Forty-Three Seconds


Trigger warning in effect for this chapter: depictions of physical trauma, injury and blood loss. Please be warned.


Like a ghost, Han wandered aimlessly around the Falcon, putting away medical supplies and cleaning up Leia's blood from the decks. When that chore was finished, he moved onto the more mundane tasks on his list, the tweaking and fiddling and fixing that quieted the outraged voice in his head.

Anything to keep busy. Anything to shut it all down.

He hadn't gone to see her since they had carted her off to Medical. Between the blunt updates from Chewie and the overly-reassuring ones from Luke, he hadn't felt the need to barge in. Too many people: too many prying eyes. He was aware of how rattled he looked—how rattled he felt—and the prospect of trying to be anything but a complete wreck made him want to shoot something. He felt … out of his mind. Insane. And horribly heavy with guilt.

She's fine, he reminded himself. She'll be okay.

… Maintaining his ship was hard work on the best of days, but it was usually worth the hours of sweat and cursing. The Falcon provided him emotional stability and, fuck, he needed her now.

If a single note of worry had come through Chewie's messages, wild banthas couldn't have kept Han away. But it sounded like the miracle had continued, that Leia was recovering despite her extensive injuries.

And so, on the same day he had brought the last princess of Alderaan back to base with a hole in her stomach, he threw himself into the work of diagnostic tests, small repairs and inventory lists. Busy work: the kind of stuff he could do—and had often done—drunk, injured, or incapacitated, if he so chose.

In point of fact, he hadn't reached for the bottle, in spite of his desperate need to obliviate a whole mess of memories. He figured sobriety was the way to go, in case Chewie commed him with an emergency or if Leia came calling, which he was sure she would try once she had an escape route out of Medical.

Hours crept by.

Valiantly, he tried not to think. It was his small rebellion, a deep need to avoid reality entirely, to keep what was most important to him safely by his side.

… He had so often accused her of being the princess of denial, and now he had stolen her crown.

Time passed and it passed slowly, leaving him anxious, jittery and safely alone in the confines of his ship. Leia would be disappointed that he hadn't come to see her, and he was disappointed in himself, too. But reality lurked outside, evidence of the bloodshed that had occurred within—the evidence he had made disappear with a few minutes of furious scrubbing—and there was something deeply sickening in the thought of leaving these hulls.

Despite being on a planet widely considered to be the galaxy's trash-heap, Han felt a stirring of hope in his chest. The purple mist that surrounded him was lighter than Dagobah's heavy gray. The daylight was brighter, the air was warmer. It wasn't like he missed Hoth. Hell, no. But he hated the Big Swamp more than he did the Ice Hell, and so their return brought him a sense of welcome adventure.

He just had to get the damn refueling droid to hurry up…

Of sudden importance in the present moment was the resealing of the engine casing. With a soft exhale, he crouched and thrust himself into the work, trying to purge the memory. His knees protested the work, but he had been putting it off for months now, and who knew what could happen if he let it go much longer?

Don't think. Keep working.

She would be fine.

A bolt. A small body in front of his. Hands upraised, a familiar posture—it won't work like it did on Nar Shaddaa, baby, no—and then the wet punch of a second bolt into muscle and tissue. She staggered back, touched her bloodied torso, kept one hand up while his chest tore wide open, exploding in panic. One more shot hit the duracrete at their feet just as the turret gun erupted in fire and Luke dropped to the ground, hitting his head as he collapsed. Leia's soft panting drew his eyes back to hers, the shock of her pain breaking through everything as he hauled her body in his arms, trying to get her inside, whispering a soft refrain. Why did you do that? Why did you do that? Why did you do that?

With a curse, he smashed his fist into the hull in an explosion of fear and anger. Pain lanced through his knuckles, radiating through his arm and spreading everywhere in one quick, biting action. He felt the smallest whisper of pleasure from it, too: some deep, dark thrill that terrified him with its savage delight. A note of distraction, a reprieve, as it blocked the sights and sounds of Ord Mantell that haunted him.

And then approaching footsteps, soft and small, at the worst possible moment, because that was always his luck—

"What could the hull have possibly done to deserve that?"

Closing his eyes at the sound of Leia's voice, he straightened from his crouch and tried to shake out the lingering heat in his hand while he scrambled for a response. Huh? was what came out of his mouth, and he grimaced, too exhausted to feel anything more than resignation.

You've been worried sick the past six hours and this is what you do when she shows up?

"I was worried when you didn't come to see me. Are you okay?"

"Had to take care of some things," he said, turning slowly to face her. "Chewie was keeping me updated."

Her clothing was too big: that was the first thing he noticed. Her hair had been plaited after a fresher, hanging over one shoulder in a style that was more about function than form. Her hands had been scrubbed as clean as the decks, without a trace of the gore that had seemed so permanent just a few hours ago.

"I'm sorry it took so long," she offered with a tentative smile. "They insisted on running every test imaginable, though the bacta worked better than we hoped."

