Three months after Alderaan, after the Death Star, after Yavin, the Standard Year ended. Leia, Luke and Han bundled up with coats and blankets, and sat atop the hull of the Millennium Falcon and watched the night turn to day. Luke thought it didn't really matter where they were; someday he'd look back and confirm to his past self it was a place on the way, a stop in between.
The dark sky was above them, twinkling with so many stars. Leia had two blankets: she sat atop one folded on the cold metal hull with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms encircling her legs, and the other blanket was wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl. Luke and Han had dragged Alliance seats away from the scheduling office, brought them into the lift and out onto the hull, and Luke sat shapeless in his, tucked under a blanket, his feet planted on the floor. Han was spread out in his seat, leaning back comfortably while his long legs stretched before him, crossed at the ankles. He had a blanket over his lap.
They were drinking, because that's what one did for Year's End, though the Alliance wasn't observing the holiday as something to celebrate. That was fine with Luke. Han was telling them stories of other year ends, where he was and what he was doing, and Luke was starting to think that Han was a good storyteller, because there was no way in heck all of it could be true.
It had not been a good year; not for him or for Leia. He wasn't stupid enough to ask Leia how she celebrated, but the year before he and his pal Biggs spent the holiday in Mos Espa. Biggs was at the Naval Academy and thought he was a big shot. He took Luke to a cantina and bought him drinks. Luke knew not to get drunk; his uncle would expect the day's chores to be done, so he slowed the pace of the booze by burying his feet in the sand and then freeing them. It was one of those cheap, local places where the owner didn't build a floor. Sand didn't hold heat, so the logic was not to cover up the desert surface, and merely erect walls and a roof over it. Biggs disappeared with a girl for all of fifteen awkward minutes. While Luke waited, feeling snubbed and that life was passing him by, he poured the drinks on the sand floor and watched the liquid disappear. When he got back home, his aunt and uncle were in bed asleep, and Luke thought they had spent the time more productively than he.
Now Biggs was dead, his aunt and uncle-
The night sky was also beautiful on Tatooine. The Outer Rim couldn't be beat, Luke thought, for star gazing.
"The secret," Han was saying, "is to kind of tickle the bloom on the chin-"
"Flowers don't have chins," Leia interrupted.
Luke thought the exact same thing, but he knew what Han meant. Han was very inventive, he thought, coming up with these stories, each growing more ridiculous as the night progressed. He probably didn't want to be with Luke and Leia, who wore their sadness like a mantle, but he wasn't quite the cad he wanted them to think he was, so he poured them drinks and spun tales, and tried to pretend it was just another night.
But it was a beautiful night, cold and clear.
"You know what I mean," Han grumbled at Leia. "And they got a sensitive spot, right there-" he jutted a finger on the bottom of his chin, the part untouched by the scar, but Han hadn't told that story and Luke didn't think he would.
They were unlikely friends, Han and Leia. Luke had no idea if they would remain so, which kind of bothered him. He didn't appreciate that a calendar date was making him question everything. Or was it the drinking? Up here, on their palace to the stars... Leia was the Princess of course, quiet and disciplined, unless the drink helped to not think; Han the bard, or the court jester. And Luke himself was...
Hmm. Definitely the drink, Luke decided. Probably he should be the mystic? The alchemist. The wizard, if he wasn't such a farmer, or the court philosopher or scientist. And experiments and logic weren't fitting into his scheme so he was glum, out of his own body.
He removed a hand from under the blanket to rub his face. He really should stop drinking. There were always chores to be done, weren't there?
It didn't help, all the stories. Luke was just so damn homesick. The way the sky looked when the suns rose, the soft hissy crunch of sand under your feet. The cut of the canyons!- gods, he hadn't known to appreciate it when he saw them everyday, but what a geological treasure. And his aunt, who listened to him complain but never gave in, her face amused and knowing, an understanding squeeze from her hand on his shoulder.
"Someday," was all she'd say.
"Someday what?" Luke would ask. Oh, he knew. Someday he'd grow up, be satisfied with his life. That's what she thought. And he'd been determined to deny her. He would get out, leave, fly far away and have a different life, one she never dreamed of.
And here he was.
"Hey, I got a question for you," Luke suddenly blurted to Han and Leia. The alcohol had loosened his tongue enough that it spoke on its own, Luke's ears registering surprise at how he interrupted Han's story, cutting him off just when the flower-vine thing had immobilized him. "Why do you want something more when you don't have it," he said. He drew the blanket up to his throat, feeling a draft.
"I see the suspense is killing you," Han remarked dryly.
"What's wrong, Luke?" Leia asked, and Luke felt even stupider for the outburst as surely she must want more.
He shook his head glumly at her. Han abandoned his story of the scheming, murderous-yet-ticklish-flowering vine, and was regarding Luke with not the same look his aunt used to give him, but something close, lips pursed.
"I don't have money," he submitted for Luke, "and I'd say I want it pretty bad."
