It was just a fight, Leia reasoned. She and Han had had plenty of fights over the years; at times their entire courtship had felt like a string of fights. Most of the time those fights lasted for a day or two; a few times they lasted longer. But they always ended with the two finding their way back to each other and Leia took pride in the fact that their relationship always seemed to emerge stronger than before.

She had no reason to think this time would be different. After they had lifted off from Cantonica the tension had eased a bit. Han was not friendly, exactly – not friendly at all, as a matter of fact – but his anger seemed to have mostly dissipated by the time he emerged from the cockpit. It was only a matter of time; one day, maybe two, and then they would be back to normal.

Leia was glad Luke was there. His presence helped them remember themselves and refrain from starting up again. Another reason why she thought the fight would blow over: they couldn't go on like this in front of Luke. And yet Luke couldn't stay for forever; he had to get back to his life, his home.

Sooner than Leia would have liked, they landed on Dantooine. The Jedi hugged them separately before he walked down the ramp and left them to themselves. "Everything is going to be okay," he whispered into Leia's ear. His message to Han was longer and Leia wondered what he had said.

They would be fine, Leia told herself. Things could only improve from here.

But things did not improve. Han continued to withdraw from her. For a while she made conscious efforts: resting her hand on his arm, suggesting that they try something new for dinner, offering to help with a repair. But Han, while polite, rebuffed those efforts. He kept to himself and stayed occupied with tasks in areas of the ship he knew she tended to avoid. He didn't sleep in the bunk with her.

He was ignoring her or maybe ignoring their relationship, ignoring their love. And after a few days of persistent small efforts that went nowhere, Leia became angry. She was angry at Han's lack of response. She was angry he was refusing to try and bridge the gap between them as she was trying to do. She was angry he had overreacted and had pinned all of the blame on her when he had agreed to her plan, angry that up until now he had taken pleasure in their adventures, that he had been happy.

And Han took that anger and reflected it back at her. That anger, simmering between them, caused them to spend more and more time apart and keep to opposite ends of the small ship. They spoke only when necessary, traded curt instructions on tasks that required more than one person.

After a few days her anger left her and she was left with sorrow, and fear. She discovered anger was preferable.

In her sorrow she rehashed everything that had happened over the last three months and in the weeks leading up to it, that stretch of time when she had built her plan in her head without sharing any of it with the person she loved most. She tried to recreate her own thinking, the steps that had led to her actions, and when she did she knew deep down that she was largely at fault. She had sprung this adventure on her husband and he had gone along with it because he loved her and his temperament was one that was drawn to the prospect of escape. She had known that and had not given him warning; she felt something unfamiliar and recognized it as shame. She felt herself unworthy of his trust.

And then she thought about Mon and the others with whom she had worked, others who had depended on her and supported her, commiserated with her and celebrated with her. What had she been thinking, giving up all of that up at the drop of a hat? How insulting to them, she realized, her manner of leaving had been. No wonder her friends and coworkers were not exactly falling over themselves to reach out to her. She had pushed them aside in pursuit of her unnamed, unknown quest; and for what? Leaving a job on good terms was one thing but to walk out of her position with no warning, no notice, and being so sure she was doing the right thing... how could she have thought that was fair?

When she grew tired of rehashing her own mistakes she tried to decipher what Han was thinking. Was he regretting the situation they found themselves in? Yes, obviously, she reminded herself. His words from their fight on Canto Bight echoed over and over in her mind. But he gave her no clue as to what he was thinking now. Was he resigned to living out his days at an impasse? Or had he arrived at the conclusion that their current situation was unsustainable and other scenarios would be preferable?

That was when the what ifs started up. What if he docked at the nearest station and told her to get out, that he would take his ship and live the rest of his life without her? What if they continued on like this, week after week, month after month, year after year, living separate lives, at best disinterested roommates rather than lovers? She couldn't decide which scenario would be worse. In her moments of anger she vowed to leave him first, to be the one to inflict the pain that she now knew would rebound to its giver tenfold. And then she felt guilty for fantasizing about that betrayal. Those hypotheticals left her exhausted and near tears which only made her feel worse. When had she become so weak and lost?

