"Where am I now?" Han asked when he woke up. The bed under him felt familiar but not like one from the med bay.

"In my room," Luke's voice answered from what sounded like across the room.

"Why?"

"Father thought it'd be easier for you to learn to find your way around here than your own room since you haven't used it much," Luke answered.

"Probably a good idea," Han said as he sat up.

"So how're you doing?" Luke asked. The mattress shifted as Luke's weight added to the other side.

"I'll like it better when I can see again," he answered. "And I can get full use of my arm back. Other than that I'm doing alright. Hey..."

"What?"

"What about you?"

"What about me what?" Luke asked.

"Well you're 18 now," Han said. "You should be enrolled in the academy now, right?"

There was a short pause before Luke answered, "I'm not joining the academy."

"What're you talking about?" Han asked, turning to his brother. "You've been bugging Pop for 2 years to join."

"Yeah...but that was before I had a brother," Luke said. "And right now it looks like you need me more than they do."

Han didn't know how to respond to that. Anybody else it would've been easy to brush that off and insist he didn't need anyone around, but this was his brother, and nobody had ever offered to give up anything in exchange for him. "Luke..."

"I can always enroll next year," Luke said simply. "By then we should be caught up on everything with each other."

He still didn't know how to respond. On one hand that was a lot to ask of anybody, even his brother, but on the other hand...

"I'd like that," Han responded.

The two of them sat on the bed for a minute in silence before Han asked, "So what do we do now?"

"I've got an idea," Luke said.

"This is ridiculous," Han murmured to himself as he felt along the controls for his side of the game table.

"Come on, Han, it's your move," Luke said.

"This is stupid, I can't even see what I'm doing," Han told him.

"I'm telling you what to do," Luke replied.

"Yeah, and how do I know you're not taking advantage of the fact I can't see and stealing all my pieces?" Han asked.

"I'd never do that," Luke said honestly and simply.

"I know, but I would," Han told him.

Luke laughed so hard it sounded like he about fell out of his chair. In spite of himself, Han felt a wide grin on his face.

Han opened his eyes, the room was dark but not total blackness. He could see, at least he could see outlines of shapes and figures, people. The medic said the lights would be turned on. He closed his eyes and covered them with his hands. Half of him didn't want to know what he'd see when that happened, because he was terrified of finding his vision was less than 100%. Through the cracks between his fingers he saw light, slowly he lowered his hands and took a long look around the bay room. He turned his head one way, and the other, and gazed towards the ceiling, and slowly he realized he could see everything. He took a huge sigh of relief and slumped back against the exam table. A hand caught him and Luke helped him remain upright.

"Your eyes are fully recovered," the medic told him, "but it will take several more weeks before your arm's healed."

Han glanced down at the hinged durasteel brace he'd been wearing since he first woke up after the crash. "Yeah, tell me something I don't know." He looked at the medic and asked, "Am I going to be able to get back on the fleet when this brace comes off?"

"I can't answer that, but when it comes off, you'll require manual rehabilitation to get your full range of motion back," the medic said.

"Han," Luke was surprised, "you're actually going back on the fleet?"

"Damn right I am," Han answered as he looked at his arm. "Though in this current condition, probably the only thing I'd be able to pilot right now is a ground coach."

"A what?" Luke asked.

Han looked at his little brother. "You never heard of a ground coach?"

"Heard of them, never seen one," Luke said.

"They don't have them around here?"

Luke shrugged. "None that I've seen anyway."

"Oh brother. Well, junior, looks like you're going to have to fly me around until further notice."

Luke's eyes lit up and a huge goofy grin formed on his face at this prospect.

"So I've been 'home' this whole time?" Han asked Vader.

"I had you brought here as soon as your condition was stabilized," Darth Vader answered. "I wanted you to be able to recover in private, with your family around you."

"I appreciate it," Han replied, "but now I've got to get back and see about getting situated on another destroyer."

"You are not going anywhere," Vader told him.

"Pop, look, in a month or so, this thing's gonna come off and I'll be able to fly again, I have to make sure nobody takes my spot until then."

"You're not going back on the fleet, Han," Vader told him with more determination now.

"Look I get it, I got shot down once, but it's not going to happen again," Han replied with a determination in his voice that matched his father's. "It couldn't possibly happen again."

"That's not a chance I'm willing to take," the dark lord responded.

"You don't have to worry about me," Han said.

"I do!"

Those two words filled the entire room. Han felt like he'd been smacked across the face. He looked down at the floor as he started to consider that this was all too much too soon for his father to deal with. He'd been unconscious for most of it so he had no memory of what had happened, but Vader had spent hours waiting to see if he was dead or not.

"Okay, first thing's first," Han conceded as he looked up at Vader again, "I'll wait until my bones finish knitting and then figure out what I'm going to do. It's...just gonna drive me crazy not being able to get up there again."

"I understand that," Vader responded, "it's a family trait."

Han nodded with a small smirk on his face. "Luke's offered to take me around in his land speeder for the time being...uh..." he felt heat in his cheeks as he looked up at the other man and told him, "I hate to ask any favors...I've never asked anyone for anything." Not that he would've gotten it anyway...