If he hadn't held her skin closed himself while applying the compression bandage, hadn't felt the flayed flesh between his fingers, hadn't slipped in the surge of blood that accompanied every fucking thing he did to try and help… Maybe then he could have truly seen her as she was right now. Safe and healing, a pale, rosy pink, with soft eyes and a patient smile.

What the hell had Fett done to his blaster to make her bleed so much? Why hadn't the wound cauterized?

Waging a ferocious war with himself, Han snapped back to the present with a jerk. She stood there, lovely in the harsh galley lights: small and strong and very, very concerned.

And he couldn't think of a single thing to say to her, despite this being the only acceptable outcome for the carnage in his memory. Standing upright. Warm body, blinking brown eyes. Love and acceptance in the hand she reached out for him to take. This was good, there wasn't a single thing he wanted more in the galaxy than to see her safe and whole, and yet he still couldn't speak.

"Han," she whispered.

He cleared his throat, grabbed a cloth to clean up his hands, and found his voice. "Chewie told me you're okay."

Leia hesitated before taking the cloth from his hands and tossing it on the holochess board.

"I'm fine," she said. "They got the pellets out without any permanent damage."

So that had been the bastard's game. Pellets. He had been after pain first, capture second.

The heat that shot through Han's chest was so intense that he had to focus on his breathing for a moment until it subsided. Even so, Leia saw through him, placing a palm just above his heart, where he ached with fury and with shame. Peering up at him with those beautiful eyes, her expanse was cut down just to him, just him, and he was losing the fight against his terror. He could feel it rumbling through his chest like an earthquake.

she's okay, she's okay, she's okay...

"I can guess what you're thinking," she murmured.

Shestepped closer to him, into his space, where he wouldn't be able to hide from her. He raised an eyebrow, uncomfortable. but didn't respond.

"It's not your fault."

The edges of the bolt had torn irregularly through the lower side of her stomach. The left side of the wound had a large piece of skin he could hold onto to staunch the flow of blood; the right side did not. When he held the edges together, the right side slipped through his fingers again and again, a fruitless battle to keep her alive long enough to get the damn compression bandage in place. The biggest worry was blood loss, he knew that, and yet he couldn't find the right treatment for her. Blaster bolts cauterized, that's what they did, there was no reason to have this much bleeding...

They were hours from Hoth. Hours.

"Han."

He came to himself at his name, away from the brutal images but not far enough away for his comfort.

Her eyes were compelling sounds and words from him, but he wasn't sure what exactly he could say. Hopelessness sat at the edges of everything. Reality was suspicious in the way he kept flipping back and forth between his memories and the present. It didn't matter what was true or untrue; at some point in the timeline, he had let a bounty hunter leave her a bloody, broken mess, and the image was imprinted on his brain, even as he saw her alive in front of him. Like a transposed reflection. Two Leias, and only one of them looked like she might survive the next few minutes.

"You couldn't have known he would be there," she said, and it ripped through his timeless fog, spurring a reaction from him out of pure outrage.

"Salla warned me weeks ago that he was after me. I wasn't paying attention."

The depth of his treachery. It was his responsibility to keep her safe. He had done so successfully for years, thwarting fate dozens of times to bring her through her Alliance missions without a scratch. Oh, sure, there had been moments of doubt, when she had been poisoned or sick, but in the end, it had always worked out in her favor.

Not anymore. She had been gravely injured because of him. Her blood had pooled on the very deckplates they stood on now because of him.

That was inexcusable. That was unforgivable. That was failure.

Catching her eye, he lost himself for a moment, begging for another conclusion to be made than the one tugging at him from dark edges. He just wanted to go backward, wanted to exist in the time before, when he could look at her and not see abject horror. Yesterday's perfect morning, when she had been happy in his bunk, teasing him about returning to base, a golden smile warming the room because that was what she always did to him.

He wanted to be back there so badly.

And then blood. An incomprehensible amount of blood, as he literally held her together, as his fingers shook, as he scrambled to triage the situation. Heart in his throat, barking orders, feeling the Falcon take off as Leia swayed. I'm okay, she had whispered. Han, I'll be okay.

How could you possibly be okay—?

We've been through worse, you and me.

Stop talking. I need you to be as still as you can, sweetheart, please...

Han squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pull himself out of the past and only just barely succeeding. But even as her face came swimming into view, her proud lips and raised chin, he saw a wince that twisted the knife in his gut like a corkscrew.

"You need to rest," he murmured, taking her hand. "C'mere."

Pulling her into his arms, he closed his eyes and held her as closely as he possibly could. There was a price to be paid but he couldn't pay it tonight. He didn't have the heart for it. At his core, he was a selfish man, and all he wanted in the entire universe stood right in front of him, holding him together as if he might shatter into a million jagged, little pieces.

He led her back to the bunk, carefully undressing her, mindful of the new compression bandage and her low groans of pain when she moved too fast. They crept beneath the covers and she settled in front of him. He wrapped his left arm around her waist, bent his knees behind hers, and pushed his nose into the hair at the crown of her head.

