But now we must pick up every piece / Of the life we used to love / Just to keep ourselves / At least enough to carry on

- "Holland, 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel

Han pulled the car out of park and pulled back onto the road, heading northwest. The sun was high in the sky, but the car's clock was blinking 8:43. Luke pulled out his phone, held down the center button, and said, "Hey C-3PO, what time is it?"

"It is eight minutes past noon, sir," a voice responded from the phone.

Han chuckled. "You got one of those fancy voice command things, and you use it to check the time? You could just look at the clock on your phone, or even simpler just look at the car clock."

"But the car clock says 8:43, and it's 12:08," Luke replied.

Han retorted, "Actually it says 8:44, and it's 12:09." Indeed, it was. "You just gotta add three hours and 25 minutes to get Arizona time out of it. Easy as pie."

"Why don't you just set it to the correct time?" Luke asked.

"Well I got two answers to that," Han gruffly responded. "I drive through a lot of different time zones with a lot of different daylight savings time rules, and I don't wanna have to push a whole bunch of tiny buttons each time I cross a state line."

"And the second answer?"

Han looked a little less cocky. "It won't let me change it."

Luke wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he kept his mouth shut and decided to just look around the car. The backseat was littered with empty bags of chips, discarded fast-food bags, and the occasional empty energy drink bottle. The middle console in the front showed the incorrect time, the fan settings (it was set to the highest setting, but the fans still weren't spinning), and a small battered GPS was attached to the windshield. It showed that they were on US-70, and a sign that passed by them confirmed this. On the far right side of the GPS, the letter R was scribbled in black sharpie, and on the bottom the letter D was scribbled the same way. The GPS kept making odd beep and whistle sounds, though nothing on the screen seemed to be changing in time with them.

"What's with all those beeps and whistles?" Luke asked.

"Oh, you mean R2-D2?" Han responded. "He's pretty old, been around since before you were born, hell maybe even before your parents were born. He just does it sometimes. Sometimes it matches up with the music, so I don't mind." Indeed, the noises were matching with the Neutral Milk Hotel cassette playing pretty well, though the GPS was a little flat.

"R2-D2?" Luke asked. "Why do you call it that?"

"Ya gotta get your companionship where you can out here on the road. My old GPS kept spinning around on its mount, so I labeled which way was right and which way was down, that's the RD. That GPS gave out on me a couple weeks back though, so this is my second one. Ergo, R2-D2."

"But why not just RD2? I mean, its name was RD, not two separate things, one called R and one called D."

Han looked in the rearview mirror at Luke and raised his eyebrows. "You ask a lotta questions, kid." He then turned up the music.

Luke got the hint.

Instead of continuing the conversation, he decided to pull out his cell phone for a bit. "You have thirteen unread messages from Big D," C-3PO said as Luke activated the screen. "Would you like me to read them, Master Luke?"

Hearing this, Han gave Luke another look with his eyebrows raised even further this time. "No, C-3PO, I'll read them myself, thanks," Luke replied bashfully. Curse Biggs for changing the names of everyone in my phone, Luke thought. He tried to move on and began to read the messages.

"Everything ok?"

"Seriously man u ok?"

"Some scary rumors goin around"

"You nvr came back from the office, whats goin on?"

"Got ur chem hw"

"I m really worried dude"

"Oh my god"

"I'm so sorry dude, I just heard about the fire."

"I can't imagine what you're going through right now. I can barely take it, and I only knew Lars and Beru through you! Ugh"

"If you need absolutely anything just let me know"

"I'm here for you"

"Theyre asking me where u r"

"I'll try to stall"

Tears started to form in Luke's eyes, but he tried to hide them as best as he could since Han already seemed not to like him. He thought earlier that he had lost everything, but that wasn't true.

He still had Biggs.

AN: Ooooo! Emotions! Thanks for reading, next chapter coming soon! As always please give me feedback!