My All Chapter 7: Awakenings, a star wars fanfic

"Do you see now why I told you to leave? You've seen it now. And they won't leave me. They keep crying and I don't know how to help hem."

Luke stared at him, completely horror struck.

"You knew this was going to happen?"

Han laughed coldly and looked back to the Dream Han.

"Of course I knew. In about ten seconds, he'll start singing the only Alderaanian lullaby Leia ever stopped crying long enough to teach me."

Luke swallowed hard, fighting his own nausea.

"Why?" Luke whispered.

Leia listened hard to Chewie's translation. That was a good question. Why, after something terrible had evidently happened, would he sing a lullaby? And an Alderaanian one at that?

Han shook his head.

"When they lie in darkness, she will stand in light."

Han stared at the man on the cell floor.

"When they are blind, she will make them see."

Luke took a step toward him but Han took no notice.

"When they are lost she will find them."

Luke stretched out a hand.

"When they are in agony, she will ease the suffering."

Suddenly, with a movement faster than Luke ever would have expected, Han grabbed his outstretched arm and twisted, pulling him close as the Dream Han began to whisper the lullaby's words.

"And you," he whispered, "you can't help me. I'm alone here. Get out."

Luke flew across the room with more strength than he would have if Chewie had thrown him, hit the wall and crumpled to the floor.

Leia left Han's side and rushed to Luke's.

"Luke! What happened!"

Luke shook his head, staring wide eyed at Han, whose eyes were closed once more.

"There's two of them," he whispered.

"What?" said Leia.

"There are two Hans in there. One must be a-a memory, a dream. And Han's just sitting there, watching him."

"I don't understand."

Luke looked to her, as if only now acknowledging her presence.

"Han has regressed into his mind and he's watching a memory of himself being tortured. But she's in there, too! She's killing him, poisoning his mind, destroying his soul from the inside. It's driving him insane - you heard what he was saying - and he won't fight her. He can't."

"I don't understand. What just happened?"

Luke swallowed hard again, trying to fend of the sudden wave of queasiness that returned with the memory.

"She…She…"

He looked up at her.

"Leia, she raped him."

"So, Han, you know I'm here."

Han looked at her. There she stood, the face that had haunted his nightmares for months, the woman who had tortured him to the brink of death then brought him back and started again.

"I know you're here, Lakaya. I've know you were here ever since I saw you outside my window that night. I knew it was you when you cut my wrists. I know you've been guiding me. Who else would it be? But you're not real anymore. My fiancé killed you."

Lakaya smiled and sat beside him.

"She only destroyed my body, Han. My spirit needed a new home. I chose you."

She gestured to the scene playing itself out before them.

"Like watching a holo, isn't it, Han? Except I've seen this one. I know who wins."

Han didn't look at her.

"He's just a memory, Lakaya. This is my mind. He's my memory."

She laughed.

"But I'm still in here. And you can't get rid of me."

Luke stood in front of her, determined to make her understand.

"Leia, please, stop, just for a moment. Listen."

"I only want to understand-"

"I know, Leia, I know. But it's hard to explain so you have to pay attention. When I entered his mind, I could hear Han being tortured but there were too many doors at first – I couldn't find him. So I started to look. Leia, there was a dead child behind each door. When I found him, he was hanging from the ceiling being tortured, but there was another Han there. This one was sitting on a bench in the corner, watching the first one. He didn't seem to care. Leia, I think the one being tortured was a memory, like a hallucination, but more than that. Han wouldn't help him. The Han on the bench just sat and watched, like he didn't care. He wouldn't let me help him either."

Leia frowned.

"There were two of them and one wouldn't let you help the other?"

Luke nodded.

"Yes, that's it. But I think the one being tortured was…Let's call it an hallucination. The hallucination could see me, but not Han. Lakaya could see the hallucination, but not me or Han. Han and I could see everyone."

"Why wouldn't he help?" asked Leia.

"He said the hallucination was weak, pathetic."

"What did he mean?"

"That the hallucination – the him from the past – was pathetic and weak for allowing it to happen."

"What?"

"Leia, don't you understand? The reason he didn't tell us: He was ashamed. The reason he wouldn't let us near him: he was afraid. And the reason he wouldn't let you touch him, wouldn't let you help him up, hug him, anything, was because she raped him. Repeatedly, so it seems."

Leia dropped her head into her hands.

"But why?"

Luke touched his hand to her arm.

"Because, Leia, she knew she couldn't break him any other way. He had proven himself strong through all the pain she inflicted."

"But what was he talking about, about the spiders and the acid and the dead people?"

