Ratings/Warnings: T (this chapter); mild language, themes. Angst. Lots of angst.

Remain in Light – Chapter 12: Han by Erin Darroch

Chapter 12: Han

Han knew the instant Leia's fingers brushed the scar that the peaceful interlude was over. If the sight of her stricken face and the feel of her rigid body didn't tell the tale, the spike of horror he could sense emanating from her through the Force certainly did

No, no, no, Leia. Let it go.

Before he could put his protest into words, she was already insisting.

Let me see it.

He resisted for a moment, wishing heartily that he'd thought to nudge her hand away, to keep her pliant and kissable in his arms for another hour, maybe two. He dreaded the threat of a plunging descent to where they'd been a year ago. Her fingertips rested lightly on the place where Ben had impaled him, the place that marked the moment when Han had realised that his time was up—and, worse, that he'd failed the most important mission of his life. His aversion to the subject was intensified by its stark contrast to the unexpected flood of hope he'd felt just moments before, in Leia's kiss. He hesitated.

It'll be alright.

He held her gaze, wanting to convince her that it was a very bad idea to start that conversation at this juncture, that they should just relax for a while, have a drink, maybe two, and go back to kissing. He wasn't the type to plead, but as he looked into her dark eyes, he felt sorely tempted to swallow his pride and beg her to drop the subject. In response to his silent wish, Leia gave him a solemn smile, and countered his rising anxiety with emanations of calm reassurance, certainty and love.

"Okay," he said after a moment, and stepped back to reach for the Whyren's Reserve, "but I think we're going to need this."

Leia cocked her head at him and gave him the eyebrow that said she was waiting patiently for his compliance and would not be distracted.

"C'mon," he said, pulling two glasses from a shelf and setting them on the counter. "If you don't need it, I do."

She didn't object, and he was relieved to see her leaning a relaxed hip on the edge of the counter while she waited for him to pour. He could feel her eyes on him, though, and the weight of her expectation.

Tipping a modest measure into a glass, he handed it to her, then poured one for himself. She met his eyes with a faint smile as she lifted her drink and touched her rim to his in silent salute. Then, almost in unison, they each knocked back the shot without even tasting it. It was an outrageous act approaching sacrilege, as far as Han was concerned. Whyren's Reserve was a rare and expensive distillation from his home world of Corellia, and Sith knew where she'd acquired a bottle, even on Ord Mantell, or why she'd gone to what must have been considerable expense for the gesture. He'd been surprised and touched to see it waiting for him. He poured a second, more generous round, grinning at the way Leia tried to stifle a cough as she extended her glass.

Han palmed the controls to dim the lights, and then steered her towards the seating arrangement under the tall, transparent wall. He chose a corner of the long couch and was gratified beyond measure when she curled up in her accustomed position under his left arm. The feeling of her nestling against him was immensely pleasurable, satisfying a craving he'd suppressed for a long time. He felt once again the sense of promise surrounding them, the suggestion that things could be different, that they could be healed. The subtle music wafting from the entertainment unit enhanced the relaxed atmosphere. For a few minutes, he sipped his whiskey, gazed at the view and enjoyed the sensation of Leia's warm body resting against his. Together, they watched in silence the endless parade of floating lights, as ships arrived and departed against the sparkling backdrop of the Ord Mantell night.

The sense of peace was fractured a few minutes later, though, when he sensed Leia reaching out to him again in tentative Force connection, as she physically slipped a hand under his jacket and placed it over the hidden wound.

"Ah, hell," he sighed, feeling resigned to his fate. He started to lean forward.

"No," she said, stopping him with a gentle pressure of her hand. She sat up and put her drink on the table, then drew up one leg and shifted to face him. He sank back against the cushion and scanned her figure, noting the upright posture and the tension in her shoulders. His eyes fell on her shadowed face. She was no longer emanating reassurance, but instead nervous apprehension. He blew out a forceful gust of air and waited.

"I've changed my mind. I don't need to see it." She held his gaze for a long moment. Music drifted faintly through the air and, behind Leia's back, the lights of Ord Mantell meandered by in synchronicity. Drawing a deep breath, she dropped her eyes and said, "I felt it happen, through the Force. I knew the instant he struck you." She placed a hand on her own chest, and gave a slow, sad shake of her head. "I know what he did to you—and I know how he felt when he did it."

