The next morning when Han stepped out of the fresher after getting a shower and changing into a fresh set of clothes, he nearly collided with his father.
"I still feel cold, is that normal?" Han asked. "Or is that in my head?"
"It might be both," Vader answered. "Not many people have been carbon frozen to know the full extent."
"Oh joy," Han murmured under his breath. He groaned as he tried to figure out how to say what came next. "Thanks for...well, for everything."
"You got lucky, Han," Vader told him. "You could have been killed."
"I know," Han's eyes flinched shut, dreading what he suspected was coming, "I'm sorry you and Luke had to get caught in the middle of all this."
"What were you thinking?"
Han sighed. "When I was in the med bay, all I could think was, when I got out of there, I was going to find the womp rat bastard who shot me down and when I saw the ship it all came back and I just-"
"You should've told me."
Han pursed his lips together, and asked, "Would you have stopped me?"
"I can't answer that," Vader said. "Nobody wanted the people responsible to suffer more than I did."
Han's gaze trailed to the floor. "Good point...I guess I never thought about that...I just...I didn't want you guys to know. I wanted to get it settled myself and that could be it."
"You had to realize-"
"I did, Pop, but weeks went by, nobody came for me, I figured that was it, I figured nobody knew...I certainly never thought they'd come after me when Luke was riding with me."
"At the time, did you know whose ship it was?"
Han nodded. "I knew, I didn't care. I just wanted them to pay for what they did to me, to everybody else on the destroyer, and..." he shrugged, "just for being slaving bastards in general, they're the scum of the universe."
"I know," Vader told him. "But what you did was just reckless."
Han felt even colder now. He felt that the bottom was just about to drop here, and he felt his body trying to brace itself for whatever was coming.
"Who all was aboard the ship when you shot it down?" Vader wanted to know.
Han shrugged, "Just the crew, they must've been between shipments."
Vader nodded.
"Luke told me about what happened on Tatooine, I can't...it...nobody ever would've come for me...to be honest I still can't believe that you did."
"You are my son," Vader said simply. "I never would've stopped looking for you, no matter how long it took."
Han nodded. "I understand."
His gaze slowly moved towards the floor, unsure what was coming next. He felt the leather-clad fingers cup the side of his face as his head was raised to look his father in his eye lenses.
"Do you need a medic droid?"
Han shook his head. "No."
"Good."
The fingers let go of his face, and the next thing Han was aware of was a crushing sensation that it took him a few seconds to realize was his father hugging him.
"You have no idea how relieved I am to have you home," Vader told him.
Han sucked in a breath and responded, "Same."
Vader pulled back and told his son, "I will always be grateful to the woman who adopted you, but there isn't a day that goes by I don't regret giving you up."
"Oh, Pop," Han stammered sheepishly. He never knew what to do during moments like this, he wasn't any good at it.
"Your mother and I missed so much, you would've known her 13 years if we'd kept you," Vader said.
Han looked down to the floor again, he wasn't sure what to say, or if he should.
"So many times, so many things I wondered," Vader said. "So many things I wish I could've seen for myself."
"Pop, please..." this whole thing was making Han uncomfortable and he wished it could just be over and he wouldn't have to try and figure out what to say or do next.
"Twice now..." one gloved hand slid under his chin and tilted his head up to look his father in the red lenses of his mask. "Twice now I've nearly lost you, after it took a lifetime to find you."
Han felt several weird sensations, like a bunch of needles were stabbing him in the back and his spine felt cold, his heart felt like it was pounding harder now than before, it felt like there was a weight on his chest, it was getting harder to breathe. He was aware of his breathing, it sounded like it was echoing in his ears, it sounded labored, gasping. It was louder, and louder, and his heart was beating harder, and then...
The next thing Han was aware of was waking up in his room in the palace. The sun was still out, but clearly several hours had passed since that morning...was it that morning? Was it still the same day? He sat up slowly and listened, he didn't hear anyone nearby. He was alone...and honestly...that's the way he liked it.
He felt tired, but that wasn't a hangover from being carbon frozen. The truth was he hadn't been sleeping all that well for several months, before the bounty hunters froze him, before he was shot down by that damned slave ship. Ever since he found out who his real family was, he woke up several times in the night, he had all kinds of weird dreams, about things he couldn't tell anybody about. He wasn't sure what the answer was, because the dreams never really stopped and they never seemed to go away. If anything they just got weirder...and, Han started to remember, what had happened that morning...it just brought a lot of it back all of a sudden. It was just so much like some of the dreams he'd been having.
His mind felt like it was going a hundred different ways at once, he could barely breathe, thinking right now seemed too great a feat for him to manage, but it didn't stop several pesky thoughts from shining through. Even though he was alone, the door was shut, nobody was in here, he felt...exposed, somehow. Whatever this was, it was the polar opposite of claustrophobia, instead of the room feeling like it was closing in on him it felt like too wide of an open space, so Han pulled himself out of bed and onto the floor and crawled under his bed, hoping a more enclosed environment would help him focus better.
