Summary: Set between Chapters 33 and 34, Han returns home, and he's not alone...
For a man with such a fearsome reputation, one able to call in entire fleet groups on his word of honor, Han Solo was in deep trouble.
There wasn't a battle fleet in the galaxy that would help him out of this one.
Kyp stood in the middle of the Millennium Falcon's cockpit, peering over Han and Chewbacca's shoulders with a rapt expression. "Wow," he gasped.
Han glanced at Chewbacca. They'd just come out of hyperspace and the only thing there was to see was a big bulk freighter, and not a particularly interesting one. From the looks of things—and the information that popped up on the screen when Han pinged it with a simple query—it was just one of the many, many freighters that brought cargo to Coruscant each day.
Not to Kyp. Like a man from the desert seeing water for the first time, the glimmering ecumenopolis of Coruscant dazzled every first timer.
Han's heart tightened. He needed to talk to Leia and he was dreading the conversation. "Get ahold of Coruscant Control, Chewie, let them know we're back, and request docking priority with my diplomatic authorization," he said. They were going to catch Leia by surprise; with the HoloNet being compromised Han hadn't wanted to risk any transmissions, so she wouldn't even know they were in-system yet. "Where's Luke?" he asked Kyp.
Kyp dragged his attention away from the freighter. "In the back, talking to Kam."
That made Han fight back another wince. How was it, he wondered, that one minute Luke could be dodging lethal attacks from the big Force-adept, and the next minute have the enormous man sobbing on the floor of a hangar bay? It was of course no big deal after that to turn his baby blues on Han and preemptively announce that Kam would be coming back to Coruscant with him and would Han please give them both a ride?
There were times Han felt like he didn't understand Luke at all. But, he supposed, the kid had earned the benefit of the doubt, and Kam had been nothing but quiet, polite, and mostly still rather than stabby since coming aboard the Falcon.
"Right," he said, flicking switches to prepare the Falcon for landing. "We have our landing berth yet, Chewie?"
The Wookiee growled back an affirmative.
"You know, I think I'm starting to understand you," Kyp said to Chewbacca.
Chewie thwacked Kyp on the back with a big paw, making the kid jolt forward from the impact.
"I think that meant good," Kyp, catching himself on the back of Han's chair.
Coruscant grew larger through the cockpit's transparisteel viewpanels with each passing picosecond, and Kyp's eyes grew just as wide. Suddenly the one bulk freighter became dozens, and smaller ships, and the gleaming skyhooks tethered to the planet below, and the horizon-to-horizon cityscape, only interrupted here and there for reservoirs or city parks so massive they could be seen from orbit.
"Wow," he gaped. "How many people live here?"
Han shrugged. "Dunno. More zeros than you have fingers, I think, especially if you count the whole undercity."
Kyp glanced downward at his hands and sent Han a snotty teenage look which was, his childhood considered, quite reassuring.
"Millennium Falcon, this is Coruscant Control. You've been assigned to landing pad eighty-seven in the Imperial Palace. Course guidance is being uploaded to your navigation computer now."
"Confirmed, Coruscant Control," Han replied, his hand on the com pickup. "We know the way."
"Acknowledged. Welcome back, General Solo."
Han lifted his finger off the pickup, then turned to Kyp. "C'mere kid. The show only gets better from here."
Kyp stepped in between him and Chewie, leaning forward to peer through the Falcon's transparisteel cockpit windows, his eyes widening as he started to see the borders delineating neighborhoods, the thousands of starships, then the individual buildings and the horizon-to-horizon lines of airspeeders. In the far distance the Manarai Mountains rose up, and in front of them were the central spires of the Imperial Palace. Kyp pointed at it. "Is that where we're going?"
"Yep," Han said with false cheer. "Home sweet home."
Chewie immediately laid claim to the Falcon for a trip back to see his family on Kashyyyk, though he insisted on giving the ship a thorough diagnostic first, just in case Tavira and Vorru's people had left something untoward aboard at Kessel. While Chewie went to work on that, Han took Kyp home.
Leia wasn't available to meet them when they arrived. Winter came, but immediately left again to help Luke find a place for Kam to stay while they got him situated. Han had taken Kyp to Palace Medical for a brief checkup before running him by the apartment. There followed brief introductions to the twins' Noghri bodyguards (and babysitters) and Threepio, who had been cheerfully delighted to converse with Kyp in the myriad of languages the kid had half-learned during his time on Kessel. Threepio was less enthused when it turned out roughly half of said fluency was profanity. The Noghri were delighted, in their quiet, understated way.
Luckily their apartment did have a guest room. Han had long assumed that it would become either Jacen or Jaina's room when the time came for them to want separate spaces, but for the moment, it was Kyp's, with his own door remote and everything.