Han stretched one arm along the back of the couch and regarded his wife as he tried to process that information. He felt relieved, dismayed and distressed all at once. He tried to imagine opening a channel of communication with Ben through the Force, now that he understood better how that would feel, but the idea was repulsive. He didn't want to know precisely what alien thoughts lurked behind those cold, black eyes. He'd seen enough to know that it was Snoke who controlled Ben now, and that their beloved child was lost.

He felt genuinely sorry for Leia that she held such knowledge in her mind, that she'd glimpsed the depth of their son's corruption. But he wondered with a faint twist of bitterness if it would make any difference to her views. Her belief in Ben's ability to shake off Snoke's influence and turn away from the Dark Side had long outlasted Han's own, and their most scathing fights had been centred on that very point. He wavered for a moment, trying to decide if he wanted to use their silent link to probe the issue, but then thought better of it. Maybe he didn't want to know that either.

Raising the glass to his lips, he took another sip of whiskey, conscious that Leia was gathering her words. He looked at her for a moment and then dropped a hand down to rest on her bent knee. One of her hands moved to cover it and their fingers curled around each other. It appeared that they were going to have the dreaded conversation, after all, so he took a moment to savour the touch of her fingers on his skin while he still could.

"Han, until that moment..." She swallowed hard and seemed to struggle to move past the memory. Drawing a ragged breath, she tried again. "Until that moment, I couldn't stop hoping," she said finally, her rich voice strained with emotion. "I had to keep believing that he might come back to us. I thought if one of us could just get close enough to him—if he could see us, hear our voices—he'd remember us, and how much we love him. I thought that we could save him. That you could."

Han nodded, giving her hand a squeeze of understanding. He knew very well how fiercely she'd clung to that hope. It was Leia's tenacious belief in Ben, and her final request to Han before his departure, that had sent him out onto that bridge at Starkiller Base to confront their son, although he would never tell her that.

"What I'm trying to say is...," her voice trailed off as she gathered another breath. "What I need you to understand is that I know now how wrong I was. I know what I suppose you've known for a long time, Han. We cannot save him."

The words were desolate between them.

It was a bitter truth that Han had accepted long ago, a truth that Leia had fought against, tooth and nail. It was a truth that he'd cruelly tried to force her to accept, and it had cost them everything they had left.

"The moment it happened, I knew that you were right about him," she said, her voice hoarse with unshed tears. "But it was too late."

"I didn't want to be right," he said sadly, tipping the last of his whiskey down his throat and setting the glass aside. "That's the last thing I wanted."

He held her gaze for a long moment, watched her struggle to master her emotions. He had the impulse again to reach out through the Force, to know for sure if she was really saying what he thought she was saying. But in the next instant, she dragged the beast out into the open.

"There's no light in him, Han. None." She swallowed hard, her haunted eyes filling with tears. "He has gone to the Dark Side, and he is lost." Her voice finally broke on the last word, and Han's heart broke with it.

"Come here," he said softly, then enfolded her in his arms again and let her cry.

Leia had never been the type to give in easily to tears. From the moment he'd met her, he'd witnessed how tough she could be, how much pain and loss she could withstand without flinching or backing down. She'd always been fiercely brave in the face of adversity. He'd seen her terrified, cornered, injured—and threatened with death more times than he could count—and yet, until Ben's betrayal, he'd rarely seen her cry. He supposed, though, that recent events had finally tipped her over the saturation point. His own eyes were stinging, too, but his scorching grief for Ben had parched those tears long ago. The sorrow he felt now was for Leia; for the finality of her loss, and for the death of her last hope. And he sensed that when this quiet weeping came to an end, she would be done at last with crying over Ben, and ready to act. The knowledge gave him relief, and chilled his blood at the same time.

Han gazed out at the languid, blinking lights of passing cruisers and shuttles as they drifted past the window, absent-mindedly rubbing Leia's back with one hand. After a while, he realised that she lay quiet in his arms, her braided hair catching on the stubble of his chin, her tears finally spent. He was comforted by the fact that she seemed content in his embrace. He wanted to go back to that place of warmth and pleasure that they'd visited earlier, but the detour around the scar had led to Ben, as he'd known it would.

"There's something else I need to say," Leia whispered, not lifting her head from where it lay against his chest. "Please just...let me say it."

Han tightened his arms around her, but remained silent, acquiescing. As painful as it was to rake through all of this again, his intuition told him that they were coming to the end of the road, that there was a new path ahead, if they could just keep moving towards it. He felt the rising sensation of her reaching out to him through the Force, the resurgence of that connection that stirred him so deeply.

Drawing a deep breath, Leia said, "I'm sorry, Han. For everything."