"I love you," she whispered as her breathing deepened.

He kissed her head but couldn't say it back through the sudden lump in his throat.

—0—

Echo Base was a cold place in more ways than one. The blistering chill in the air swept down corridors, into offices and bunkrooms, and through the cacophonic mess hall. Through the bays it went, across grounded ships and into the bones of the staff, until it felt impossible to ever feel truly warm again. Like that term Luke had learned his first day on-base: permafrost. Thawless. Glacial.

It was bad no matter which word he used.

The truly terrifying part was that it wasn't just the climate. A sense of doom had settled into the countenance of the personnel, freezing hope where it burned in chests more suited to the fires of rebellion. It wasn't universal, of course, but Luke could feel it in many of his pilots.

Darkness. Cynicism. Defeat.

He was hamstrung to do anything about it. Before Dagobah, he would have found a way to brighten things up, provide a little metaphorical heat to his co-revolutionaries. But the universe seemed so much larger now, with complicating factors and penetrating doubt that circled his brain like the swirling snow outside the base walls.

Aching, he leaned against the wall of the corridor and held his side with a grimace. None of his blood had been spilled on the cheap durasteel platforms of Ord Mantell, and yet it felt like all of it had, every single drop. He remembered with a visceral pang the sound of the blaster and a sharp pain in his stomach. Then Wookiee arms under him and a none-too-gentle drop into the navigator seat in the Falcon's cockpit.

He kept checking himself for injury, even now, a day later. Like the phantom pains of a lost limb, his side would burn at odd hours. Our connection must be strengthening, he thought. Unlocking the power of his synergetic relationship with Leia seemed to have come at a painful price, without any of the benefits Yoda had spoken of. He felt her pain but none of her kinetic power.

And Leia…

Well, she wasn't available for conversation much today. He had no idea how she felt about things. She had been patched up as best as the Alliance could do, he knew, because of his own physical improvement. But he still wasn't sure about her emotional health; she had been effectively blocking him since they had returned to base.

"You look awful."

Luke blinked into the blinding light of the corridor, into the worried face of his executive officer. Clasping his hands behind his back, Wedge glanced at him head-to-toe with concerned hazel eyes, as if inspecting a package for damage.

"Thanks."

The Corellian shrugged. "What can I say? I call it like I see it."

"Can you call it more kindly, please?"

"What the hell happened out there? Everyone is talking about it. I've heard six different versions of the story already today."

Luke considered how to answer the question, because it was a good one. The group that had gone on the secret mission to Dagobah—and by extension, to Ord Mantell—had all returned to Hoth in one piece, more or less. His injuries were not real, Leia was healing, and Han and Chewie had returned unscathed.

But the feeling of despair was hard to miss. Something had shifted: something was bending even as it broke. He wasn't sure what to make of the utter strain that permeated everything, wasn't even sure that it had anything to do with their disastrous mission.

Something was wrong. That was the only thing he knew for certain.

"I'm not sure," he answered honestly, too wrung out to hide his worry. "But I'm afraid it was a catastrophe."

—0—

Carlist Rieekan didn't go out of his way to keep up with the on-base gossip. He very keenly felt he had a duty here on Hoth, one of survival, and he just plain didn't have the energy to spend on couplings and recouplings and the like. People were people. There wasn't much variety to the trouble they would find, regardless of species or proclivity.

But it was hard to miss the whispers about the princess and the commander.

Seated at the comms station near him, Leia's eyes were focused on the three screens for which she was responsible. Nothing looked amiss: her hair was up in the coronet she often preferred, her base-issued fatigues were clean, and her boots were in good shape. She moved slower than usual, but that was more about her wound than anything else.

It would require a deeper intimacy with her to recognize her worry.

He didn't meddle. He wouldn't ask. It was none of his business. His sovereign deserved some privacy and he hated the scrutiny she often received by nature of her station and the perception of her martyrdom. She had been released from Medical two days ago, looking gaunt and haunted, and he had endeavored to give her the space she needed.

But deference didn't mean ignorance. He knew she had slept in her quarters last night while Solo had slept on the Falcon.

He didn't meddle. He wouldn't ask. It was none of his business. But he felt uneasy, nonetheless.

—0—

"You're avoiding me."

Leia caught Han outside the briefing theater's only exit, cunning strategist that she was, and he cursed the fact that he hadn't been able to convince Salla to change the briefing's location at the last minute.

"No." he answered. "Just busy."

The corridor outside the theater was deserted, without a single Rebel around for assistance or distraction. He watched the hallway with hopeful eyes but was left without inspiration. Scared of a tiny princess, he ridiculed himself. It's like we've gone back in time.

She looked perfect today, sharp lines and a ready bark at her lips. There was a part of him that desperately wanted to grab her shoulders, push her against the frozen wall at her back, and show her exactly how much he had missed her these past few days.

