From a Certain Point of View
Han walked home from work along the streets of Coruscant as if he were seeing the city for the very first time. There was not a hurry to his step. There was not a purpose to his lengthy strides, they were only a product of his long legs. He studied the tall buildings towering over him, the wind whipping around them as if they had punctured holes in the sky.
Millions of windows winked at him in the twilight. For every window there was a desk and a person for it or a home and a family in it. Hundreds of nameless, faceless beings brushed by him in the street. Some skirted around him because he was not walking fast enough for their taste. Others shuffled toward him as if in competition to reach nowhere first. Occasionally he would scrunch his nose at the smell of someone's body odor, either a product of their unkemptness or their natural aroma. The reason didn't seem to matter to Han.
This was the Capital City that she had fought for. These were the beings that she had saved, the buildings that she had liberated, the very ideals that had been her only motive driving her for her entire life. He thought her life wasted, yet he envied her convictions at the same time. He called her inner torment ridiculous, yet he respected her for it. The moral dilemma that was ripping her soul into shreds was no dilemma for him, yet he wondered if it should be.
He turned and entered the building of Leia's apartment, the doorman, who months ago had treated Han as an interloper, now held the door for him with a contemptuous smirk. Han noticed how his shoes sounded on the marble below them and concentrated on the hollow sound, preferring their echo to the sallow voices and sordid conversations flooding the ostentatious lobby. The contrast of the shiny, waxed floor to the stained duracrete just outside made Han feel instantly in need of a 'fresher, as he strode toward the gleaming doors of the turbolifts.
It had been several days since Leia had shared with him everything that had happened since he had left her on Yavin IV. Every morning since then he had left her at the apartment when he went to work and every evening she was there waiting for him when he returned. She was dressed and active, flitting around the apartment as if she had accomplished monumental tasks out in the universe while he was away and had just only beaten him to the door.
Han suspected that she hadn't left the apartment since she came home nearly a week ago, beaten and bruised and exhausted. He suspected she had given up. Part of him rejoiced at the thought, thinking she had certainly done enough. But mostly it made his stomach turn, like seeing a child begging for food on the street. It was the kind of thing that made him wonder just what kind of universe he was living in.
If he could turn back time, if he could stand upon that platform and have her drape that medal onto his shoulders yet again, he wondered what he would do. Would he grab her and take her with him? Protect her and hide her from everything in the universe? Flying the galaxy, with her destiny only a nip at their heels? Or would he stay? It didn't even seem like a fair choice.
She sat on the counter of the kitchen, her legs crossed in front of her and her back to the cabinet behind her. She looked relaxed and rested and blissful as if a giant weight had rolled off of her and disappeared down the duracrete streets of Coruscant. He wondered if he had picked up pieces of it along his walk home. His breath felt heavy in his chest.
They had not talked much more about anything of substance. Their conversations now seemed impervious to anything serious in nature. There had been no further discussions or follow up questions or revelations. It was like she had poured her heart out and now the lid had been tightened back over the container.
He hadn't felt her touch since he climbed out of her arms that morning on the lounger. He had not felt her lips since she had kissed him in the bathroom. Like a spice addict once his last hit has worn off, Han's skin crawled with the knowledge of these things. But also, like an addict, he did not want to name that which he wanted. So he looked at her, like she was a cigarette he craved to inhale or a drink he thirsted to taste, his jaw forever clenched in silent resignation.
"You've never asked me about what happened when you brought me back to Dagobah."
His back was to her, his hand resting on the opened chiller door, his eyes scanning the contents of its shelves. He straightened up his posture but did not move to look at her.
"I thought you might be curious."
He shut the chiller door, no longer aware of what it was he needed. He turned around and looked at her. "I am."
Her mouth was shut tight, her lips almost pursed together, her eyes flickered with an anger he could not place. "Why didn't you ask?"
The blissfulness of the previous days had evaporated like yesterday's rainstorm making Han wonder if they had every really happened. "Why don't you tell me?"
"I've been thinking about Luke."
The change in topic threw him off. He did not like to think about Luke although he had, often. He walked across the kitchen and stood in front of the range. As he turned each piece of meat over on the grill, the room burst with pops and sizzles and the smell of searing meat and spices flooded his senses.
"When you brought me to Dagobah, I wanted to confirm…what Vader had claimed. But Yoda was already gone."
He balanced the metal tongs across the lip of the grill and rested his hip against the counter so that he faced her. "Gone?"
"He had died."
He folded his arms across his chest and glanced down to his feet. "Sorry."
"But I was still able to speak to him…it's hard to explain. But he confirmed that what Vader had told me was true."
She held her mouth in such a way as if more words were waiting to come out. "What else?" He asked her without preamble.
"It was about Luke." Her gaze dropped to the floor. "It doesn't matter now."
A cool wave of enlightenment followed by a warm trail of jealousy rippled across his skin. He had never thought of what her and Luke's relationship might have turned into after he left. "Were you and Luke…?"
"No," she replied as she looked back up at him. "No, it was nothing like that."
He turned to the range and busied himself with dinner as she silently watched him. Something made him say it, the words formed in his head and he did not have her ability to deny them a voice. "Somebody else should've died that night." There were too many things that he had to sit back and silently accept.
She said nothing.
Gripping the edge of the counter, he stood looking at the wall in front of him and said, "Luke should've been brought back or somebody else should've died trying." He said each word succinctly and deliberately. If he had been there, he would've died trying. He felt sure that that was exactly what he had said.
"Luke stayed with the Rebellion. Took my cause on as his own and it killed him. And now I can't even remember what I was fighting for; this future looks nothing like what I had envisioned."
He was moving his hands again, busying himself with the task of not looking at her, not wanting to see the pain and sorrow painted across her features. He longed for one of her stories, her happy stories.
"Maybe you were the smart one."
It was only a whisper but it snapped his head around as if she had screamed at him. Why did his own thoughts sound so perverse on her lips? He felt an overwhelming desire to slap her for even thinking them. He wanted to tear out his insides in a way that only one wretched and unlucky enough to get exactly what they wanted only to realize that it was not what they wanted at all, could understand.
Two long strides and he was standing in front of her. One heartbeat more and he was kissing her, hard as if to erase the words that had just fallen out of her mouth. There was nothing sexual or sensual about it, there were no whimpers and no moans. A moment later, hazel eyes burning into brown ones, he said, "Don't ever say that again."
She looked at him, startled - her anger and despair spun into confusion and understanding at once. "I meant it," she whispered, as sternly as a whisper is able to sound.
He took her hand and brought it up to his face, turning it over and studying the lines of her open palm. He kissed her at the wrist. "That's what makes it worse."
"What are we doing, Han?"
She looked frightened and his throat constricted reflexively forcing him to swallow. He brought her hand down and gave it a squeeze as he smiled and said, "Nothing."
'Nothing you don't want to do' is what he wanted to say. Nothing that makes you fear me like you fear the universe hovering outside of this apartment, he thought as he dropped her hand and turned back to the grill.
She didn't tell him more than she wanted him to hear, she didn't let him any closer to her than she wanted him to be and for now that was enough for him. How long it would be enough, he could not bear to think about, for it could be mere seconds or it could be endless centuries. The more she talked, the more he wanted to listen. The more she let him in, the further he wanted to go. She was capable of fighting Sith Lords and demon witches and he knew she was fully capable of fighting him, fighting any feelings she did not want to breathe life into by the mere fact of admitting to them.
So the only way to answer her was to say nothing. Because nothing could describe everything that was happening between them.