"I don't know. It's something he's been thinking about a long time. Either that or he's going mad. I don't know why the hallucination was trying to sing an Alderaanian lullaby either."

"What are you talking about? A lullaby?"

"The one you taught Han that time."

"When was he singing it?"

"After she…Afterwards. When she left."

Leia scrubbed her hand over her face.

"Oh, Gods, I don't know. What did he mean when he said, 'I see them all'?"

Luke shook his head.

"I wish I knew, Leia," he whispered. "I wish I knew."

Chewie sat by the bed, occasionally wuffling softly, stroking Han's forehead. Leia had left a while back to take Luke to a different doctor, to ensure no damage had been done when Han forced him out.

"I wish we could help you, Cub," he said softly, still brushing the hair from his friend's head.

Han's eyes flickered open.

"Chewie?"

Chewie's eyes widened in shock.

"Cub?"

"Chewie…" Han rasped. "Tell Luke to…wake the…kids."

Then his eyes rolled again and closed.

"No! Cub!"

But Han was unconscious once more.

"What happened?" said Luke's voice from the door.

Chewie turned.

"He woke! For a moment! He told me to wake the 'kids'!"

Luke looked at Leia, eyes narrowed.

"Wake the..?"

Leia shook her head.

"I'm going to call a doctor," she said and raced from the room.

"We don't have time for that," Luke whispered, and reached out toward Han.

"No! Please!"

It was barely audible, but it turned Luke's stomach.

"Get away from him," he whispered, knowing that neither Lakaya nor the Dream Han could hear him.

"Why do you keep coming back?"

Luke turned. Han still sat in the corner, watching the memory of himself.

"Han!" Luke said in desperation. "What does it mean?"

Han did not move but this time, when the Dream Han screamed, Han flinched and looked away.

"Han! Han, What does it mean? Wake The Children?"

Luke did not see the movement. One moment, Han was staring at the Dream Han, the next he was standing almost face to face with Luke.

Luke felt suddenly very cold, and as though there were more people watching him, people he couldn't see. And when Han spoke, his voice was audible, but there were what sounded like thousands of other voices beneath his.

"Find us! Help us!"

"What?"

Han stepped into the light for a split second and Luke saw that both his eyes were missing, empty, bloody sockets the only evidence that they ever existed.

He staggered backwards out of Han's grasp in shock and Han's expression saddened.

"You don't want to help us?"

"No, Han! Of course I want to help you! I just-"

Han "looked" down and blood began to trickle down his face, almost like tears.

"Han please, I didn't mean to-"

"No," Han whispered. "It's alright. Really. I understand. I was a fool to think you could help me, anyway."

"No, Han! Wait!"

But Han had turned away and was walking back toward the bench.

And then Luke heard it. Han was singing. Soft but sure and in perfect Alderaanian. It was the lullaby Leia had taught him. And Han sang it even as he walked back into the shadows, that long, mournful, haunting melody that he would never forget.

Luke shook his head.

"Oh, Force."

"It's much more than that, Jedi."

Han shook his head as he looked at the blood covered doors. He didn't know why the kid had pulled away from him like that, only that it had hurt him beyond anything he had ever felt before.

Didn't he want to help him? Or perhaps he had finally seen how pathetic Han was.

He touched one of the doors. He knew that behind each and every one was a dead child, cold, lifeless and innocent. It didn't matter anymore. He would join them soon. And hen it wouldn't hurt anymore.

"Why are you here?" Luke said as calmly as possible.

Lakaya, for it was she, laughed.

"Your sister took my body and I was forced to find another."

Luke shook his head.

"Leave here."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. He's mine now. Every moment that passes he sinks deeper into my consciousness and his body becomes mine. And when he dies, he will be mine for eternity."

Luke shook his head.

"We will find a way to get him back."

She laughed again.

"No. You see, if I don't get him…"

She gestured to the door Luke had first come to.

"…They will."

Han leant forward and lifted the child's head with his hand.

"She'd want me to help you," he whispered. "She taught me to care."

The child did not draw breath. No pulse stirred beneath Han's fingers. But a tiny hand took hold of his own.

Han smiled.

Lakaya's head suddenly turned.

Luke recognized her expression as something akin to fear.

Then she smiled less-than-convincingly and disappeared into thin air.

Luke whirled about and ran through the door.

What was Han doing that could frighten Lakaya?

Han stood up and tugged a little on the child's hand.

"She'd want me to help you," he said. "She'd want me to. Come on."

Hesitantly, the child turned bloody sockets on him.

He tugged on the child's hand again.

"Come on."

The child stood and took a few steps, then recoiled in horror. For a split second, Han wondered why. Then he whirled about and saw what was scaring the child so much.

