The Man on the Bed

Sunrises on Tatooine were beautiful, horrible things.

The desert sand under Leia's boots slipped and sucked and made every step increasingly more difficult than the previous one. The cerulean sky above their heads was spectacular but seemed too bright, a product of stellar radiation hitting an atmosphere that could not sustain the same protection it had for millennia. Oxygen-rich, sure, but the interminable heat—even now, even now, at daybreak—boiled the air so much that deep breaths blistered her throat.

And this was sunrise.

Turning her head, she looked toward her brother. Clad in the same heavy, coarse robe as her own, Luke seemed unbothered by the sand, or the heat, or the too-bright sky. He lifted his hood over his head and caught her eye, confused by her intense scowl.

What? he sent her.

"Han was right," she said. "This place is awful."

"It's not so bad."

No, not bad. I said awful.

Her brother clasped his hands in front of him. "Not all of us were born on Coreworlds with infrastructure and rain, Leia. Sometimes planets are uncomfortable."

Yes, she thought. The only two markers of habitable worlds. Infrastructure and rain.

"Shut up."

Grinning to herself, she turned back to the east and the palace that dotted the endless desert landscape. They were a kilometer away from their destination, preparing to trudge the path between the rocky outcropping that disguised the Millennium Falcon and the palace. From this distance, Jabba's lair looked harmless to the naked eye—a black smudge on a beige canvas—but in the Force it shimmered with a darkness that triggered her blaster hand.

Danger, the Force whispered.

But somewhere in that black, twisted monolith was the block of carbonite that held Han prisoner. Lando, firmly in place for the past two weeks as a guard, had assured them that Han was still in stasis and unharmed. They had received his most recent transmission not three hours before, confirming for the third time that Jabba was finding sick pleasure in keeping Han indefinitely frozen.

That was plenty enough reason to pull the trigger on this painstakingly-planned mission. Han was alive. Her brother and she were within visual distance. And nothing—nothing—was going to keep her from the man she loved.

Grin still firmly in place, she closed her eyes and reached into the blue-white room.

Get ready, she told the man on the bed. It's nearly time.

Two lone figures stood in front of a wall of duracrete.

I suppose this is when Mephi proves his worth, Luke sent her.

With the hood covering her expression, he didn't see the flash of anger on her face, though she was sure he felt it. The Merc in question had come through at the last minute with an offer to help, and while it did genuinely seem to come from a place of growth and self-actualization, it bothered her that it had taken half a damn year for the man to come to his senses.

Anti-Jedi propaganda is a real thing, her brother said. I saw it a lot here. We don't know his story.

But that didn't excuse xenophobia, the same way miseducation didn't excuse racism, misogyny, or classicism on Imperial-held worlds.

Luke didn't let her form the full thought before he answered. You're right, of course. But let's just be grateful for the help. We can eviscerate the guy later.

Her brother knew her too well.

With an unshaking hand and an expression of amused anticipation, she rapped on the durasteel three times, stepped back, and awaited the eyestalk to appear from the door. As promised, the small hatch opened and the eyestalk moved forward, but in a split second, it receded and the doors made a low creak as they opened to allow them entrance.

Luke and Leia stepped into the dark corridor. The hatch doors closed behind them but there was no telltale clink of the reinforced locking mechanism. She swept her eyes around the dark space, barely able to make out a figure emerging from the shadows to her left.

Mephi approached them, a cowl covering his face. "They know you're here," he whispered. "They tracked the Falcon."

Of course they did, Leia thought, but kept quiet as the terrified Merc continued.

"I'll keep the locking mechanism unlatched for as long as I can, but I won't be able to hold it off indefinitely. You guys have to be quick. They'll be coming for me soon."

"Nothing to worry about," Luke said, projecting calm and certainty to the pilot. "Thank you."

Thank you for doing the bare minimum, Leia sent. Glad you can feel good about yourself for a few moments.

Leia.

That's what it is, isn't it?

He agreed with her, but still sent her waves of annoyance at her attitude. Not everyone is capable of even that kind of bravery.

She took that in and adjusted the cowl of her robe to further obscure her face. Fine, she said. I'll let Han deal with him later.