He didn't have to ask what she meant. He didn't protest, or say that she had nothing to be sorry for—he knew better. Demented by anguish over their lost children and exhausted by years of fruitless searching, she'd finally turned her fury on him, enraged by his acceptance of their new reality, and by his unwise insistence that she should accept it, too. She'd ripped him to shreds, in fact, skilfully targeting his every weakness, mercilessly deriding his every mistake. He'd withstood it for as long as he could, before returning fire with words every bit as cruel. The memory of some of those exchanges made him burn with shame and regret. He had many amends of his own to make—reparations that he wanted desperately to attempt, if she would let him—and he felt grateful they were being given another chance. Instead of speaking his thoughts aloud, though, he whispered a kiss against her forehead and employed a different channel.

I'm sorry, too.

The power of the Force allowed him to communicate the depth of his feeling in a way that words never could. He could feel Leia's tremulous smile against his chest, her fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt. She pressed a kiss above his heart, and he felt the healing balm of forgiveness flowing between them.

"The things I said to you—," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"I know, Sweetheart." He cradled the back her head with his hand and sighed. Although the open channel between them provided absolute assurance of his sincerity, he figured it couldn't hurt to put it into actual words. "I know. I'm sorry, too."

"I wish—I wish I hadn't made everything worse—so much worse—by driving you away."

He gave her a gentle squeeze in reply. He couldn't deny that she'd driven him away, or that it had been painful—brutally so. But he thought that his absence from Leia's life couldn't have made things any worse for her than they'd already been. At least, with light years between them, he'd avoided doubling her misery by insisting upon a truth that she hadn't been ready to accept.

"We were both in hell," he said finally, his voice rough with emotion. "It was hell being together. Hell being apart."

She lifted her head and pulled back to meet his eyes. He held her gaze for a long time, gently rubbing her back with one hand, reaching to wipe her tear-stained cheeks with the other.

Through the Force he felt her yearning, her deep desire to reach him, to hold him and keep him. He knew, without a doubt, that she wanted him back in her life, and that she was afraid it was too late, that they were too far gone. She'd driven him away in grief and helpless rage, unable to bear his touch or tolerate the sound of his voice. He'd left her in bitterness, finally accepting the fact that they would never find their children, nor their way back to each other—that he would limp through the rest of his days, hollowed-out and alone.

And, yet, here they were.

"It still is hell being apart," she said softly, searching his face.

She remained still, waiting for his answer. He could feel her heart beating against his own, and sensed her trembling fear. As he'd suspected, they'd finally reached the end of the road they'd been travelling for so long, and it was time to choose a different path. He felt a slow smile returning to his face as he looked at her.

In her dark eyes he saw everything they'd ever shared—as lovers, as parents, as friends and allies—and it was beautiful, all of it. Even the parts that were in ruins. Even the parts they'd lost forever.

He had long ago stopped mocking the Force and deriding its mysterious workings, but he was continually developing a deeper appreciation for the power it possessed to change his own life. He wondered if he would ever lose the sense of awe he felt when he sought out that connection between them, felt the magnetic pull of her on the other end of it, and filled the channel with his heart. He watched Leia's expression transform as he returned her feelings tenfold through the Force, powerfully communicating his deepest desire:

I want to come home.

That sentiment elicited the most radiant smile he'd seen on her face in a very long time, and a burst of joy blazed between them. She stretched up to meet his offered kiss, her mouth opening beneath his in warm welcome.

You are home.

The euphoria that pulsed through their telepathic connection served to magnify the intensity of physical touch. It flooded their mouths, and suffused the intimate slide of their tongues. Han lifted a hand to her face, holding her still so he could taste her, marvelling at the complex flavour of love. He felt electrified with pleasure, and bereft when Leia finally broke the kiss on a gasp and slumped against his chest. He covered her head with his hand and heaved a deep sigh. He knew exactly how she felt, how flooded with feeling, overwhelmed with sensation. She quivered against him, fingers clutching at his chest.

"Yeah, it was hell being apart," Han finally replied aloud, echoing her distant words. He wrapped both arms tightly around her body, rested his head against hers and closed his eyes. "But we're not apart anymore."

:: :: ::

Thanks: My gratitude goes out to magnificent beta readers BonesBooth206 and CoriMariee for their critical eyes and the excellent suggestions. You made it better.

NB: The next chapter (13) is for adults only. If you are not of age, or if sexually-explicit material is not your thing, then you should skip to chapter 16 (the end). Chapters 14 and 15 refer to "missing scenes" that are archived here as standalone stories ("Recursion" and "The Double Edge").