"Leave her alone," Han said. "She's just a child."

Lakaya laughed.

"Because I won't let you help them."

"You can't stop me," Han answered.

Lakaya smiled.

"Perhaps not from here," she answered.

"Help us," said a small voice from behind Han.

Han looked at the small child. Half her face was missing but she still managed to speak, and her voice sounded like countless others.

"Help us! Free us!"

Han took her hand again and looked at Lakaya.

"Get out of my way. This is my mind. My body. My free will."

Lakaya nodded.

"But not for long."

"NO!" said Han. "You put these children here. I don't know why. I don't care. But I'm going to help them."

Lakaya shook her head.

"No," she smiled. "You're not going to get the chance."

Lakaya flung out her hands and blue electricity shot forth from her fingers. Han hit the ground with a scream.

Luke stiffened suddenly and Chewie caught him as he fell off the bed. He twitched for a few seconds before he lay completely still.

"No!" Leia said desperately before she turned back to Han.

Suddenly, Han's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, his eyes open and staring at hers.

"L…Leia…" he said, his voice strangled, but then his eyes rolled and his face screwed up into a grimace.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed, softer, higher, more dangerous. And he was smiling insanely.

"He's mine," he whispered, "but the Jedi almost helped him. And I can't afford to loose him now. It's a shame. He was so much more use to me alive. But I can use him dead. He's mine."

Leia realized immediately what was happening.

"Get out! Get out of his body."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. You see, once he's gone, I can completely destroy his soul. He would be mine for eternity. Whatever you do, you will loose. Say goodbye, Princess."

"NO!"

But Han's back arched away from the bed, his eyes rolling back into his head until only the whites were visible. He began choking softly as his life signs plummeted and then he lay still, a small thin line of blood working its way down his cheek.

"Oh, Sith," said Leia. "I NEED A DOCTOR!"

Luke awoke slowly, unaware to start with of where he was. He turned his head and winced at the bright light.

Then he sat bolt upright as everything came flooding back.

"Easy," said a voice by his ear.

He turned his head to see a doctor standing by the bed, reading his life signs.

"What..? Where am I? Where's Han?"

The doctor's expression saddened.

"General Solo has been taken into emergency surgery. He is not expected to survive. I'm sorry."

"No!" Luke protested. "He has to live!"

"He developed internal bleeding but the scanners can't determine where. The surgeons have been working hard but he is still bleeding."

"No, I have to get to him."

He began to push back the covers but the doctor stopped him.

"I'm afraid you're not yet strong enough to-"

Luke held up a hand. This was not something he enjoyed doing and it made him feel guilty as hell, but he didn't have time for a full scale argument.

"I'm making a good recovery. I'm allowed to leave as long as I take it easy."

The doctor's face was blank and expressionless.

"You're making a good recovery. You're allowed to leave as long as you take it easy."

Luke snatched up his robe, dressed in record time and ran out of the door…And ran smack into Chewie.

"Chewie!" he said once he had cleared his mouthful of fur. "Where's Han?"

"In surgery," Chewie answered.

"You have to help me! His surgeons are in great danger!"

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," the doctor by her side said softly. "There is little left to do"

Leia allowed her gaze to travel back to the man on the table on the other side of the soundproof transparisteel, watching her whole life slip away before her while his did too. She wondered how this could have happened, how it could be him on that table. And, when she thought about it, she knew exactly how it had happened. One faulty communicator all those months ago at the house of Senator Algara.

Han had been forced to defend her himself, to take a shot for her, and, as a result he had been captured.

And she had learned, some of it quite recently, that he had been whipped, burned, scratched, deprived, raped and tortured far beyond anything any man should ever have to endure. And they were telling her he would die without ever being truly normal again.

And it was him on that table.

He lay there, bleeding, dying, wide open on a cold slab. And there was nothing to do but stand and watch.

Luke ran silently down the corridor; Jedi always moved with absolute silence. But it was rare for him to panic. He often worried, and made no secret of it, but something had driven fear into his heart.

Chewbacca, still following close behind him, felt it too but through his bind to the Corellian not the Force.

Something was very wrong.

"Your Highness?"

Leia tore her eyes away for a split second to glance at him before returning her gaze to Han, suddenly aware that the doctor had been trying to attract her attention for quite some time.

"The decision is yours."

"What choices do I have?"

The doctor looked at Han a moment.

"We can continue to operate or not, Your Highness."

"Neither decision will save his life."

It was not a question. And even if it had been, they both knew the answer.

"If we continue, there is little chance we will locate the source."

She looked at him.

"But there is a chance?"

"Yes…Your Highness. There is always a chance."

