Force Sensitive

A late night conversation, post RotJ.

~:~:~

"Luke? Luke?"

The echoes picked up the name. Luke … Luke … Luke … Luke...?

Back from the furthest corners of the hanger: Luke … Luke … Luke … Luke...?

Finally, one of the support ladders beneath an X-wing seemed to move. The still figure leaning on it lifted their head from resting on the rungs. "'m here!"

Here … here … here … here, the echoes repeated. But the questing footsteps ignored the thousand misdirections. They came briskly down the line of X-wings and stopped at the nose of Commander Skywalker's ship.

"Kid."

"Han."

There was a pause, then a sudden beam of light, as Luke snapped a torch on. "You'd have seen me if you'd brought a light, you know. Save you having to shout and wake the whole base."

"Nah," said Han. "You ever take a light into a shut-down space port at night?"

Luke seemed to consider this. "No."

"Yeah." Han folded his arms and leaned against the nearest support strut. "Believe me, you don't want to. Never find what you were lookin' for, but plenty of what you weren't lookin' for."

"Shouting's better?"

"Sure. Everyone hops round the corner."

"Or shoots you...?"

"Nah," Han repeated. "'Cause they think that to be yelling like that, you've gotta be in some way that you're not worried about bein' shot at."

Luke put his head back against the ladder rung. "Right."

"What's up?"

"What do you mean, what's up?"

"You didn't even roll your eyes!"

Luke shrugged one shoulder slightly. "That's Leia's job..."

"You do it too."

Luke sighed. "I guess I'm tired, then."

"If you're tired, you oughta be somewhere other than out here at the dead of night." Silence. "Like in bed? Asleep?" Silence. "And no, you're not on duty. I passed ol' Hobbie on duty in the watchroom on the way in here. Snug as a bug in two blankets and snoring his head off."

There was still silence. Han sighed loudly enough for the echoes to pick it up and huff at each other all round the hanger. "C'mon, Kid. Don't tell me you're meditating. No." Han shook his head as Luke finally raised his head and looked round. "I was a kid during the Clone Wars, remember? And the Jedi may not have featured very highly where I was, but we all knew something of them – and that included that they didn't meditate propping up the sides of their X-wings at three o'clock in the morning. There – that fetched you."

Luke shuffled and sighed. "Okay, yeah, fine."

"We hafta play Twenty Questions like when I'm tryin' to get outta Chewie what's the matter with him?"

Luke sighed again. "It's over," he said, not lifting his head off the ladder rung. "All over. The Empire, the fighting..."

"Don't tell me you're sorry ol' Palpatine's dead, Kid," Han quipped, and Luke chuckled despite himself.

"Not Palpatine, no." He shuddered. "No … no, no."

There was another long silence. A few dust flecks drifted in the beam of torch light, but nothing else moved. Finally, Luke sort of sagged against the ladder. "It's everyone else who's dead. From the Rebellion. All the ones who've died. Died," he repeated, "died. It's over, and – they're still dead. I couldn't sleep," he finished, his voice as limp as his pose. "That's all."

All … all … all … said the echoes. All … all … all …

"It's called Survivor's Guilt," said Han suddenly. "You lived, they didn't." He drummed his fingers slowly on the handle of his blaster, gaze fixed firmly on the far side of the hanger. "And maybe there's a reason why, and maybe there isn't, but it sure feels like there isn't when it comes back and hits you in the night."

"You gotta live with it," he added abruptly. "I don't mean 'Tough – put up with it!' I mean – you gotta live withit; channel it; make it the reason you get outta bed, so it's not the thing that hits you in the night. You gotta live," Han nodded, raising one eyebrow at Luke. "Like they wanted you to. Do what they'd have wanted you to. And keep that gut-punch with you, as the reason to turn round and go back when you realise you're not doing what they'd have expected you to."

His gaze moved back to the shadows. "After you've seen one wookiee die," he said slowly, "you don't shoot the next one."

"You know," Luke mocked back to cover the awkwardly raw emotion he could feel behind Han's words. "For someone who didn't believe in the Force, you're pretty good at reading minds-"

"Kid, your face is like an open book!"

"-and knowing when someone needs to talk," Luke ploughed on determinedly. "And where to find them."

"That one's nothing!" Han tossed back with a yawn that tried to pretend it was a drawl. "You try sleeping with a Force sensitive–"

Luke flung up his hands. "She's my sister – I don't want to know!"

"We were Asleep!" Han objected indignantly. "Nothing else! At least I was! Then your sister kicks me awake! 'Luke's bothered! He needs someone to talk to! Go and find him! By his ship!' So-" Han shrugged. "Here I am."

Luke put his forehead back against the metal of the X-wing, and shut his eyes. It was cold, but it wasn't cold enough to block out the warmth Han's words had left, or to stop a half-smile creeping across his face. "Thanks, Han."

Han yawned properly this time. "Any time. I'm getting used to it."

Luke opened one eye to glance sideways at him. "To what? Leia kicking you?"

"Should have expected it, with your surname," Han continued, this time the one ploughing on determinedly. "Always having to talk one or other of you down off the ceiling."

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A/N: And a Merry Christmas to all the Star Wars fans!