But that would be decisive action, and he didn't seem capable of that at the moment.

Leia was undeterred. "I can see your reports. You aren't that busy."

"Not everything is on those things," he hedged, walking toward the busier side of the base, still looking for an easy escape.

"You didn't see me last night."

He swallowed, remembering the painful breadth of the past few hours, his sleepless trance, staring at the upper hull of the bunkroom.

"Taking a week out for Jedi lessons means a hell of a lot more work for me now," he said as he walked, not bothering to address her over his shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

Leia pulled on his elbow, stopping him in his tracks. She raised her eyebrows at the chill in his tone, but moved beyond it.

"Lunch, then."

She tipped backward in the booth and the sound her head made as she hit the dejarik board was sickening, a heavy thwack. Breathlessly, he followed after her, desperate to see her exhales, reaching a bloody hand to check for a pulse...

"Not today," he croaked, and, fuck, that was obvious, but he didn't care. The memories took over and he had to leave before he said something stupid. "Maybe later."

He pointedly removed the soft hand on his elbow, slipping away from her as surely as warmth did from any living body on this grave of a planet, and tried to walk with confidence until he was out of sight.

He succeeded until he turned a corner and could stop, lean against a wall and try to slow down the heaving cadence of his heartbeat.

—0—

She gave a briefing to Starfighter Command and it was like a quiet blade in Han's side.

Three days since she had been shot and she was already back at the helm, lecturing SFC on logistics and the new rule about wearing two pairs of therma-socks onbase after one of Blue Squadron's idiots lost a toe to frostbite. He had to admire her gumption, though it didn't surprise him in the least. Leia Organa was no weakling.

She soundly ignored him, which suited him just fine. This was work, and with it came a certain detachment. He was one of sixteen other officers in the theater, all sitting in dispassionate little rows. She wouldn't break rank here, wouldn't breach decorum to address him. She was the consummate professional at these huddles; he was safe here.

Beside him, Salla stretched out her long legs but kept attentive eyes on the dias in front. She wasn't talking to him much these days, either, still angry at him for not heeding her warnings about Fett in the Rim. But like Leia, she did her job, and her job at the moment was to hear the same information he heard and make sure he relayed it accurately to his squadron.

To his left sat Luke and Wedge, who were still talking to him, but who he took great pains to avoid. Chewie was in the same boat, generally pissed at him for what the furball called his emotionally-stunted, selfish thinking, but who also was indebted to him to follow his orders when he gave them.

And so he listened to a familiar rich alto discuss inane, boring things in the safety of the crowd, without any demands on his reactions. He didn't look at her, focused instead on the floor below her feet, and barely registered her words. It soothed some of his nerves to listen to her. He was exhausted and probably hungry, though he didn't feel it, and definitely missing her presence in his daily life. It was like taking a hit of spice to stave off an addiction. Prophylactic.

If he could do this, make it through this meeting, it would prove that he could stay here, keep fighting with the Alliance but separate from his relationship with Leia. Whatever that was. Whatever it would be in the future. Whatever he decided to do, when he finally got around to making a damn decision—

"Commander Solo?"

He wrenched himself into the present. "Yeah?"

"Our shipment of ion cannon supplies? Do you have an ETA?"

Her gaze pierced his, and he was struck mute by the world of hurt he could see there under all the professionalism and strength, a slip of vulnerability under the command of her voice. An awkward moment fell around them all, when everyone seemed to hold their breath for his reaction, as he searched for the words in Basic. He could think of them in Corellian, in Ulgrassi and Frasha, but there wasn't a single word to be found that would make any sense to her.

Salla finally saved him. "They're two days out. Ran into some trouble near Sullust but nothing Giis couldn't handle."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Leia said, turning away to address the leader of Yellow Squadron, dismissing him as summarily as she would anyone else.

Ah, whatever. He definitely deserved it.

He was startled when a Skywalker-sized fist smacked him none-too-gently in the shoulder. He plastered his best attempt at an annoyed glare on his face.

"You mind?" he growled, unimpressed.

"You're losing it, Han," Luke whispered. "Pay attention."

Han rolled his eyes and slouched further down in his chair, aware of the interested stares of everyone around him, the air of confusion and delight that followed his unusual actions of late.

Didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

He resumed his study of the floor and listened to the weave of command in Leia's voice as she moved on to fuel distribution rations.

—0—

Salla was on a mission, her breathing loud in the corridor as she rushed toward the command center. Ignoring the whispers had become part of her job the past few days, but goddamn, it was getting tough. Didn't anybody do any actual work around here? Weren't they fighting a war?

Did you hear about Solo—?

they're barely even speaking, did you see them in the mess yesterday—

heard she dumped him for some prince out of Elroon...

Ludicrous. This whole thing was insane, mostly because, to Salla's mind, the larger Alliance had no real interest in the love lives of Han Solo and Leia Organa. This was just mindless, empty entertainment. Something to do to stave off the boredom, like the Rogues' weekly sabacc game or the increasingly inappropriate ice sculptures that lined the western corridor.

