His Way

What happened the one time Han Solo actually left the Rebel Alliance? Missing moment from ANH.

Angst/Friendship

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Space. Speed. Stars. All he ever dreamed of when he was as – well, innocent as the kid, if years and years younger.

The kid.

Han pressed the throttle harder to send the Millennium Falcon even faster – in sub-light speed. From behind him in the cockpit, there was a questioning wookiee growl.

"I know what I'm doing!" Han snapped before Chewie finished. Sure, he did. He was getting out of this mess to get that debt paid off to Jabba, and nobody else's views on the matter were going to change his course. It wasn't anybody else's head on the line if that debt didn't get paid off, was it? He knew what he was doing.

And doing was the reason they were still in normal space. Lightspeed and hyperspace would get them there faster – and the faster they got there and the sooner it was over, the better – but hyperspace would leave him far too much spare time. Right now, he needed the challenge of concentration, the demands of piloting, the sheer blind speed – to block out the memory of the kid.

The fastest the Falcon could go wasn't shaking off that voice.

All right. Well, take of yourself, Han. I guess that's what you're best at, isn't it?

All hurt and disappointment and just a tinge of despising. Hells, but the kid was an innocent! It was murder to put him in an orange flightsuit and let him up in a X-wing, even if he was a damn good shot!

Well, so it was. He, Han, had done what he could. He'd pointed out that it was suicide and asked the kid to come with them, and Luke had said no. Then he'd looked so hurt that Han had called him back. Why he'd muttered that crazy old blessing, Han wasn't sure. But he hadn't been able to find the words for exactly what he wanted to say – heck, he hadn't even been quite sure what he did want to say! Just something, anything, that would make the kid look a little less like an orphaned day-old bantha calf, at the stage when they're all floppy fringe and gangly legs and big eyes with heartbreak down inside them because some Tusken's shot the rest of their family!

And it had worked – for a moment. Only–

The Falcon simply wouldn't go any faster.

Dammit! For Luke had gone off under the ships and walked into the Princess, and Han hadn't even been looking at them, but he sure had heard Luke's voice.

He didn't imagine for one moment Luke had meant him to hear. It was simply chance, a result of the odd echoes and eddies of sound that you got in noisy hangers and docking bays all over the galaxy – quiet whispers that can be heard twelve ships away and shouts that don't make it across a cup of kaff.

I really thought he'd change his mind...

Han gritted his teeth. He knew what he was doing, thank you.

Most surprisingly, the Princess had actually recognised that.

He's got to follow his own path. No-one can choose it for him.

Thank you, your Worship! Well, he hadn't killed her, so presumably he was beginning to like her, for all her sassy ways. So what's wrong with a girl who sasses back a bit?

Well, if something didn't happen real soon, there was going to be a lot wrong with the girl who sassed back. And the kid.

Han swivelled round in his seat. "Get the navcomputer started! And the jump co-ordinates figured! We need to get out of here!"

Chewie grumbled an answer. Han turned back to the controls with a snort. The prospect of seeing Jabba's charming features again was quite enough to put anyone in a bad mood, wasn't it? They needed to get out of here. He'd been at the back of that briefing. Those head-in-the-clouds pilots didn't stand a chance at their impossible shot, even with the targeting computers! Not to mention the laser cannon and TIE fighters and the Emperor knew what else lurking down that trench!

Han refused to let his eyes scan round the dark ahead for that sinister, moon-like sphere. They needed to get out of here. Any minute now, Yavin IV was going to go the way of Alderaan, and if they didn't get the Falcon out, he'd be trying to fly her through an asteroid field again and probably joining the Rebel Alliance in little pieces!

Over my dead body... He'd said that to Greedo, but it hadn't exactly been the solution he'd planned for the whole mess with Jabba.

A mess. That was the word for all of this. Taking the old man and the kid, getting stuck on that Death Star and picking up the Princess and getting so tangled up in that Rebellion of hers in all of two days that he couldn't stop thinking, even at full throttle.

Any minute and there'd be the flash of light. Wiping out that suicidal, ever hopeful kid. Destroying the moon. Ending the Rebellion. Killing a Princess who'd never done anything more wrong than thinking she rescued herself and landing the whole lot of them in a trash compactor …

(Insulting Chewie aside, and the wookiee's grumbles could be reasonably taken as an indication that he'd got over that, so it wasn't up to Han to hold it as a grudge, either.)

She'd be all noble and high minded and say that was war.

But it was really a lot more like shooting a wookiee in cold blood.

If that debt to Jabba didn't get paid off, it would only be even more trouble in the future.

Han's grip on the joystick tightened into a fist, and then jerked backwards to send the Falcon into a full reverse direction flip.

"Chewie, quit those calculations! We haven't finished here!"

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