Luke fought to suppress his laugh, and they began a slow, mindful trek into the large audience chamber where they knew Jabba and his entourage were lying in wait for them.

What hit her first was the smell. Cloying and so heavy she could barely breathe, the scent of cigarillos and cheap perfume wafted around her head like Aunt Tia's elaborate, wild curls. Beneath the rancid sweetness burned a smoky ash, big particles that stuck in her throat. And the last layer to the experience was the everpresent underpin of mold in dank holes like this one.

The triumvirate of olfactory power was impressive.

As they stepped through the outer doors of the palace, Leia ducked her chin to hide her face but held her breath and waited for the overwhelming nausea to pass. Focusing instead on her surroundings, she reached her senses wide. Like a flying insect, she traveled through the building, breezing by the entities that were poorly hidden or pretending to be asleep. Malice hung in the drab corners, but more than anything was the sense of a trap about to be sprung. Anticipation. Almost a kind of glee. Hunger, too, though that emanated from somewhere below their feet.

That's the rancor, I bet, Luke answered her not-question.

I figured as much, she sent back. Have you seen it before?

She got the sense that if she could see him, he would be glaring at her in exasperation. No. Do you really think I was hanging around slavers and spice-runners all the time as a kid?

I mean, Han was.

I don't think we should hold Han as our example of a typical childhood.

She fought the instinct to smile again, her metered joy threatening to obstruct any focus she had on the situation. It was difficult, though, because her whole body buzzed as if she were suspended over the busily whirring combs of a Tribees hive. The Light Side of the Force was blanketing everything, swirling around this rancid palace prison as if it was their very own ally.

No, she decided. It wasn't just an ally. It was a beacon, bringing her back home, like a ship to shore. If the cigarillo-laced smoke and rank anticipation of the beings around her were the fog to her coastline, she felt the Force calmly leading the way, unemotional and safe. An inevitability. An invitation.

I'm going to see him again, she thought to herself, though she knew her brother could hear her. I'm going to see him soon.

Wisely choosing to refrain from comment, Luke waved off the guarding Gamorreans with a heavy-handed extension of the Force, and they passed through what served as an antechamber and into the main floor of Jabba the Hutt's main floor. Leia took in the sights of the chamber, assessing danger and the viper-like coiling of muscle that preceded any sprung trap.

She remembered the feeling well.

Eyes swept and lungs held, and then, finally, she saw him.

Locked in an expression of terror, fingers curled as if to ward off an attacker, he was hung like a decoration, backlit in red that left grotesque shadows over the plains and valleys of his handsome features. Nothing had changed since Bespin, and the visual was sickening as she fully realized what Han's body had been going through for the last six long months.

Or, rather, what it hadn't been going through.

Somehow, she had replaced this image with the one in the blue-white room, peace and quiet for the horrorstricken pain she saw now. She was suddenly grateful for her brain's protective trauma response. If she had been imagining him like this for half a year, she was not sure that she would have been able to hold onto her sanity.

He'll be okay, Luke reassured her, his aura so warm and supportive that it triggered her own sense of emotional balance. You can feel it, can't you?

Not anymore. She thought she had been working with the Force's wholesome power guiding her, but now, faced with the spectrum of realities laid out before her, she felt supreme heaviness, like someone had tied anchors to her hands and feet.

Doubt.

Six months is … quite a long time, her medic friend, Aaya, had told her. Memory will be the first indicator. If he recognizes any of you, it is a good sign.

That was their benchmark? Simply remembering who they were?

The image of a dark brainwave sensor graph rose unbidden from the depths of her memory where she had banished it weeks before.

But Luke was with her, and he lent her his bottomless supply of optimism. Go, he urged. If he's in the room, then he is right where he's been this whole time.

She steeled herself. Identifying the deep pockets of doubt in her presence in the Force, she first took the time to find her center, to wrap herself in the Force and its incredible powers of life and hope. It was difficult, but not nearly as difficult as it had felt months, or even weeks, ago. Faith in her own abilities—faith in Luke's abilities—had set the foundation of confidence in the rightness of her mission.

If the Force wasn't with her, then why did the blue-white room exist? And if this rescue was all for nothing, then why had he been safely kept there for months?