"What is it?" Vader inquired.

Han looked like he was actually chewing on the words before he was able to conjure them up. "Is there any chance we could get a ground coach? I can operate that for the time being, and Luke's never even seen one, I think he'd have a kick with it."

Even though he couldn't see past the mask and the red lenses, Han felt that he could almost hear the wheels in Vader's head turning. He'd almost swear he knew what the man was thinking, that this would give the two of them something to do together and bond.

"That can be arranged," Vader said.

Han smiled as he felt the wind blowing in his face and heard the roar of the engine of the convertible ground coach as they sped along the ground. He turned his head and saw Luke half leaning over the side as he watched the tires rotating furiously underneath them.

"Get back in here before you fall out!" Han told his brother.

Luke sat back in his seat and turned to Han and asked, "Seriously? This thing never gets off the ground?"

"Well there are a couple ways that could happen but I don't recommend them," Han answered, "they have a tendency to rip out the engine from beneath."

He could understand Luke's confusion, and mild disappointment. It wasn't as good as flying, but it wasn't a bad second, the speed, the wind, despite the limited use of one arm, it was still a feeling of freedom for him. Anything beat laying around the palace all day waiting to pass his checkup.

Luke looked at the scenery zipping by and asked, "When do I get to try?"

"When we get to a stopping off place," Han told him.

"When's that gonna be?"

Han smirked at his little brother's impatience and remarked, "Hang on."

Darth Vader heard the foreign sound of tires squealing and looked to see the ground coach speeding towards him, a long continual cloud of dirt and debris kicked up in its passing. The long red coach with no top on it was 600 feet away, then 500, then 400, then 300, 200, a few seconds before it would've hit the figure in black, the tires squealed again as the coach swerved sharply to the side and veered away from the dark lord, and skidded to an impromptu stop against the laser gate. Vader went over in time to see the two occupants step out over the side.

"Are you alright?" he inquired.

"He's doing better," Han answered, "today we only hit three Storm Troopers."

"Shut up," Luke elbowed Han in his good arm.

Vader turned to his oldest son and asked him, "Do you remember what today is?"

Han nodded, "My appointment in the med bay to see if this comes off," he raised his arm as well as he could with the brace on.

"The medics are waiting."

"Oh good, I can't wait to get out of this thing," Han said.

"Can I come too?" Luke asked.

Han shrugged, "I don't what for, but sure, come on."

Han had mainly focused on getting the brace off his arm once the break had healed, he hadn't paid much attention when the medics said afterwards he would require manual rehabilitation, nor had he given much thought to what that would consist of. He quickly found out as he spent half an hour screaming in pain and calling the medic droids every word in the Corellian dictionary as they twisted and bent his arm at every angle imaginable, they said to get his full range of motion back. By the time they finished, he wished they would've just snapped it off instead, it couldn't possibly hurt as much as this. When it was all finally over, he'd thrown up on the floor and was laying on the exam table in what felt like a boneless heap, aside from the horrid pain the only sensation he was aware of were the tears streaking down his face that had been forced out of him during the sheer torture.

The pain itself had been so excruciating, Han didn't even care that Luke had been present during it all, had been a witness to the whole thing. Luke commed Vader to come to the bay because he was worried something had gone wrong. Vader arrived promptly and examined his firstborn, who was cradling his arm against him and trying to curl into a ball on the table. He then consulted with the medics who confirmed that the droids were functioning correctly and that the treatments, painful though they were, were proper protocol for the condition Han was in. Scans showed the bone was repaired, now these exercises were necessary to ensure a full recovery.

Luke helped Han sit up on the table and then get to his feet and had his brother lean on him for support as the three of them left the med bay. Han was so out of it he went to his room and collapsed on the bed in a dead sleep for hours.

When it was night, Luke crept into the room and looked at Han as he slept. He hadn't known Han long, and he hadn't known that the man was his brother for very long, but in the time Luke had known him, he'd had nothing but adoration for the man. He was a captain in the Imperial navy, youngest ever, a self-taught pilot, he'd been decorated for feats of bravery, there didn't seem to be anything that the man couldn't do. He faced down death every day and never blinked. He was everything that Luke had wanted to become when he joined the academy.

Luke hadn't been there when they recovered Han's body after the crash, Vader had told him when they found his brother and that he was still alive, but it was hours before he'd had Han transferred to the palace's med bay. He had no way of knowing what Han had been through before he got down there, by which time he'd already been put in the bacta tank and was adequately numbed from painkillers, everything since then had been a slow recovery, during which boredom seemed Han's bigger plight than any actual pain he was in.

This had been the first time Luke had seen his brother in horrific pain, and the first time he had seen his brother afraid. Afraid because of the pain, afraid because he knew it would happen again. It was the first time it dawned on Luke that his brother was in fact quite human. If he'd had any doubts about his decision to hold off on enrolling, this confirmed it. Clearly Han was going to need him right now worse than the academy did.