14. Day 43
He stepped out of the elevator and into the catwalk. The place was unnaturally clean and shiny and smelled of new metal and plastic. He knew his way well. It was not the first time he had been here.
He walked into detention block AA-23 with the confident step of one who had every right to be there.
"Good night, Sir," the guard on duty respectfully greeted him. "They're expecting you," he added and signaled him a passageway.
He nodded in response to him and headed in the way that the guard had showed him. As he approached his destination, cell 2187, he heard the echo of some screams. Nothing unusual in that, of course.
Stopping before the hatch, he inspected in the reflex the greenish-gray uniform he was wearing. He touched his beret slightly, to center it properly on his brow.
The hatch opened and the shrieks of a woman in pain became ineludible. He caught a glimpse of dirty white skin and a pair of desperate brown eyes.
"Come in, Slick," a friendly voice said loudly to be heard above the laughing and the crying, "Join the party!"
Han Solo awoke drenched in sweat, his heart pounding in a forced beat, his stomach about to turn. I didn't do that, I didn't do that, he reminded himself fervently.
And then the sentence mutated.
I can't do this anymore....
Princess Leia's hand hovered over the controls of the hatch to the main cargo bay. Something had dragged her there, still half asleep.
Han... Need... Guilt... Care for me...
Her freezing feet awakened her completely.
What the hell am I doing here?
She made her way back to her cabin, slowly.
For hours, his mind turned around the dilemma that had plagued his nights with nightmares for a while. Until he finally found the right answer. The only one.
That's the best I can do.
"Wanna see the stars?" Han Solo asked after dinner.
The question took Leia by surprise. Usually she proposed to climb up into the gunner turret to have a quiet time. Although the view did not change much in time at their present speed, it was always beautiful.
"Sure," she answered.
They generally brought they favorite drinks along, herbal tea for her, a shot of whisky for him. Occasionally, she added a few drops of his beverage to hers. But tonight he had taken the whole bottle with him, the last one on board, as he had claimed when he opened it days ago.
"Han, is something wrong?"
"Why?" he asked a little defensively.
"You're downing that like water."
"Sorry." He deposited the glass and the bottle on the gunner's seat and wrapped his arms tightly around her. After a long while, he spoke. "I wanna tell ya somethin'."
A cold hand seemed to squeeze her heart. She did not want to hear it, oh no; she did not want to hear that he would go away soon. She knew it, but she didn't want to hear it.
Another long silence followed.
This was the worst thing he had to do in his life. No question about it. He just wanted to hold her a little longer like this before everything went to hell. Before she turned her face from him and never spoke to him again. But he couldn't lie to her anymore, anytime he kissed her he felt the guilt assaulting him, anytime she embraced him he felt dirty. And the support and patience she had showed him around the Dewlanna thing had only worsened the feeling. He had been a bit mad at first, hell, more that a little mad, but she had been right. It helped. And as the memories cleared, it also became brighter in his mind what Lannie would have though of his current situation with Leia.
"I...," Han started.
The Princess waited.
Out with it, Solo!
"I was in the Imperial Navy."
She did not say anything. She did not move, she did not cry, she did not shoot him either. But that could change any second.
After a few minutes she turned around to observe the discouraged expression on his face and watch it turn into the most pure astonishment one she ever saw, when she answered him.
"I know... Slick," she said with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Tilting her face, she added: "Or do you prefer Vikk?"
Han Solo opened and closed his mouth, twice. The name had hurt like if he had been shoot in the chest, rendering him breathless. By the third time, he simply decided to leave it that way until something came out of it.
"Why are you here with me?" he finally whispered, his voice raw with emotion.
She rubbed her cheek over his heart, looking for her usual spot to lay her head, dissipating the pain in the process.
"Because," Princess Leia answered, "you are here with me."
The back of his head hit lightly against the durasteel and he closed his eyes, letting her words and its meaning sink into his consciousness. His fingers traced lightly the contour of her face, recognizing once more the familiar features. The aristocratic brow, the proud slope of her cheekbone and the straight, firm, stubborn line of her jaw. His thumb trailed down her slender nose and landed squarely on the perfect lips.