The thing was … she did care. It was stupid, but she worried about those two lovesick idiots and she didn't want them to destroy whatever happiness they had found in a galaxy that didn't seem to like happy endings.

Well, that, and Solo had been next to useless lately. She was tired of doing all his work for him.

She knew what was going to happen next and had felt rippling dread the minute she glimpsed Han's eyes upon their return from Ord Mantell. She had tried to give him a few days to settle his nerves, get over himself and come to some sort of decision, but he just didn't seem capable of moving. He was like a rotting log, just taking up space where something else should be thriving.

So Salla Zend decided to bring out the big guns.

The princess looked calm and in control standing in the middle of the Command Center. It was enough for Salla to second-guess her plan of attack for one short moment; Leia was as pristine and prissy as ever, clean and emotionless and unruffled by the chaos around her. Until, that is, Salla discerned the circles under her eyes that bespoke of sleepless nights, eerily similar to Solo's.

"Well, hello, Lieutenant Zend," she said with a smile, dismissing the ensign to whom she had been speaking. "What brings you here?"

"I need to talk to you. Alone."

"My office, then."

The corridor flew by them and they were inside the small, cramped room in seconds, icy walls looking for all the galaxy like some behemoth trap yet to be sprung. It creeped Salla out every time she had reason to come here.

"So," the princess began, "how can I help—?"

"He's going to leave."

Her words hung in the air as Leia froze, eyes still and mouth open, looking like she had been caught in the ice-trap of her own office. Holding her breath, Salla waited, striving to give time she had stolen in her probably-rude manner, but it wasn't like she came barging into the office of her commander's commander without good cause.

And then Leia shook her head. "We just got back," she said with a soft smile that would have fooled Salla if she hadn't known how much the words had cost the princess. "He's not due to leave base for another ten days."

Deflection. Interesting.

"Don't be stupid. I don't mean for supplies."

A beat, a breath, and then the politician's mask fell like a curtain from a rod. Leia suddenly looked pinched, worried, the air of confidence gone as surely as if she had been shot.

Dark humor threatened Salla at that thought—that was precisely what had happened—but she fought against it.

She trudged on, committed now. "You have to talk some sense into him."

"When has that ever worked?"

Dry like tinder, brittle as the spines of Imperials, her tone screamed defeatism.

"You think so, too," Salla accused, realization dawning.

Did she recognize the coldness in Solo's eyes when he was trying not to care? The blank expression during the debrief he had just conducted for the Mercs? The one that had scared Salla so much she had sought out the only person who knew Han Solo's heart better than she did?

She had damn near ran out of the theater when he had finished, unsettled to the core.

"I'm worried about him," Leia said. "I know that something is on his mind. And I know he won't talk to me about it, which means it's about me."

Sitting behind her desk, Leia looked like she was seeing far into the distance, like she had the ability to glimpse the future. Maybe she did? Salla didn't know what had happened on their little trip before Fett had ruined the party, and she had no claim to understand the Jedi. But the look was disconcerting, to say the least.

"He won't talk to me, either," Salla said.

"Chewie says the same thing. At least I know I'm in good company."

Salla appreciated the effort at a joke, but it fell flat under the weight of their combined worry. She brushed a hand through her hair, just to do something, because all this nervous chittering was getting to her and she wasn't sure how to fix it.

"So," she began, "how do we keep him from running?"

Rieekan could ground him. Leia could talk with Chewie, get him to sabotage any plan Solo might cook up to sneak offbase in the middle of the night. Salla could try to mess with some part of the Falcon to prevent lift-off, though, honestly, she could also just wait for the old bird to fail on her own devices.

"He won't leave."

That made Salla's thoughts stop in their tracks. She heard the first notes of true confidence in Leia's voice.

"It's cute that you think so."

"He has people here that he cares about," she said. "And he believes in what we're doing. He didn't join the Alliance because I batted my eyes at him."

True enough. He had even convinced Salla to join up. But—

"Maybe he's leaving the Alliance in order to leave you."

Ah, that had been too blunt. Salla immediately regretted the look of pain that crossed Leia's eyes before she had the sense to raise her defense shields. But it was the truth, wasn't it? The heart of the matter, the reason she had searched for Leia in the first place.

Han was disentangling himself from Leia, and she was letting him do it.

"I know what I see," Salla continued in a softer tone. "You do, too. You have to stop him before he throws everything away."

Han Solo was no masochist, and he wasn't self-destructive by nature. But he also had a history of finding the single most reckless path to walk in any situation and soldiering on regardless of the consequences. Signing up for the Imperial Navy in order to learn to fly? There were easier ways to do that, and even younger, stupider Solo would have known that. He always had a reason for what he did, and if Leia didn't curb his travels down this path, there was no telling where he would wind up.

"That's not what he's doing," the princess said with a small, low voice.

"Leia. This is what he does. He did it to me, and he's doing it to you, too."

