Ratings/Warnings (this chapter):T; mild language; themes; angst
Chapter 3: Han
"Ensign, report!"
The sharp command from the bold female voice startled Han into consciousness. He blinked, squinted and blinked again rapidly. Nothing. Absolute blackness. He tried to move, to sit up or turn, but the impulses went nowhere. He seemed to be both blind and paralysed. In fact, he had the curious and deeply disturbing sensation that his body was no longer attached; he couldn't feel anything below his head, not even the weight of his own limbs.
Great. That's just great.
Furthermore, there seemed to be something in his mouth, a large object, heavy, depressing his tongue and crowding his throat. As he registered this new sensation, he became aware of something else—a pinched feeling in the skin around his forehead, cheeks and jaw. There was something clamped to his face. Panicking, he tried to move again, to raise his arms and tear the thing off, but the effort seemed to result in nothing more than strenuous thought. His body would not respond to commands. A sudden jolt of fear tripped his heart into overdrive; he could feel it pulsing at his temples.
Heartbeat, he thought, automatically taking stock of his assets. Okay, that's a good start. What else have we got?
"His condition has stabilised, Captain." The man who spoke was, by the sound of it, not the same medic who had tended to him on the transport. His voice, sounding slightly distorted, held a note of surprise. "The immediate cauterisation helped, and we were able to repair a two-centimetre defect in the aortic isthmus that was threatening—"
"Spare me the details, Ensign," she snapped. "Will he survive?"
"Yes. It's a gruesome wound, to be sure, but he should survive it, and his other injuries are relatively minor." The medic paused, his tone growing thoughtful. "The right shoulder joint has been somewhat compromised, I'm afraid. The arm may give him some trouble."
"He will not need his arms," the first voice growled unpleasantly.
Oh, hell. That bad, huh?
The Captain spoke again, impatiently. "When will he regain consciousness?"
There was a pause and Han thought he could sense someone leaning over him. He blinked and squinted, trying to decide if he could detect a shadow hovering over his face. Did that mean he was he lying down? He couldn't feel anything like pressure or friction against the back of his head, and nothing at all below the jaw. He drew a ragged, uncomfortable breath through the apparatus in his mouth. Alarmingly, he could not detect a corresponding inflation of his lungs. The lack of sensation was deeply disconcerting.
"Hm. He's conscious now, actually." Again, the medic sounded vaguely surprised and more than a little impressed. Somewhere near Han's head, he could hear faint clinking and rustling as the medic made adjustments to his instruments. "He has remarkable recuperative capacity for a human his age."
Han heard the sound of soft footsteps approaching his position and a new, older male voice entered the conversation. "I think you'll find that's the new intercellular hydrogel at work. It's powerful stuff. And very expensive."
"Cost is of no concern to me, Commander." The faintly metallic voice of the Captain gave the terse words an even colder effect. "Can you remove him from this...device? Can he talk?"
"He should remain immersed for a few more hours, Captain, if he's to recover fully."
"Do it now. I must speak with him," said the woman. "You can resume his treatment when I'm done."
Well, Han thought wryly, at least they're going to let me recover before they kill me.
"One moment, please." The younger medic's polite request was followed by the sound of switches being flipped, dials being turned, clamps being released. Han drew another deliberate breath and then held it, listening intently, trying to orient himself. Given the mysterious state of his body, he wasn't at all sure that being mentally oriented was going to help him in the slightest, but it couldn't hurt.
He'd finally recognised the clipped metallic tones as those of the tall captain with the chromium armour—the woman he and Finn had dumped down the garbage chute on Starkiller Base. The thought of Starkiller Base provoked a sudden, painful flash of memory.
It's too late.
I'm being torn apart.
I want to be free of this pain.
Han's throat spasmed painfully, trying to constrict against whatever obstruction was there. He gagged, almost choked. Ordinarily, he was an absolute master of compartmentalisation and of living in the moment; he only ever thought about things when they needed thinking about. But the memory of his last meeting with Phasma seemed to unleash the rest of his memories of Starkiller Base, and of everything that had happened there.
The pain that bloomed like a poison cloud in his mind had nothing to do with his physical injuries. Over the years, he'd suffered uncountable numbers of broken bones, lacerations, concussions and deep tissue damage. He'd been tortured, abused and entombed in carbonite. But nothing matched the pain he felt when he thought of his son.
The younger medic spoke again. "He seems to be in some distress, Commander."