But rarely success, he didn't have to add.

"Then continue."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Luke didn't so much slow as skid to a halt outside the door, stabbing in the access code before he had fully regained his balance, almost toppling before Chewie supported him.

"Thanks Chewie, Leia!"

She turned sharply.

"Stop them operating."

"What!" she said even as Chewie roared his own objection.

"Trust me!" Luke replied frantically, holding up his hands to stave off the apparently imminent Wookiee/Princess attack. "There's something wrong here. You know that."

She hesitated.

"Please, Leia if we don't-"

A shrill continuous beep cut him off and he staggered backwards. Han was flatlining.

"No!" she screamed, pressing both hands to the transparisteel, but Luke grabbed her arm.

"No," he said urgently. "He's still alive!"

"What!"

"He's still alive but the machines, the monitors, they can't pick it up. She's inside of him and she's blocking it! I can feel her! She's standing there watching him!"

The surgeons had stopped working and were readying the defibrillators.

"Wait!" said Leia, realizing too late that they were about to electrocute a live man, unable to tell them through the soundproof transparisteel.

But as the surgeon warned his companions with a harsh and frantic "clear", the hair on the back of Luke's neck, and Leia's, stood on end.

"Oh, Force…" Luke whispered.

Han twisted.

"No! You won't do this to me!"

He looked at the children. They stood there cowering, slowly sinking to the floor again.

Han's head whipped around and he stared at her.

Then, with a cry of fury, he flung out his arms towards her.

And the lightning reversed.

The surgeon forced the pads down on Han's chest…. And was immediately thrown backwards across the room into the wall where he crashed into a tray of instruments and slumped to the ground, out cold. But the energy from the pads had already been transferred.

Blue bolts of energy crackled around Han's body, cocooning it in blue lightning until the defib, and the monitors, and the various lights the room was filled with began to whine. Leia's eyes widened and Luke stumbled backwards.

The whine grew, and grew, as did the lightning that was somehow encasing his body without visibly harming him.

"Han..!" Luke croaked, almost as if he didn't see Leia anymore.

And suddenly, the whine died, the energy disappeared and, for approximately two seconds, there was complete and utter silence.

And then Han convulsed, his nerves finally reacting to the defib. The lamps exploded in a shower of sparks and hot glass, all the monitors save the heart monitor, emitting columns of blue white flame from their vents. The heart monitor was now reading Han's heartbeat, although the line now resembled a two years old's scrawl with no two readings the same. The individual heartbeats were no longer distinguishable.

Han, lying on the table and effectively bleeding out, was still lit by the light from the small observation room Leia, Luke and Chewie were standing in. Luke's face was twisted into a grimace but, although Leia could feel the pain too, she was staring straight at Han.

His head had lolled to the side when he had convulsed and was now turned towards her, his face drawn, deathly pale.

And then his eyes opened.

Leia screamed, Luke fainted and Chewie, catching Luke, roared.

But Han stared at Leia, unblinking, the beautiful hazel of his eyes replaced with a harsh jet black.

And Han sat up. He swung his legs off the table, pulled the wires and drips from his body and stood, the sheet somehow remaining around him. Leia took a step back as she saw that he had not yet been sewn up, and then another as the laser scalpel, among other things, lifted from the tray of their own accord and started to dig around inside of Han.

Other instruments lifted and worked, as though moved by invisible hands, until, finally, the dermalaser lifted and hovered in front of Han, closing his stomach. Leia had to force herself not to vomit but to stare into the black voids that pierced her soul, and he had stared, seemingly oblivious to the upright operation being performed in him, right until then.

He blinked and she did too.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I know," he said, in Corellian. "I love you too."

Why was he speaking in Corellian? And how could she hear him? The glass was soundproof.

He turned away and moved toward the doors of the theatre. One of the nurses rushed forward and with a hypospray full of the maximum amount of sedative, but Han seemed not to notice her. It was only when she pressed it to his shoulder that he turned dark eyes on her. She cowered as he advanced – it had not had any effect – backing herself into the wall.

He followed until she had nowhere to go. Then he leant forward until his eyes were level with hers and put both hands to her neck.

"No!" Leia shouted. "Han, don't!"

"Niei va," he whispered, then walked to the locked door, held his hand out, swept that hand to the side, and the door opened for him.

Leia stood, dumbstruck for a few moments, before she turned to Chewie. Luke was still unconscious in his arms. Then it had not been Luke's doing.

She turned back to the room of surgeons, pressed the intercom and said,

"Are you alright?"

"Y-Yes…" the nurse replied. "He…He said 'thank you'."

"Right," said Leia. "Come on. We've got to find him."