Truly, honestly, Salla had hoped he had changed. The new life he had built for himself had seemed so perfect for him, being a hero while rebelling. And she couldn't deny that it looked like Han's feelings toward Leia were very different from how he had felt about Salla herself. Even now, even as he self-destructed in spectacular fashion, he had somehow convinced himself that it was for her benefit.

Stubborn man still struggled with loss. That was the long and the short of it.

"He'll come to his senses," Leia finally said. "He won't leave."

Salla looked up to the ceiling, cursing. She was surrounded by faithful fools, the lot of them.

"I hope you're right," she said, before she walked out of the office, leaving the princess alone in her tower of ice.

—0—

Another day, another twenty-two hours in hell. She had waved him over when he had entered the mess, and he had turned on his heel and left without acknowledgement. He caught Luke's angry eyes before he entered the safety of the hallway, escaping to the Falcon where he could grab a ration bar. It was time to look at the hyperdrive, anyway. The stupid thing was making that sound again.

—0—

As darkness fell over Echo Base and the night shift skeleton crew shuffled on-duty, the same searing pain erupted between his ribs, a hallmark of the days since they had returned from Dagobah. Every time he thought about her—and his desperate attempt to just fucking stay away—he wound up with a deeper sense of shame, an infusion of self-loathing for what he was doing to her, even as his brain warred with his heart about what the only logical choice could be.

If something endangered Leia, he would take it out. Period. End of discussion.

A week in and he was starting to doubt the strength of his resolve.

—0—

The hours rolled by him in a cold, white haze and he spent it largely torturing himself. His one Leia-sighting for the day had been in the training room, and it hadn't been by complete accident. His work had taken him into the North Passage, and everyone looked in those big transparent walls as they walked by. A couple of crewmen were planted in front of the entrance, having a stilted conversation that seemed like a thinly-veiled excuse to watch the show.

He used their presence to peer in and be torn apart.

There she was: cross-legged in the middle of the room, tiny and alone. Eyes shut, lips pursed in concentration, she looked like she was resting. He knew better; he had seen that expression on Dagobah many times. In the corner of the room, a weight levitated in the air, then two, then three, and he had felt a flash of pride, helpless to prevent it.

Eyes snapping open, she found him among the crewmen without a single moment of searching. The crowd had scattered, belying their facade of conversation entirely, and he had stood there like a tabbir-mouse caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth gaping, before he had come to his senses and hurried off.

Stupid, he reprimanded himself. Stupid for being seen, stupid for stopping in the first place. He knew the Alliance gossip networks had found steady fodder in Luke and Leia's time in the training room.

He knew who he would see as he passed through that corridor, and he had done it anyway.

It was getting harder and harder to resist those small temptations. He wanted to see her. He wanted to touch her, smell the sweetness of her skin, whisper nonsense into her ear, hold her close enough that nothing could come between them. She was in his thoughts from the moment he woke up until the minute he closed his eyes at night, a perpetual phantom of his own making.

Just … stay away for now. Figure it out later. Carry on and do your fucking job.

Holed away on the Falcon, he avoided everyone and everything that wasn't strictly required of him. Subtlety had never been his strong suit. Isolation was the better practice, because he was utterly transparent in all of this agony and he knew it. That was more Leia's forte; she had convinced everyone that she had been okay after Yavin, embracing the martyr role with her typical bullish pride. She was much better at pretending everything was fine than he was, and he didn't even want to try.

Fine. Huh. He was anything but fine.

Reaching for his tumbler, he tried to block it all out. It had been Leia-less night after Leia-less night, and he had finally given in and consulted with his stash of whiskey about how to proceed. He wasn't drunk yet, but the night was young and he had nowhere to go.

And so he sulked. He moped. He tried to ignore the thrumming in his chest, and when that didn't work, he threw himself wholeheartedly into self-pity. Good thing Chewie had volunteered for sentry duty tonight, though Han could have done without the Wookiee's departing snarl of disgust.

Three tumblers in and he was in a fine state. Not drunk, not yet, but certainly feeling the effects. At the very least the flashbacks had slowed in frequency. That was cause enough for celebration, a fourth glass. Maybe at this rate, he could actually sleep tonight...

"Hello."

He stopped mid-pour, but didn't look up or welcome her in. The whiskey filled his entire field of vision, and he hoped that if he just stayed absolutely still without acknowledging her presence, she might go away. He had no escape plan here.

The Falcon was his refuge, not hers. Why was she breaking the rules?

"So this is where you've been?" Leia asked, sitting down opposite him. "Drinking yourself to death to avoid talking to me?"

To death. It was funny, the way she said it, like he was slipping away from her in the throes of alcoholism and not fear and weakness.

He set down the bottle and threw back the contents of the tumbler without answering.

"I've seen your strategy reports, so I know you're still working," she continued. "Which means that it's only me you're uninterested in seeing. Mind telling me why?"