The older medic responded, "Yes, so it would seem. Captain Phasma, perhaps you would prefer to wait outside?"
"I would not." Phasma's clipped words were as cold and metallic as her armour.
Han focused on the sound of that cold voice, and the memory of hefting its owner, with Finn's help, through the open garbage chute. He thought of the younger man's jubilant face, his triumphant whoop at seeing an old enemy disposed of so irreverently. They should have taken her communicator from her, Han supposed, but then again, if they'd done so, he would be dead.
Compartmentalising again, Han thought about Chewbacca and what he must have done in the moments after that confrontation on the bridge. The explosives they'd placed must have done the job. The last thing Han remembered seeing was a glimpse through the transport viewport as the entire base crumbled away to dust.
Good job, Pal. I hope you got out all right.
He tried hard not to think about Ben and whether he, too, had escaped the base. In his gut, he already knew the answer to that. His thoughts turned to Leia and that curious moment aboard the transport when he thought he could hear her rich, alto voice in his ear, an echo of the words he'd heard from her lips a thousand times in the course of over thirty years together.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
His breathing calmed and he closed his eyes.
"It will take a few minutes for the fluid to drain away and a few moments more for his movement to be restored," said the young medic. "After that, I can remove the mask."
"Never mind draining the fluid," the woman commanded. "Just remove the mask."
"I'm sorry Captain Phasma," the medic sounded genuinely apologetic. "The two systems are interconnected. I must follow these procedures or risk further damage."
The older medic spoke again, more insistently. "This will take some time, Captain. Perhaps Ensign Mellor can let you know when he is ready?"
There was an impatient huff from Phasma. Again Han felt a looming shadow fall over his face. "Very well. Be quick about it. Astor, come with me. We have something else to discuss."
Han listened to the sound of boots ringing down the corridor as they departed. He wondered what Phasma's game was, why she'd retrieved him from the cesspit in the belly of Starkiller Base where his son had left him to die.
Flinching internally, Han decided that those thoughts were not going to be very helpful in his current predicament. The facts so far were that he was alive, he was receiving medical treatment and he was expected to recover. All things considered, those were pretty good facts. If Ben had intended to kill him when he drove the lightsaber through his body—and Han had no doubts at all that Ben had intended exactly that—he had failed.
As he mused over these realities, he became aware of a creeping return of sensation below his neck, a cold clamminess that made him feel exposed and vulnerable. He concentrated and thought he could feel the liquid—whatever it was he was immersed in—draining away beneath him. Cold air caressed his bare skin and he shivered. Experimentally, he tried to move his fingers and toes and was gratified when they obeyed.
So, not paralyzed, then. Things are looking up.
"Captain Solo, can you hear me?" The younger medic, Mellor, seemed to be leaning over him. "I'm going to remove your mask. You may experience some discomfort."
Mellor seemed downright pleasant, Han thought. Solicitous of his comfort. Positively caring. Han tried to snort in amusement and choked instead on the obstruction in his mouth.
"Just remain calm, Captain. You'll be free in a moment."
Free. Right.
Han suspected that he was farther away from free than he'd been in a long time. He wondered again at Phasma's motivation for retrieving and treating him. Was she hoping to hold him for ransom? The idea was ludicrous. There were precisely two beings in the galaxy who would pay to have him back, and neither one of them was rich. Must be political, then. Did Phasma hope to use him against Ben in some way? To control Ben by threatening Han's life? Again, ludicrous. Ben wanted him dead. That much was beyond question. He winced at the thought, but a niggling suspicion told him that he was onto something important. Ben wanted him dead, but Phasma wanted him alive. Why? Weren't they on the same side?
The touch of the medic's gloved fingers on the skin of his neck interrupted his thoughts. There was an uncomfortable stretching sensation as the suction was broken and the weight of the opaque mask was lifted away from his skin. The discomfort became intense when Mellor began extracting the breathing tube. The muscles of his arms went rigid with the impulse to reach up and snatch the thing away, but voluntary muscle movement seemed to be restricted for the moment to head, fingers and toes. He willed himself to relax as the medic completed the extraction and pulled the mask off.
Spitting, blinking rapidly and squinting against the sudden introduction of light, Han first took stock of his body. He was not stretched out on a typical medical table, he realised. Craning his neck to look down the length of himself, he saw that he was lying inside a shallow basin of some sort, the walls of which were thick, transparent plastic in which complex circuitry could be seen, flickering with multicoloured lights. The interior walls of the basin were coated in a thick, gelatinous orange residue, as was every centimetre of his bare skin. The wound in his upper right chest wall was horrific. He winced away and looked again. Yep. Horrific. It was difficult to get a good look from that angle, but it was clearly quite wide and looked worryingly deep. The orange shimmer of trapped hydrogel caught his eye as it quivered inside the cavity.