The kid hadn't known what to say and, surprisingly, neither did Han. Instead he had just sat with Kyp in the apartment, introducing him to the twins. After a round of perfunctory introductions, Kyp had just sat and stared out through the polarized transparisteel at the endless rows of airspeeders while Jacen and Jaina zoomed around the room imitating the fast-flowing traffic, a favorite pastime.
While Kyp watched the twins accidentally re-enact multiple mid-air collisions, Han had set about taking back control of his kitchen. Once it was restored to proper order and he'd set aside the ingredients for dinner, he returned to thinking about the same thing he'd been thinking about the whole way back from Linuri.
So, Leia. While I was in the Spice Mines, I met another orphaned Jedi teenager…
Leia, honey, you know how you're always telling me I need to process my childhood trauma about being an abandoned orphan better? Well…
I'm sorry you've had such a miserable day dealing with Fey'lya. Also, I brought home a stray!
Han winced. They'd been talking about maybe having another child (Leia had mentioned naming a son Bail or a daughter Breha, after her parents; as far as Han was concerned she could name them whatever she wanted as long as it wasn't a name from his family line), but that was a world different from bringing home a fully-grown young adult fresh from the Spice Mines and moving him into their spare bedroom while she was at work.
He went back to chopping, possibly with more force than he needed.
It would be okay. Leia would understand. He'd done the right thing and what else were they going to do with him? He had no family, nowhere else to go. His homeworld had been blasted to rubble by the Empire, his only sibling was lost in the Imperial service somewhere (if he wasn't dead, which was more likely), and he had Jedi powers. That last one terrified Han, but letting a wounded kid like Kyp out into the universe alone terrified Han even more.
He put the knife down, far back on the counter and listened to Kyp playing with the twins.
Really, it was simple. What other choice did he have?
So he marched over to the wall comm, caught a touch of grey in his hair on the gleaming screen that he swore hadn't been there before he left, and told his wife she needed to come home now, but that it wasn't an emergency.
For a moment, Han looked longingly at their drinks cabinet and silently cursed crazy old men, knights errant, and deranged old wizards who left so many orphans and so few parents to pick up the pieces. On a whim he called Kyp in to teach him the basics as he started to prepare the evening meal. Alderaanian rissoles. Leia's favorite.
In Han's book, forearmed beat forewarned every time.
When Kyp finally went to bed—late, after sitting on the couch in the living room, watching all the airspeeders flow by for hours, the Coruscant sunset and moonrise, and the towering spacescrapers turn to glittering light and the visible skyhooks gleam in the sky above—it was a relief. Kyp had been calm all afternoon and evening. He had played with Jacen and Jaina—who seemed to note his sense of wonder and thus echo it themselves, suddenly amazed by things that they saw every day— then eaten dinner with the shy tentativeness of a boy unused to anything other than gruel or shrink-wrapped ration bars, and watched the sky with the wondrous awe of a newcomer not just to Coruscant, but to a world beyond a mining prison.
Han sat at the kitchen table alone, watching that sky.
"You know he's terrified," Leia said as she settled in beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Not of us?"
Leia sighed softly. "It's complicated, but he's terrified that you're going to leave him alone again… send him back, decide he's not worth your time."
Han felt a fist around his heart. Yeah, he knew that sensation too. When, as a boy, he'd been befriended by the elderly Wookiee Dewlanna, he'd wondered why she had cared for him. He wasn't a Wookiee… he hadn't even been worth much as a human. His own extended family hadn't wanted him, after all. Why should anyone want him?
"I know," Han said with a long sigh. "Leia, look, I know…"
"Hush," Leia mumbled, nuzzling into his neck. "Of course we're not going to put him out. I've already got Winter looking into whether he has any surviving family, uncles or aunts or the like, but it's not looking good. The Empire flattened Deyer, and even if he does have surviving family there's a good chance the records were destroyed with the planet's cities and they'll be impossible to track down." She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled in closer; he hugged her tightly in return. "Of course we're not going to put him out," she repeated.
Han let out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. The fist around his heart relaxed. He hadn't known what he would do if Leia had said anything else. He hadn't expected her to—he'd known she wouldn't, in fact—but still, the fear of the potential had been real and gripping. "I love you," he said.
"I know," Leia said softly into his neck with a smile he could hear. "Of course, you realize this means you're now going to have four Force-sensitives around the apartment."
"Don't remind me," grumbled Han. "How is it that I keep finding myself in these situations? It never used to get this crazy when it was just Chewie and me. Personally, I blame you and the Kid."
"You can't blame us," Leia chuckled softly. "You chose to come back at Yavin, and it was all down-the-well from there."
Author's Notes: This is the first of three "Missing Moments" scenes; the next two feature Kam and Mara. If there were any other scenes in the story that you didn't get to see, that you'd like to, leave a review... maybe we'll be inspired to write them up!