Luke snorted, and a second later Leia joined in with a reluctant laugh.
"He doesn't mean greed," Leia told Han. "Or how good it'll feel when you're able to repay that debt. He means nostalgia."
Luke lifted his chin. "I do?"
Leia nodded.
"Nostalgia," Han repeated. He made a skeptical face. "The good old days?"
"That's just it," Luke said. "I wouldn't even have called them really good at the time."
"I think that's how humans can be," Leia said thoughtfully. "We don't stay in the moment very well. You were always thinking ahead. Right? And now you're looking back."
"But why," Luke said. "It doesn't really make me happy."
"It doesn't?" Leia wondered. "What are you thinking of?"
"The sky. How it's like here, so many stars. And the way the air felt at suns up."
"That doesn't sound unhappy," Leia said.
Luke could have mentioned his aunt, but he didn't want to sound choked up in front of Leia or Han. "Makes me more sad," he confessed.
"Hell," Han said. "I'll take you along for a visit when I repay Jabba."
Leia shot Han a wry glance. "That should make him worried, not cheer him up."
"Why don't you, Leia?" Luke wanted to know how she could be so conversational, or composed. "Or do you? Feel it."
Leia lifted her shoulders and held them up a while before letting them drop heavily. "I can't, Luke. If I did-" She shifted the subject suddenly. "It's the holiday. The tradition is to review not just the year, but one's life. And, to... to hope, that all goes well in the future. No misfortune." Her voice cracked a bit. "But, in the uncertainty of that future, of not knowing what's going to happen, you think of all the others," her voice gained strength, "who thought the same thing, year after year since time began. And in that shared history-"
"Shared history," Luke said, thinking of his aunt, his wise aunt. "Yes."
"On Corellia, you sparkle, like stars," Han said. "Hells, no you don't. I'm drunk." He chuckled at himself. "You play with fire. Literally. You light up sparklers, small fireworks; no big deal. But it is playing with fire, because you don't know what the future will bring. You're supposed to feel how insignificant you are compared to the stars."
Luke raised his brows up. "Kriff, what a great, bullying tradition."
Han laughed. "You drink a lot, too, so you don't pay attention or learn anything."
"Did you guys sing the song?" Luke asked.
"My Year Old Friend?" Leia asked. "Yes."
"My year old friend," Luke warbled the tune. "We've cooome," he held the note.
Leia joined him. "To the ennnd," she sang.
Luke hadn't sounded good at all by himself, off-key and reedy, but with Leia's voice underneath him they were singers. He nodded encouragingly at her, pleased she would join him. "As night comes 'gain-"
Han added his baritone, "my dear old friend."
"What a trio," Luke crowed, but Han and Leia kept up the song and he had to find a place to reinsert himself.
You're left behind, new friend I will find
As day darks, memory sparks
My dear old friend
'Tis not the end
"That's all I got," Han stopped singing.
"I don't know much more either," Luke said.
"There are ninety-two verses," Leia informed them.
"You sang 'em all, didn't you," Han said.
Leia's smile was small, and her lips didn't part. Han could do that; he was the mystic, Luke decided, and Luke obviously the jester. Han could say something and grant Leia a past without making her feel guilty.
"Someday," Luke blurted. "When you go back to pay Jabba, I'll go with you. You could probably use the help."
Han probably figured it was the liquor talking, and he waved Luke's offer away with his hand.
Luke sighed. "Someday. Alright, finish your story. So you're tied up by this vine, and its flower is what? A face, with teeth? and it's gonna bite you?"
"The petals were teeth. It was gonna eat me."
"You're making this up. I swear, you're so full of shit," Luke said.
Leia laughed. "And for as many stories as you've told, I figure you should be about sixty years old," she told Han.
"This Year's End isn't as memorable, I guess," Luke said. "Just sitting around, talking."
"Well," Han said. "Never sat around with a princess before."
"I can tie you up, if you like," Leia offered.
"Are you ticklish?" Han asked.
"Luke could be Father Time," Leia said.
"The life day guy?" Han asked.
"The one who dies an old man each year but is reborn as a baby," Leia said.
"Wrong holiday."
"Who's to say we got it right," Leia said wisely. "I think we are very preoccupied with time, all year long. We worry about it differently because we are from different places. Alderaani sing too many verses, Corellians burn themselves with sparklers. What did you do, Luke, on Tatooine?"
"Um," Luke thought back to the previous year. "Wait around."
"For what?" Han asked, but Leia said, "Oh, that's brilliant."
"And sleep," Luke added. "Always chores to be done. Speaking of that," he groaned to his feet, letting the blanket slip off his front and drop to the floor, "I gotta work in the morning. Happy Year's End you two; I'm going to bed."
AN: another one set on top of the Falcon, in the early days. The Falcon is home.
And, I am not sure if Chapter 14 published in the usual manner. Crickets read it, but I'm not sure who else. So, please, check you didn't miss it. Or politely let me know if I strayed so far off the mark.
As always, thank you for reading!