Releasing the tumbler, he smoothed a hand over his mouth and then focused on her. And if he had ever thought that four glasses of Corellia's finest would have inoculated him to either her beauty or her pain, he would be very mistaken.

She hadn't been sleeping, of that he was certain. She looked tired and drawn, though better now than she had looked the last time she had been sitting in this very booth.

"Been busy."

"You're a coward."

Of course she dove into the truth of the matter with all the directness he admired in her, the way she could slice situations into neat little parts to examine the reality within. Like a butcher or a surgeon.

It would be so much easier to be honest with her, to tell her he was terrified to lose her, that his brain was on fire with flashbacks at all hours of the day.

It would be easier for her if he just ended this now. But—

Nodding in agreement, he remained silent.

A strand of hair had come loose from the braid wrapped around her head, and he had the strongest urge to sweep it out of her eyes. He gripped the glass all the harder for it.

"That's all you've got?" she finally asked. "You won't even defend yourself?"

"Why? Isn't all this in my strategy reports?"

His anger didn't have a leg to stand on. He was letting the wound fester through his inaction and his petulance was useless. If he loved her any less—or maybe if he loved her more—he would just end it now and be done with it. Give her the fight she was clearly intent on having with him tonight and with it, a justifiable reason to hate him. It would only be fair.

But he just couldn't do it. He was stuck in the purgatory of waiting.

"Salla has a theory," she said into the quiet. "I didn't believe her, but now..."

Leia trailed off and he realized with a pang why she was here. She wasn't picking a fight; she knew what he was doing and was daring him to finish it. To make it real. To take the shot he just didn't want to take. Because she was a courageous woman expecting the same from the man she loved.

His avoidance wouldn't work. His lies wouldn't work. She demanded far more from him than that.

Heat overtook him and he kissed her with complete and total abandon. Her lips tasted like whiskey, like warmth and Leia. She'd moved into his lap and now it was all Leia, everything Leia, her whispered sighs, the fleeting touch of her fingers through his hair, the press of her chest against his...

Trying to dispel the memory, he closed his eyes. But more hit him, like impacts from a repeating blaster. Whump-whump-whump. The want, the fear, the bare need for her that lived so deep in his bones that he was afraid something might snap without her.

Then Leia rose on her toes, pressed her lips to his, closed her eyes just before he closed his and gave himself over to the sweetness of her lips, the divine feeling of her fingers pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his pants and then pressing into the skin of his lower back. The kiss was slow, unhurried, more a welcome home than a passionate gesture leading anywhere...

No.

He wasn't prepared for this. Not one bit.

"You think you put me in danger on Ord Mantell, and so you are trying to take yourself out of the equation to keep me safe. Does that sound right?"

Bullseye. An aim as sure as any from his blaster.

"Doesn't seem like such a terrible idea," he muttered, giving up the pretense entirely.

What was he going to say? Hey, princess, it's been fun but I'm not into this anymore? He wouldn't be able to sell that lie to anyone, much less Leia.

Deep in the center of his chest, he recognized the dark irony that his mistreatment of Salla years ago had come back to haunt him. He had coldly left her with zero explanation in their youth, and now she was the principle reason Leia knew he wasn't leaving her with any sort of coldness whatsoever. He didn't blame Salla for thinking that of him. He didn't blame Leia for knowing the truth of his motivations now, either.

"It sounds pretty terrible to me."

He rolled his eyes at her response. "Better think twice next time you jump in front of a blaster bolt for me."

Swift as thunder, she smacked her hands on the holochess board, making him jump. "Don't you dare turn this around on me. I have done nothing to deserve this treatment from you."

She hadn't, that was true. But it didn't mean that he wasn't angry with her.

"You had to be the hero," he spat. "You couldn't just leave it alone—"

"And let you die? No."

The thread on his restraint broke and now he was fire, brutal with sleepless desperation and pain. Fine. She wanted the truth?

"Yes!" he shouted, loud, resonating in little echoes around the main hold as he rose from the booth. "If that's what it came to, then yes."

"I would never let you do that for me," she shot back, standing up as well, toe-to-toe with him, closer than they had been in a week. Her smaller stature somehow made her more powerful in her rage.

"Let me? Let me?"

He was losing it, he was losing all control. He felt like he had driven himself to insanity, trying so hard to make the right decision for her, and here she was, taking him over the edge.

"I would die for you in a heartbeat, without a second thought, and you say you won't let me?"

She swallowed, suddenly mute. And he should stop, he should stop, but he couldn't keep this fire to himself anymore. It had been seven horrifying days with little sleep, knowing what was coming but feeling helpless to stop it. Like one of those electric storms on Corellia he'd seen as a kid, watching people scurry for the safety of their homes while he searched for a suitable shelter.

There was no preventing this any longer. Time to face the storm.

"Fuck, Leia, you were ripped apart."

Her life had been in his hands and he hadn't been prepared fro it, watching the blood ooze out of the scraps of her stomach, keenly aware she was only in that predicament because he'd foolishly decided to play soldier for a year.