She kissed the callosity formed on it by years and years of gripping a blaster and the Millenium Falcon's rudder. Her lips then wandered to the sensitive palm and entertained themselves there for a while until he wanted to retire and she stopped him. Under her light touch, he turned swiftly his hand to catch hers and she allowed it. She let him surround, capture and enfold her hand with his and when he believed it secured and under control, she simply pulled both to her and planted her lips on the back of his wrist, where every little hair thoroughly bristled.
Giving up, Han Solo released suddenly a heartfelt laugh that reverberated along his ship. He laughed and laughed until the sound became a little hysterical and then, sighing, he calmed again.
"How did you find out?" He asked, panting a little, wiping a little tear from the corner of his eye.
"Hey!" She pushed herself up and poked his shoulder, frowning at him mockingly. "What kind of petty Rebel organization you think we are?"
Han Solo smirked. "So you did investigate me." He had always wondered why they had trusted him so quickly. Well, the few ones that trusted him at all.
"There was no need," the Princess cleared, her own expression sobering. "Commander Tharen did thorough work. You were right there, in our databank." She removed an imaginary strand of the sleeve of her jumpsuit. "I had your record in my datapad twenty minutes after we arrived on Yavin."
He pondered briefly if he should feel flattered or outraged that she had known for so long and never said a word, but decided that it did not matter anymore. Damn. A thought occurred to him. How much had Bria put on that file? Would she have mentioned... them?
"And what do you exactly have, if I may ask?" he asked, a turning little pale and swallowing hard.
She raised a hand and started counting with her fingers. "First we have Tharen's debriefing of the Ylesia operation, then your CorSec record, your Kessel record, Carida Academy record - good grades, by the way, although you spent an awful amount of time in the brig," she turned her eyes to him, hesitantly. "Should I continue?"
He cracked a lopsided grin now. "Yeah, please... Maybe I'll even discover something new..."
But she didn't follow his joke. Instead, the Princess turned more serious.
"There is the Coronet Orphanage record."
"That far, huh?" The smuggler rubbed his chin absentmindedly.
"Yeah, but..."
"What?" He dragged her once more into his arms.
"There's nothing about you before you were fifteen, which is where that file starts."
"Ask whatever you want, sweetheart," he said with resignation.
"Really?"
"Really. I... I don't wanna secrets between you and me." A soft but long kiss on her braids sealed his promise and she knew he really meant it.
She's gonna ask about Bria, Solo, get ready to run, his inner voice advised nevertheless
She thought about what her first question would be for a while. The amount of information Comdr. Tharen had gathered about him was four times what she had bothered about the other smugglers in Jabba's organization. That in itself was suspicious, but, after all, the woman was dead and Han was entitled to have had a love life prior to her, wasn't he?
Love life? Prior to me? What does that mean, Organa?
But this was not the moment or the circumstances to have that argument with herself. Blushing slightly, she shot.
"Tell me more about Dewlanna."
He told her, his words slow and painful.
About Lannie and Garris Shrike and about the miserable life on his ship. How she took care of him when no one else wanted to. She was old, even for a Wookie. For many months, she was the only one that paid attention to him, until Shrike accidentally discovered that he was speaking some variant of Shyriiwook instead of Basic. One of the girls (there always were a few teenager girls on that ship) was given responsibility of teaching him to communicate in a more or less understandable language. But it was more like playing school to her, there was no real interest in him. But he learned, though.
He told Leia about the huge towers of crispy, golden milas Lannie prepared for him when he felt sad or had been beaten. Then about her horrible death when there was a fire in the galley and she tried to control it alone. He had escaped the next day to make himself a living in the streets of Coronet.
Leia shivered at the thought of such an awful end to the noble Wookiee that had raised Han. He had every right to be so upset about it. She realized then that she was not the only shuddering. Tightening her arms around his ribcage and looking for a way to comfort him, she stretched her neck and her lips to brush the nearest area of exposed skin, which happened to be his throat.
"How does the orphanage fit into it?"
"I wanted to be respectable. To be accepted in Carida to become a pilot. I turned myself in."
"At age fifteen." Another shudder, another brush.
"More like fourteen," he corrected.
"It says fifteen." Shudder, brush.
"I lied. I was tall for my age, I guess. Didn't want to be there more than needed."
"Han?" Brush and shudder.
"Yeah?"
"Do you know how old you are, exactly?" Brush, shudder, brush.
"No... But I'll settle for whatever you consider appropriate if you keep doing that..."