That is not good.
"It is a terrible wound," the medic agreed with Han's silent assessment, approaching the basin to look down at him. Han's eyes locked on Mellor and his heart nearly stopped. The human male was indeed quite young, perhaps a year or two younger than Ben. Disturbingly, he was also eerily like Ben in appearance. Tall, leanly muscled, olive-skinned, with dark hair and eyes and a prominent, somewhat crooked nose. His hair was much shorter and his expression far friendlier than Ben's, however, and he was dressed in a crisp grey medical tunic and trousers. Han drew a shuddering breath and tried to slow the hammering of his heart. He looked away, remembering with profound grief the cold detachment in his son's dark eyes.
Ben.
To distract himself, he tried to focus on his surroundings. Glancing around the small room, he immediately identified potential weapons in the numerous medical instruments lying on the two metal tables. He also noted the nearest exit routes, including a large air vent on the wall opposite, and an open hatch leading to a corridor, down which Phasma and the other medic had presumably disappeared. Insignia and imprinted panels on the wall near the hatch indicated that he was aboard a First Order hospital station.
"You were extraordinarily lucky, Captain. The location of your primary wound couldn't have been more fortuitous. It's just missed vital organs, and impinged only slightly on the shoulder joint itself," Mellor informed him. "So it's mainly muscle and soft tissue damage we're dealing with, although I'm sure that's painful enough."
When Han didn't offer a response, the young medic continued with his summary. "You'll require a more extended time in the intercellular hydrogel treatment than would normally be necessary, but I am confident that it can heal you. Certainly, it saved your life. I've never seen a wound quite as bad as that one."
Han tried to shrug, but managed only to squirm against the hard surface of the medical basin. "I've had worse," he muttered.
The pain produced by his shrugging movement was intense, but not blinding. He decided to keep still for a moment longer.
Mellor gave a dry chuckle and began transferring supplies from a shallow metal crate into a nearby storage locker. "Yes, you have quite the reputation," he said amiably. "I must confess; I am an admirer."
The young medic smiled down at him, and then moved away to return to his tasks. "Your movement should be fully restored in a few minutes, Captain Solo, but you are likely also to feel quite a bit more pain as the effects of the hydrogel wear off. Try to remain still. I will give you something else for the pain so that you can speak with Captain Phasma without too much discomfort."
Mellor was, indeed, the most pleasant and efficient member of the First Order that Han had ever met. Not that he'd met many, but still. Quite a contrast to what he might have expected, and even more jarring when Han compared him with his lookalike, monstrous son.
Han winced. That was not entirely fair, he conceded. Ben had not always been a monster. Far from it. As a baby, he'd been fractious, yes, and sometimes difficult to soothe. But he'd also given Han and Leia many years of pure joy as they cared for him together, tenderly guiding his steps and watching him develop. To his great surprise, Han had revelled in the role of being a father, as much as he'd delighted in being a husband to Leia. Both realisations had mystified him as much then as they did now, but those were the facts. He had thoroughly enjoyed his time as a family man. He sighed heavily as he considered another inescapable reality—that time was over.
"Here you go," Mellor was back. In his hands he held a loosely-folded grey blanket, which he snapped open and draped over Han's hips and legs. "And something for the pain." With quick efficiency, he took up an instrument from the table and administered a dose into Han's upper deltoid muscle. "I'll be back in a moment. Try to relax."
As Mellor disappeared down the corridor, Han watched through the thick, transparent wall of the basin. His resemblance to Ben was merely superficial, but it left Han feeling deeply unsettled.
He thought again of Ben as a child. He had been a terror as a toddler, but then weren't most toddlers self-centred tyrants with very short tempers? It was only as Ben grew into older boyhood that Han began to suspect there might be something fundamentally wrong with his son's development. He'd been an active but serious child, often seeming distracted or preoccupied, but possessing a laser-like focus on tasks that interested him. Increasingly, as he grew older, the one thing that interested him the most was the Force and all things relating to the mysterious Jedi.
Nothing like me, Han thought. Nothing like Leia.
With an irritated jerk of his head against the surface of the basin, Han decided it was time to get moving.