all the time. He had thought about her very day since he left.
He dropped the ship out of hyperspace and orbited the planet, waiting for Leia to give him a direction. Ten minutes later, without opening her eyes, Leia said softly, "Land."
"Where?"
"I'll tell you."
Twenty minutes passed, and the Falcon orbited Klatooine.
"Now. Land right under us."
"Right under us?"
She nodded, opening her eyes.
All they could see from space was crystalline clouds, brilliant with ice and chemicals. Only the lower atmosphere did not posses this thick concentration of crystal toxins. At ground level, it was breathable. Han knew about the atmosphere, but he didn't know the number it could do on exposed parts of a ship.
"Sith!" he shouted as he tried to maintain control of a freighter with no stabilizers. It was near impossible. He knew he'd be able to land her in one piece, but where? And with how much outer damage? A YT-1300 was not like the newer ships, with a "skin" over everything, smooth and chrome and aerodynamic. Han thought it was ridiculous--as if a ship needed to be aerodynamic in space.
Neither of them spoke as the ship made its bumpy landing. They just held their breath and tightened their restraints.
And they made it.
They had cleared a nice path through the forest with their landing, but as far as Leia knew, there was no one to hide from on this planet, she explained. She only felt Luke, maybe Hanna and a few others.
The forest was comprised of six-foot tall "trees" with white bark and sickly yellow leaves. If they had grown in her garden, Leia would have called them bushes, and given them special plant food to make them better.
They had to crawl hands and knees to a clearing or the end of the forest that they could see through the trees, because the trees were too tall to see above, and too short to walk beneath without getting hit in the head.
When they got to the end of the forest after half an hour of crawling, they took one another's hand. What they saw was too impossibly beautiful to be true.
"My stars..." Leia breathed.
"No kidding," Han agreed, squeezing her hand.
The end of the forest was on top of a ridge. At the end of the forest, no grass or flowers or anything covered the ground except little twinkling ice and quartz crystals mixed with the dry soil. But the real quartz was out there, off the cliff. The ground was covered, down below, with the little trees as far as the eye could see, which was not very far, because a slightly shimmery mist floated and swirled everywhere. Here and there, huge crystals rose out of the forest below, flat on top and covered in trees. Some were taller than the ridge, some were only ten feet above the forest floor. Some were crystal-shaped, faseted. Others were eroded away to be thinner in the center, smooth, specks of crystal carried away by the wind over thousands of years.
Neither of them said anything. The sun was setting in the direction they were looking, casting streams of light about the mist and through the crystals. Little rainbows danced in the air, coming and going. As they watched, the sunset turned purple through the chemicals in the clouds.
Han turned to look at Leia at long last, really look at her. She was still staring at the landscape, looking as if she had just seen a miracle. Still holding her hand, Han leaned closer to her, breathing in her smell along with the thick vapors in the air. He nuzzled her lose hair, dropping little kisses on her head and neck. She stiffened momentarily, then relaxed. But she did not move.
He took her in his arms and kissed all over her face, and finally her lips, she kissing him back. He couldn't think--he didn't think. He just kissed her.
And a few minutes later, when they fell to the ground, he didn't feel the cold of the crystals. The whole universe could have come to an end at that point, and he wouldn't know or care.