Not the first time he'd ever crawled under his bed but the first time since he was a kid. His head felt somehow less jumbled now but it still didn't clear matters up any. He couldn't think any better but...he felt a little better...for some reason he felt like he was on the ceiling staring down at the floor. His whole life seemed that way anymore. Ever since everything he'd always known or thought he knew, was thrown right out the viewport. It wasn't that he regretted knowing he had a father, a brother, even if it took a while to accept, he'd been thrilled by this news, but at the same time he'd wished that Vader had kept that fact to himself. It had also taken Han a long time to accept he hadn't made the star destroyer fleet simply on his own merit, but because his father had arranged it that way. It was one thing when he thought it was just Lord Vader recognizing a capable man for the job, but to realize his father did it solely because he was his son...it made him sick, but he still refused to give it up. Whatever the reasons were, he'd proven himself on the fleet, he belonged there, he had just as much right to be there as anybody else. He could've gladly spent the rest of his life there, not worrying about anything except himself, and the men he worked with, and the mission of the fleet...that would've been easy, life would've made perfect sense then.
Now nothing made sense. He'd been discharged from the fleet, and the Navy in general. His whole career, everything he'd worked for, thrown right down the garbage chute. In exchange for what? His birth family? A family he'd acknowledged long ago didn't even exist anymore and he'd never find. Except he had, or rather, they had found him. It didn't change the fact these people were virtually strangers to him. He was supposed to be happy to give up the life he'd always known and move in with them? And he was, he really was, he loved his brother, he loved his father, he was grateful to actually have a family, his real family, after being alone for so many years...the problem was his life had actually made sense when he was alone. It didn't make sense anymore. He had no purpose now. He was discharged from the Navy, after which his sole focus was on finding the ship that had shot him down and get revenge. Now he'd done that too, not only that, but he'd paid a severe price for it. A month as a wall decoration for Jabba the Hutt, he wasn't sure if he'd been better off in his half aware state of hibernation, or if he'd been better off fully conscious and taking whatever torturous punishment the fat Hutt would've doled out for what he'd done. It didn't matter either way now, Jabba was dead and he was back on Coruscant with his family. So now what? As far as life purposes went, his were already all checked off, there wasn't anything left for him to do. He had no purpose anymore, no reason to keep functioning.
A year ago Han Solo had known exactly who and what he was...and now...the way events had turned...he felt like his whole identity was slipping away from him. Not only was he no longer a captain in the Navy...he felt like he wasn't even a man anymore. He felt like the chrono had been wound back, like he was a kid again who needed someone to hover over him and tell him what to do, and that his life wasn't his own anymore. He knew that that hadn't been intentional on Vader's part, but it still felt demeaning. It was part of why he'd been so dead set on getting the Millennium Falcon, to have something that was his own, something he was captain and master of, a place where he was the one in charge, something to feel that he was master of his own destiny again.
His ship! Han had to find out what had become of the Falcon after the bounty hunters got him on Bespin. He crawled out from under his bed and decided to bypass anybody he'd encounter in the hallway, and instead climbed out of his window and made his way down to the ground.
In the aftermath of Han's kidnapping, Vader had to grapple with an amass of decisions, one of them involved having the Millennium Falcon transported back to Coruscant. He knew his son would return to it one day. He knew it was Han's pride and joy, but he still considered it an eyesore and had it docked out behind the palace where as few lifeforms would see it as possible. Palace security had just informed him that Han had scaled down from his bedroom window and entered the ship. Vader took that as a sign of improvement in his older son's recovery, and went out to the cargo freighter to see what was going on.
The ramp was down, he showed himself up, and found Han sitting on the floor in the cockpit, surrounded by the destroyed consoles, looking in a daze as he took in the damage.
"Are you alright, my son?" the dark lord inquired.
Han's eyes were largely blank, he blinked, and some recognition came back to them as he slowly answered, "Yeah, sure, Pop, fine."
Vader could guess what was going through Han's mind right now. He made his way over to his son and held out a hand to help pull him to his feet, Han looked at the gloved hand for a moment before taking it. Vader pulled him up and told him, "I know what this ship means to you, Han."
Han averted the unwavering gaze of his red lenses, and instead looked one way and the next as he stammered, "I'm not sure you do, Pop."
"I do. This is your home, it's everything you've worked for since leaving the Navy."
"It left me," Han absently murmured.
Vader still couldn't get his son to look at him, he settled for resting a gloved hand on the side of his head, letting Han feel his presence.
"I know how hard you and Luke both worked on it to make it what it is."
"It's my life," Han said suddenly. He knew how it sounded, but that was the truth, it had been the only thing that made him feel he still had a purpose. "My livelihood."
"I understand," Vader replied.
Han turned and looked out the windscreen as he said, "I know you don't like it."
"I would prefer you had something different, something better," Vader said.
"There is no better," Han turned towards him, finally looked at him, "this ship is everything I ever wanted in one, it's me."
Vader nodded. "Believe me, my son, I do understand."
Han looked around at the damage the ship had endured during the fight, feeling more than a hint of defeat. "It's going to take forever to fix this."
He was drawn out of his thoughts by the less than subtle sensation of durasteel fingers tapping his scalp.
"I will see to it that you have everything you need for the necessary repairs," Vader told him.
Han looked up at him. "You'd actually do that?"
"I don't have to like this ship," Vader pointed out. "But I know how important it is to you, and for that reason, I will support you completely."
Han considered, and shook his head. "I can't ask you to do that."
"You didn't," Vader said.
"It's not necessary."
"I will be the judge of that." Vader lightly grabbed Han's arm to get his attention and told him, "You are a lot like me, proud, stubborn."
Han thought he knew what his father was getting at. It took a while but everything finally clicked, and he conceded.
"That would be great, Pop, thanks."