Leia had told him once, how when something so unexpected happens you only remember it in pieces and not all with your eyes.
"The sound," she had said, and watching her he knew she was back in that moment, and the gentle blue veins under her skin were like the scars of having to relive it.
She didn't mean it as a warning but that's how he took it. The way Han saw it, it wasn't unexpected that his ship was broken but the possibility of setting their strife aside had been unlikely. Yet here they were, defenses down.
"By it's very nature," she had continued, her voice academic, and he listened, mesmerized, "the unexpected is quick. But it unfolds in the memory in highly detailed leisure."
Han was remembering that, her words a work of art, standing before an innocuous door, the warning trying to make its way to the front of his mind. Remembering everything about that sublight journey, the stars and her voice, deprived of everything but each other. He was inclined to deny the invitation and take her back to the broken Falcon and just hide away from the world.
He hadn't known her before her unexpected. Luke had promised Han more wealth than he could imagine, but the actual monetary reward had fallen far short. Neither could fathom- Han especially, who tended to view life as a series of transactions- that he would honestly merit something else, Leia's love.
She couldn't hear what happened to Alderaan, so he wondered what the noise was. There was a difference between him and her though, and that was he had always known time would run out. He just didn't know how. So it wasn't unexpected so much as it was disappointing.
And it was a sound; she wasn't wrong about that. The whoosh the door made as it slid back on its track. Lando's voice, which had been talking before the whoosh, was still in his ear, saying something about deals and the Empire, a low monotone begging for understanding.
What his eyes would remember was the long, white table. It was set with gleaming crystal; the light caught it just right, a dotting of gold.
Darth Vader rose from a seat at the other end, and that was Han's first articulated thought: he's the host. As soon as he thought it he knew it was wrong. Or, it looked right but it couldn't be.
And he had a sense of expectation. That Vader was waiting for something to happen. So Han drew his blaster and shot him. It was his impulse. Nothing slow about that except for his insight: Vader was a sadistic bastard.
No one reacted. The stormtroopers lined up behind Chewie remained standing at attention. Darth Vader stood immovable; the audible breathing revealed his pulse hadn't quickened. He merely held out his palm.
Han dug in the heels of his stance, trying to stay rooted because something was dragging him forward, and he felt Leia's hand on his wrist behind him pulling him back. The red bolts sailed direct and true past the gleaming crystal, over the yeasty rolls, into Darth Vader's black gloved palm.
He'd seen Luke try a trick like that before. Not with Han's blaster- Luke knew better than that- but with a tool, small and lightweight. It lifted a bit and moved, and Han had caught it and stopped its midair flight, if that's what it was going to do, and glared at Luke, who had laughed, all happy.
"Did you see that?"
And Han wished he could take the time, to be able to turn to Leia and say, "you're right," for already the unexpected shock of the scene behind the door gave Han a fleeting memory: a dusty field, a low sun in his eyes, the stones he threw embedding themselves in the muck. The sound of the dull splat.
Leia was right. Memories are audible.
Vader's posture was like a host asking to relieve a guest of their accessories, and Han's murderous intentions were graciously accepted. Vader didn't drop. He should have. Grunted in pain at the least, but there was no reaction. Han felt his shoulder might leave its socket.
Vader said something about honor. That was funny. Some details of Han's unexpected were surprising. That a blaster could be ripped invisibly from his hand, that crystal was cut just to sparkle in light, and that Darth Vader had a bitter, biting sense of humor.
Lando's voice, that low note providing the drone to this surreal scene, finished with, "I'm sorry." Vader's being here, his seat at the head of the table- it meant Lando was also a guest at this ridiculous feast, and that meant he was just a patsy.
Was it an apology, or sympathy. Both, Han figured. Lando was a self-made man. Self-promoting, self-centered, self-possessed. All that. Lando Calrissian, Administrator of Cloud City, was just realizing- despite his efforts- that he had lost the city.
Han was sorry, too. For all of it. For time run out, for the jarring end to that slow trip to Bespin, that Luke wouldn't get to practice mind-snatching a blaster from Han's hands. He was even sorry for Lando a little bit. Only a little.
For Lando did not have to fetch them from the overly appointed room and allow them to discover for themselves they were caught. He could- should- have led them to a landing pad and told them to get the hell out. It would mean leaving the Falcon behind, but that would have been a self-aware Lando Han might be willing to trust. And it would mean self-protecting Lando would deal with Vader's wrath on his own, for surely he had to realize the moment Vader appeared there was nothing to be done. He had lost the city.
Han's mind let him sense a warmth next to him. Leia. Side by side, all the times she smiled, rolled her eyes, kissed him, right here with him. He took her hand. The only thing he regretted was that his time ran out when she was with him, but she had to be. It was her time, too. But he thought his mind would comb over those odd details she brought to the scene, and they might soften the bitterness. The smell of soap, how small her palm was, her warmth.
They'd been through so much together, and to just get nabbed. But she was still at his side, no sympathy for anyone in the room. Darth Vader was part of her first unexpected. It hit Han all in a rush: he was the noise that she couldn't forget. The breathing.
Vader sat down again, and someone else, a new character in this odd parlor game, took it as his cue to emerge from behind the side of an open wall. Like Vader, his head and face were completely covered by an armored helmet. Who the hell had planned this feast? These two were going to eat?
Han looked at Lando and thought, of course.
Vader continued with his newly-realized hilarity. "Please," he gestured with the hand that had absorbed blaster bolts, "sit." After neither Han, Chewie nor Leia made a move to approach the white table, he added with a touch of menace. "Sit."
"I'll skip the appetizer," Leia said haughtily- there was no one that could make you regret speaking like she did- "and enjoy the execution."
By her side, Han nodded, though he was hoping they wouldn't oblige her.
Vader made a strangled noise that might have been a chuckle. "It would be a pity to waste Imperial resources."
"You're on a budget, then," Leia interpreted spitefully. "The Alliance is winning."
Beside her, Han let a twitch of a sad smile show. He wasn't with the Alliance. He was with her. To him, it was the same thing. But the other armored character was clearly a bounty hunter, and like Han, or Han of old, he operated under a different set of principles.
Tricks and nonsense, he remembered telling Luke what he thought. He honestly thought that was true, how to get by. Until Luke promised him more wealth than he could imagine, and Han smiled to himself again, for an old unexpected was unwinding in his memory, one he hadn't recognized at the time. It, too, had a sound. Sharp and unforgiving and astoundedly complaining. The sound was Leia's voice.
If he had the time, he would show her what else an unexpected did. Turn that bounty hunter around. Tell him about love. How it reveals itself in highly detailed leisure.