She narrowed her eyes. "I have some idea. I was the one with the blaster bolt—"

"You were dead, there, at that table, for forty-three seconds."

The fire in her eyes extinguished as surely as if he had dropped her into cold water. They were standing so close to each other that he could feel her sharp exhales against the hair on his chest, as she struggled to understand what he had just said.

"For forty-three seconds, I thought I had killed you," he continued, softer now, the truth too fragile to be loud. "I held you and begged you to come back to me."

Her lips had been so blue. That was all he could think of, how he had stared at those open lips, pressed bloody fingers all over her neck to check for her pulse, whispering desperate pleas into the monstrosity of what he'd let befall her. But he had kept coming back to her lips, over and over again, for forty-three goddamned seconds.

An eternity. The longest minute of his life.

When she had suddenly opened her eyes, blinked, and resumed her assurances that she was fine, something had broken inside him. Some prayer had been answered, some deity had listened, and it had been abundantly clear that it wouldn't happen again. A one-time miracle.

He didn't believe in divine retribution. He barely believed in the Force, despite having seen it in action several times since picking up that charter on Tatooine. But he knew when the cards had turned. He knew when to fold.

He knew when his luck had run out.

"So you're right. I'm a coward," he muttered. "Because I can't do that again. I'm not going to pretend that everything is okay when I have this… I look at you and I see you dead—"

"Han, no."

He gritted his teeth. "You don't understand. I can't unsee it. Believe me, I've tried."

"You don't think I understand? Me?"

The hold was quiet as that last comment sunk in, and it felt like the universe shifted a little bit. Her eyes were soft in recognition. She couldn't honestly fight against lasting evidence of horror. She had felt it, too, had been a slave to her own grief, and she knew what triggers looked like.

"You go and throw your life away fighting monsters, Leia. That's fine by me," he finished. "But not my monsters. Not the ones I set on your tail."

She shook her head. "They're my monsters, too."

"No, they're not," he said. "Yours throw shit around with their minds. Mine shoot you because of a debt I owe a crime lord back when I ran drugs."

"Did you miss the part when we talked about this?" she asked, stepping toward him again, one last hand for her to play. "Did you miss the part when you convinced me that we were probably going to die in this war but that it would be worth it in the end?"

He remembered that conversation, alright. He remembered his certainty that what had held Leia back was fear, plain and simple: fear derived from her losses, fear from the overwhelming magnitude of her trauma. And he remembered shoving down those fears like the walls of a compactor, a therapeutic bulldozer.

"Those were your words," she continued with quiet heat. "You said the price was worth it. You were the one to convince me that I couldn't live in fear."

He had. It felt like a lifetime ago.

"So you look me in the eye and tell me how this is any different," she said.

The guilt. The guilt was how it was different. But he couldn't say that to her; it would give her ammunition and the last thing he needed was a self-righteous princess on his back. So.

"Maybe you were right. Maybe it's not worth it."

And that was it. The understanding in her eyes cooled and she stepped away from him with shock and disappointment obvious in the set of her shoulders. The transformation was instantaneous and heartbreaking, but she had made it necessary. If she had just listened to him...

Never mind the pit in his stomach that was swallowing him whole. Never mind that this was killing him.

"You know the way out," he said in a dead voice.

Coward that he was, he dropped his gaze to the deck and retreated, only stopping to snag the bottle of whiskey before he sauntered into the safety of their bunkroom to feel what seemed suspiciously like mourning.

Maybe it's not worth it.

He swallowed, closed his eyes, and tried to keep his chest from splintering in two.

—0—

A meteor crashed into the snow in the southeast quadrant.

It didn't look much like a meteor: pure black with spindly legs and a transmitter that burst with garbled hisses. And it didn't move like a meteor, either, as it propelled itself out of the snow and flew carefully around a short circumference, emitting a micro-signal as it began its scouting mission.

That signal was picked up by a sleepy Alliance tech in the command center, who barely acknowledged it on his report before resuming the puzzle on his datapad. It had been a long day, after all, and he was almost off-shift.

Nothing exciting ever happened in ComCen. If you wanted excitement, you hung out in the bays with the pilots. Not the active-duty support personnel. They were mostly bored, hungry and cold.

Always cold, even with the heaters on full-blast.

By the time the next comms specialist came on-duty, the meteor had already sent a priority message to the Executor, detailing the location of the secret Alliance base on Hoth.

A small movement under the mask of Darth Vader was the only indication of pleasure. The hint of a grotesque smile, twisted in darkness and visible to no one.

"Set course for the Hoth system," he commanded.


Author's Note: I know. I welcome your outrage. Please snuggle your pets and avoid the news for the day. You earned it with this chapter.

I'll just be here biting my nails, worried sick about the reception to this thing.

The next chapter of Specter will be posted Saturday, May 1st. Thank you so much to all of my readers and reviewers. Extra thanks to my two pre-readers for the complicity in this literary crime. And to everyone else: it's going to be okay, I promise. Trust me. -KR