Here we go, she told her brother. Closing her eyes, she left the wretched, enclosing nature of Jabba's palace and soared lightyears away to the cool calm of an oceanfront paradise.

He slept peacefully: lips slightly parted, breath slow and steady. For one mad second she again heard Aaya's warnings, but banished the fear to a realm that was beyond her reach. Fear had no place here. What a gift this room had been, what an enormous, beloved example of the Force's power over the physical world. While it had kept him safe, it had kept her sane. It had given her the opportunity to find peace within herself.

She shuddered, remembering her emotional breakdown after she had resigned from High Command, the waves of pain, the inconsolable rage. She could not imagine having come to rescue Han in the state she had been just after Bespin, despite her absolute need to do so at the time. It would have been a disaster.

But she was stronger now. More stable. More at peace.

Padding quietly across the salt-gray wood planks, she sat on the white bed and took in his appearance with quiet, patient eyes. Bleached by the sun, his salt-and-pepper hair flopped onto his forehead. His skin fairly shone in contrast to the soft white sheet that covered his lower back, and while this was an older Han—more mature, more experienced—he was every bit as handsome as the man she was about to rescue. She had memorized this profile over the lonely and terrifying months without him, and it felt like a taboo hope to think that someday her Han might grow into this one.

But wasn't that the point of the vision? That this peace existed at the end of one of her timelines? That it was possible?

With a deep breath, she brushed her fingertips over the exposed skin of his shoulder, touching him for the first time in months.

Han, she whispered to him. It's time.

He heard her, but the panic was overwhelming now.

Carbonite. He was in carbonite.

Where was Vader?

Luke, meanwhile, was dealing with a cantankerous Hutt.

"Greetings, Exalted One," he said into the humid air of the audience chamber, knowing full well he was not supposed to know that Jabba himself was awake and hidden, waiting for a grand reveal.

A whisper of shock blew through the group, and Luke had to hide his smile from appearing from beneath the hood of his robe. Predictable. Leia and Salla had both warned him about this ploy. He just had to distract Jabba and his minions long enough for the trap to be sprung. Since he didn't see Lando anywhere in the main chamber, he had to assume all was going as planned.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight and friend to Commander Solo. This is my sister, Leia Organa."

She didn't move, standing shoulder to shoulder with him in the darkness facing Jabba's still-hidden form. But she was also nowhere near him. He would summon her back when he needed her; for now, she needed to prepare Han for what was to come.

The hood, the one she habitually complained about since he had first obtained it for her three days ago, hid her face well enough to disguise her silence for subservience.

Finally giving up all pretense, the sheath hiding Jabba was ripped down and the low lighting suddenly illuminated to a ghastly scene of sentient filth. Beings of all shapes, sizes and colors sat in audience, eagerly awaiting what they believed would be a fruitless bloodbath. Two Verpines stepped in front of the only visible exit to the room, and Luke became very aware of how precarious this situation could be.

Could be. It was a good thing they had so much backup.

"Jedi," Jabba sneered in Huttese, the language boldly, infuriatingly, comprehensible to Luke after years away from his homeworld. "You are fools to have come here."

He continued with the rehearsed speech Leia had written for him, the words feeling greasy on his lips. "I know you are powerful, Mighty Jabba, and that your anger with Solo must be equally powerful. I seek an audience with Your Greatness to bargain for his life."

There. He had gotten through the whole spiel without sounding like he was vomiting the words out. That was the first success of the day, despite the way his skin crawled at showing deference for a being that enslaved people for credits.

I don't understand why I have to grovel in front of this …. this piece of garbage, Leia! Luke had said to her a week ago as they had strategized the rescue. He's not worth the sand beneath our boots!

Nodding, she had smiled grimly. You're right. But he thinks he is. And you need to give our reinforcements some time.

Luke had made a quip about going to the blue-white room himself and leaving Leia to the politicking, but had memorized the script anyway.

The den as a whole laughed, snickers echoing in his ears like drumbeats and Luke fought his annoyance with tight-fisted determination to show patience and preternatural calm.

"There will be no bargain," the Hutt decreed. "I like Solo where he is."

With a small hand, he indicated the block of carbonite behind them, and Luke struggled not to turn around.

"I am taking Commander Solo with me," Luke replied with a bit more heat. "Your choice is whether you benefit from the transaction or die today."

