AN: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Gah, this story took a turn I didn't expect. I really wasn't planning on adding Han to the list of Star Wars characters who lose hands, but I guess that means the story's taking on a life of its own.

"Without a Heart"

By EsmeAmelia

Chapter 6

Sleep was eluding Kylo Ren, as it did frequently ever since they took Han prisoner. He blinked up into the endless dark, seeing Han's severed hand behind his eyelids with every blink, its lifeless fingers slightly curled upward.

He had done it. Previously he had doubted he would have the strength to make good on that threat, but no, he had done it.

Just like how he had pierced Han's chest with a lightsaber.

Kylo growled slightly. The confrontation on the bridge should have been the end of it. Han Solo should be dead and gone, not lying in a cell down the corridor, mocking Kylo at every opportunity. What made him so important to Snoke, anyway? He was nothing.

Kylo rolled to his side, tucking his arm under the pillow. Why couldn't he sleep? His father was now even more crippled than he was before – he should be relieved that a burden was lifted.

No . . . the burden wasn't lifted.

It wouldn't be lifted until Han Solo was dead – actually dead.

He closed his eyes again, concentrating on that hand and on his father's pain when he'd sliced it off. Yes, that pain, that fear . . .

"I love you, Ben . . ."

His eyes snapped open. No, he wasn't going to think of those memories Han had poisoned his mind with.

He wasn't.

He rolled to his other side and pulled the covers over his head, breathing deeply. Yes . . . he could breathe, while Han couldn't. Han would never know the sweet luxury of breath again.

Perhaps it was a good thing that Han hadn't died on Starkiller Base.

At least this way, Kylo was truly showing the power he had over his father, power that couldn't be achieved with just a simple lightsaber through the chest.

And Han's fear . . . that delicious fear . . .

A fear so intense that he had actually fainted.

Kylo felt a smile creep across his face as his eyes slowly closed again. Yes . . . the fear was worth it.

Eventually he fell asleep, but dreams followed him. Dreams he wouldn't remember when he woke, but that were full of the memories his father had pressed into his mind.

. . .

Consciousness gradually returned to Han, and for a few glorious moments he wondered what had happened. He lay in a sort of haze, floating through his mind, simply existing in the darkness.

Then the sound swirled into his mind and everything came back to him.

His eyes shot open and there was his hand still resting on the machine, the fingers unmoving, a line of caked blood on the wrist, the blue veins snaking through the skin.

Instantly his eyes shut again, his body trembling. Did he dare look at his arm? Would he faint again if he did?

Somehow he was inching his head to the side, feeling the neck tube pull slightly as he did so. He had to look . . . it wasn't like he could hide from his own arm for long . . . but his eyes wouldn't open. Come on . . . open. Was he really afraid of his own arm? It was still the same arm he'd always had . . . just with its hand missing. It certainly wasn't much in the context of everything else that had happened lately, right?

If only he could take a deep breath.

But no, that sound was incapable of helping him out.

Slowly, as if he were ripping his skin apart, his eyes opened.

There was his arm, extending from his shoulder like it always did, going down his side . . . and ending with a stump caked in dried blood.

A clump of something wanted to rush up Han's throat, but he swallowed it back down even though doing so burned his throat - throwing up when strapped down would not be a good idea.

Maybe he could at least bend his elbow . . . actually move something . . . no, the restraint on his left arm had already been moved further up – it was now just below his elbow. He was still as trapped as he was before – only now he was missing a hand.

All right . . . he could handle this . . . he could handle this. He was right-handed anyway. Besides, Luke got along pretty well with an artificial hand. Yeah, an artificial hand to go with his artificial heart. What was losing his hand compared to losing his heart?

Then again, it wasn't like he ever saw his heart. He saw his hands every day.

His naked thigh felt strangely exposed even though it was under the blanket. Right . . . he was so used to having his hand touching his thigh right outside the blanket. Would he be feeling what people called "phantom pain" soon? What would that be like?

Damn, in all those years why didn't he ever ask Luke how he dealt with losing his hand?

He slowly turned his head back up, once again facing his dead hand. Would Ben just leave it there until it decayed? Would Han have to watch his own hand shrivel away . . . and smell it?

No wait . . . he couldn't smell anymore, could he?

Suddenly he gulped. Why, in all the time that the sound had haunted him, didn't he think about not being able to smell?

Maybe because smell wasn't something he usually noticed unless there was an actual odor in the air.

Was that why everything the stormtroopers fed him tasted bland? Because his nose no longer worked? Maybe. Taste got a lot of help from smell, and smell required breath, after all.

And, Han thought wryly, maybe that was why using a bedpan wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.

He twitched his useless nose a bit, suddenly missing the smell of flowers, of caf, of Leia's perfume, of the Falcon. In a sense he'd lost his heart, his lungs, his hand, and his nose. How many more body parts would he lose before Ben finally put him out of his misery?

Maybe he really would end up exactly like Vader, suit and all.

Then he would be dead.

Just like the Jedi Ben murdered all those years ago.

"Ben . . . why?" he whispered, a tear drizzling out of his eye. "Where did we go wrong?"

. . .

Leia woke up suddenly, panting, sweating, still seeing her son's lightsaber impaling her husband despite being awake. The dream came to her every night and stayed with her throughout every day, but that had done nothing to lessen its impact. Every night the image of her husband's death was fresh, raw, as vivid as the first time she sensed it.

She sat up in bed, bringing her knees up to her chest and rubbing the sweat off her forehead. The sedatives she had been taking refused to help with the nightmares, but maybe she should have expected that. Her son had murdered her husband – no pill would be strong enough to help with that.

"Han . . ." she whispered, resting her hands on her knees, her mind revisiting the nightmare she'd had so many times.

Except . . . wait . . . something was different this time.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on the dream. Ben – no, Kylo Ren, he no longer deserved to be Ben in her mind – had run the lightsaber through Han as always. Han had used his last bit of strength to touch their son's cheek as always. He had fallen into the endless void as always . . . but wait . . . something else had fallen with him. She squeezed her eyes tighter, chasing that detail before it faded, come on, what else was falling?

It was a hand.

What? Leia's eyes opened in puzzlement. Why would that sneak into her dream? She was pretty sure a falling hand had never shown up before – why would it? It wasn't like she had been dreaming about Luke's long-ago confrontation with Vader.

Then suddenly she realized the hand in the dream had been Han's.

A slight tremble went through her body. Why was this? Why did a severed hand show up now, a month after Han's death? What did that have to do with anything?

And why was her own hand suddenly feeling numb?