At some point I got paranoid about Han. I thought Leia looked at him with a longing in her eye, and that Han was returning it. I didn't have anything to worry about yet, and I suppose I intuitively knew that. But I was getting a taste of things to come.

The Battle of Hoth separated me from my small family. I went off to train with Yoda, and unbeknownst to me, Han and Leia, along with Ben, Chewie and Threepio, were stranded close to Hoth, limping along on sub-light. They were captured by the Empire and tortured at Bespin to draw me there. I came.

I fought Vader, all the more vehemently for what he had done to Leia, only to lose my right hand and left hanging on an antenna to die. But not before he told me the painful truth–he was my father.

Leia rescued me, and I saw, as she tended to my arm, the unconditional love in her eyes. I reasoned that if she could still love Ben in spite of what he was, then she could still love me. But the words came halting forth, and I didn't manage to tell her for a few days. I held Ben in my lap, trying not to muse on the thought that we were brothers, as a two-onebee tested my new hand. Ben was fascinated, and actually none the worse for his frightening experience.

Han was gone, something Leia and I both hurt for. But her more so, I think.

My hand finished, I shooed Ben off to play with the droids in the next room. Leia was staring absently out the window of the Alliance medical frigate. We were far from the galaxy's center, and from here the view of the disk was gorgeous. She was more so.

"Leia," I said, softly, not daring touch her incase she took the news badly. "I have to tell you something."

And somehow, I told her.

Her eyes grew wide and tearful, but she didn't shrink away. She laughed sadly. "Interesting family we have."

I nodded.

"Luke...I have something to tell you, too. I'm pregnant."

We hadn't exactly been trying, but while on Hoth we'd been toying with the idea of having another baby if things started to look up for the Alliance. They most certainly weren't.

"And there's more," she continued. "I'm not sure it's yours."

I took a step back, angry and feeling betrayed. "You slept with Han." It wasn't a question.

She didn't lie to me. I'll give her that.

I left the room. I didn't see Leia for a few weeks.

------

Somehow I end up sitting back in the cantina with my former best friend. He buys me several glasses of ale, and after the first three or four, I don't really miss the spice.

Han puts on a ridiculous show of friendship, but I can tell it's just because he's nervous. I sit and drink the ale quietly. I can't deal with things anymore. I let substances do it for me.

"Hey, kid," Han begins, drunk. He must have been drinking before I got here, because he's had less than me now, and is twice as drunk. "You know I left one of the best sabbac hands of my life to run out into the freezin' cold after you?"

I raise an eyebrow septically. He's bragging. It's just to build himself up–it doesn't even matter if it's true or not, which it probably isn't. That's not the point. "Really?" I ask, and I honestly couldn't care less.

I see the light in his eyes waver as he's talking to me. He calls me "kid," as if I were still some naive child like the purity-obsessed farmboy I once was. As if he still loved me. But I see through the mask. What he's really thinking is that I'm killing myself, dimming the light that used to shine from me. He's also feeling guilty for not taking care of me himself, as if he could have done anything.

I know because I know him, and I know when there's more going on that meets the eye. He betrays himself in the slightest movements of his hands, the anxious glances he throws at me.

A mixture between nerve-wracked and bored, I down the rest of my fifth glass and decide to be done with the charade. I stand, a little dizzy, but I am more than experienced at holding my alcohol. "Look, Han," I say softly, "I don't want to see you because it brings back bad memories. And I know you don't want to see me, because of how scared you're acting. I'm going home. We don't have to keep this up any longer." I put on my leather flight-style jacket and turn to go.

He rises and grabs my shoulders, forcing me to face him. I'm too weak and drunk to resist. "Luke, I do want to see you," he says, and I feel like a chastised child. He tries to make eye contact, but all I can think about when I see those hurt hazel eyes is the fact that Leia looks into them every day. I turn my head.

"Please let go," I all but whimper. He does, slowly. He frowns at me, as if unsure what to make of me.

"Han..." I begin carefully, unsure if I can trust him. "The dealer in the corner."

He looks to my hook-up, still waiting in the back of the cantina. "Yeah?"

I swallow. "I was going to...but I don't want you to be here when I do."

He nods. I think he understands why I would be ashamed–for someone who knew me when I had it together, to see me so broken now....

"I'll go," he says, and for me it almost sounds like forgiveness. I shut my eyes, holding in the memory of his love and friendship that suddenly comes back when I hear that tone in his voice, unwilling to let myself feel it. I don't want to start feeling the old things again–that would make the pain even worse than it already is.

"Thank you," I murmur.

He reaches out for me one last time and squeezes my shoulder, firmly but carefully. I look up into his eyes at last, steadily, remembering that it was the way we used to say good-bye instead of a hug, a handshake, or even words. We went deeper than that. I put a gloved hand on his and squeeze back.

"Don't tell Leia...how fucked up I am," I request with an ironic laugh.

Han flinches to hear me use that word, and I remember that he has probably never heard me curse. I was so innocent, once. I blush, barely, something I don't do as often these days. "I won't," he promises.

I nod.

He takes a last look at me, sorrow in his eyes. "Go easy on it," he says, and I know he means the spice. Without waiting for an answer, he turns to go, without the usual swagger in his step. I watch him until he disappears from sight.

I count to ten in my head slowly, the pusher in the corner waiting for me. I want the spice so badly, but maybe I'm drunk enough to forget it tonight. And then tomorrow, maybe I'll be brave enough to wait out the whole day without it, and then the worst of the withdrawal will be over. And if I can make it past that point, maybe I can get off it, and deal with my problems the way I should have been all along.

I grit my teeth. Suddenly, I wonder what it's like for Han to come home to her, and my kids. I can't imagine what she must look like now, so I see her twenty-one and barely pregnant, dressed in Alliance-issue fatigues and one of my old shirts, her hair in a messy braid crown. The thought of Leia as I last saw her reminds me that the spice is what makes the memories go away. I know I can't wait–I'm not that strong anymore. There was a time when I anxiously ran off to face every danger, just to have it over with. But that Luke Skywalker died seven years ago. I'm not brave anymore.