That might have been a bit too heavy-handed. Leia would have been more subtle. But this place glowed with anger and hate, big plumes of reds and purples erupting from the corners as Jabba's sycophants listened to the exchange. He felt desperation as old as time, sponging from wall to wall as if absorbing the darkness and bleeding it to the light.

He hated it. He had always hated it, but seeing it now after all he had experienced, after finding out about the identity of his father and what that represented for the rest of the galaxy … it felt personal. It felt like he could tick off the consequences of each of these people's actions, the lives they had claimed as their own, the innocents who had been hurt here, died here, and he just … couldn't keep the ice frozen around his heart like he wanted to.

Disgusting. That was the word Leia had used, and it was so unerringly correct that he feared it was about to dribble from his lips if he didn't seal them shut.

"Your Jedi tricks won't work on me, boy," the Hutt replied, reaching one small hand toward the controls on his hoversled.

Leia, he nudged. I could use some help here.

He couldn't move but he was stunningly, miserably, aware of what was happening. His internal clock was stopped and he couldn't measure seconds the way he usually could, but he knew he was at Jabba's and he knew Luke and Leia were nearby.

She was there. Simple fact.

And he still couldn't move. His heart didn't beat and his ears couldn't hear and he couldn't see a fucking thing, but he knew time was passing by him. How long? He didn't know.

But danger, yes. Danger was everywhere. Even if he didn't have skin, his neck prickled with the phantom warning. He didn't have muscles, but his muscles tensed as if ready to lend a hand.

Vulnerable. Fuck, he was so vulnerable.

Oh, fuck, he thought. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

He didn't stir, gave no indication that he could hear her. He slept peacefully before her on the white bed, and his lack of awareness felt like someone had just stabbed her through the heart.

"Wake up," she breathed, and jostled his shoulder. "Now, Han."

No response.

She wasn't sure what she had expected to happen once she summoned Han back to her. Some fantasy that he would open his incredible eyes at her behest, like a fairytale, like something out of a children's story? Like this galaxy worked as it should?

I should know better, she reprimanded herself.

The Dark Side loomed, and she could feel it, like the weather subtly shifted outside of the fantasy room. Like the air pressure had changed and a storm was rolling in, wrecking havoc with the ocean tide. Waves crashing against rocks with thunderous roars, wind whipping the white curtains into a frenzy.

"Han," she said, leaning close to his ear, feeling the heat of his skin and his exhales against her cheek. "Please. I need you to wake up."

Shake him, the Dark Side said. Scream.

Swallowing, she pushed the thought away as if it were enemy fire. She had not come this far, suffered this much, just to succumb to the temporary power the Dark Side promised. She would not bring darkness to this room. It was a refuge of the Light. It was born out of full commitment and a deep knowledge that real love was not obsessive, or demanding, or controlling in any way.

She understood the Light Side of the Force because she understood love. And that was a gift, not a temptation.

Leia, it's time, Luke told her through their bond, and she sharply turned her head to the right, as if she was still in Jabba's palace. She had seconds, maybe, before she needed to act. Seconds. And there was no indication that Han had heard her; the best strategy was to keep him frozen, keep him safe, until she could focus entirely on him and not on the threat posed to his life.

Sighing, she turned her head to look at him one last time. Hold on for me, flyboy, she said, and kissed his cheek. Hang on just a bit longer.

He heard her and he tried, but the walls were closing in. Pain spiderwebbed up from his fingers, up up up, until it reached his wrists, then elbows, then shoulders and into his chest.

And this was pain, and this was torture, and this was enough to completely erase the moments of hope he had felt, because now there was only pain. Now there was only shock and heat and breathless panic, because he couldn't escape this enemy.

Hang on just a bit longer?

He wasn't even sure what he was holding on to anymore.

The comm beeped in Chewbacca's paw, and he felt the sharp notes of battle lust crawl up his chest even as he tossed the comm to his temporary copilot. Zend caught it and tucked it away into a small pocket in her utility vest, then toggled the intercom and opened an internal frequency.

"Mephi's given the signal," she said to the seven Mercs waiting in the Falcon's main hold, armed to the teeth and ready to free their commander. "Let's go get him."