Partly to avoid further pain and partly to determine where she and Han stood, she recommitted to the effort of reading him. She spent hours alone in the cabin trying to surround him in her mind, to dance around the well of emotion that resided in him and tread along the rim instead of diving into the center. She probed carefully for anger and resentment and, most of all, for lack of love. That would have been the most terrible thing to discover and she searched reluctantly, not wanting to uncover it. But – thankfully, frustratingly, heartbreakingly – Han remained opaque to her, less a deliberate resistance perhaps but because he, like her, was confused. And because he was trying to protect himself.

She recognized it in herself too, that desire for protection. The only goal her psyche held was to limit the pain and not inflict any more. And thus she became unable and unwilling to reach out to Han: her effort could backfire and produce more pain and that she couldn't bear. She was shocked at how much she hurt at the prospect of Han no longer loving her. She dreaded the remnants of his love and how those shards would inflict their cuts for the rest of her days.

Somewhere deep within her a kernel of rationality held on to a last-ditch hope: It's not as bad as all that. You and Han will recover from this. But the silence between them continued, day after day, until that voice became so faint it barely registered.

A slow death, she thought. Their marriage would die a slow death, like the political apparatuses she had abandoned, like the universe expanding into infinity. There was nothing to hold them together.

As time went by she sank further into herself and she sensed that Han did the same. She slept ten, twelve hours a day. A fog settled over her that in her clearer moments she identified as a depression. She thought idly about finding something that might lift the veil, some pills perhaps, but she couldn't summon the energy to dig through the medicine cabinet. And what could pills do anyway? The only cure for her state had to be wrestled into existence from her and Han working together and there seemed no hope of that anymore.

Another day, another sleep cycle. She slept fitfully, her dreams vivid but distant. Her unconscious mind was as exhausted as the rest of her and refused to assist in finding a solution.

Something has to happen, she repeated to herself. But nothing did happen and she finally stopped making the effort to hope. She tried to stop thinking and to only exist.

She was half asleep one night when she felt someone shake her arm. Who could it be besides Han? And yet she was surprised and it took her a moment to adjust to his touch.

"Leia," he was saying. "Leia."

His voice sounded odd to her ears. How long had it been since he had last spoken? She sat up in the bunk, rubbed her eyes.

"What?"

"There's a message. From Louis. He says it's urgent."

"Louis?" The name meant nothing. She didn't know anyone named Louis. It was a mistake, a message sent to the wrong comm address.

And then it hit her. "Wait. Silas's Louis?"

"Yeah."

The way he answered her almost sounded like the old Han. The Han who led her and followed her and comforted her and let her comfort him. The Han who loved her. The Han who hadn't existed for days, maybe for weeks.

"He says it's urgent," Han repeated. "I think you should read it."

Reading a message was something she thought she could do. She nodded automatically and stumbled out of bed. She followed him to the lounge and sank into the booth and picked up the comm.

She read the message once, and then again.

"I don't understand," she said.

"What don't you understand? He wants to meet with us. He has information he thinks we should hear."

"But what?"

"That's what we have to find out. That's what he's asking – to meet with him so he can tell us."

In her current state nothing made sense. What could be so important coming from someone she barely knew? "I don't think we should go," she said. She handed the comm back to Han. "It's probably nothing."

"If it was nothing he wouldn't have reached out." Her husband sat next to her and looked at her intently. "In case you haven't noticed, Leia, we don't have a lot of friends these days. We cut our ties – you cut our ties – and now we're trapped in this limbo, just the two of us."

She stared at him, unable to come up with a response to an argument she had made to herself so many times.

Han gripped her shoulders. She saw something in his eyes that she recognized as fear and that recognition increased her own fear. "Listen to me, Leia. You're not doing well. We're not doing well. And if we keep this up – this whatever-this-is, this nothing – we're not gonna make it."

Leia's head started to throb. She turned away from Han, from his words, before forcing herself to focus on him again. "Do you really think so?"

"I don't know, Leia. I really don't. I never thought this would happen to us, whatever this is. But now –"

"Now you aren't so sure," she finished.

"I don't want to say that. I'm not gonna say it. But what I am saying – to you, Leia; to you – is that we should go see Louis and hear what he has to say. We know him, we respect him, and he has something he needs to tell us."

We should go see Louis. He is someone who wants to see us. And we should hear what he has to say.

"All right," she said slowly. "Let's go see him."

"Good." Han released her shoulders and exhaled. "I'll get everything ready first thing in the morning."

"No." Leia shook her head. "Now. We should go now."

"Now?" Han looked like he was about to argue before relenting. "Fine. We'll go now. Based on the coordinates, it shouldn't take more than a few hours to get there. Do you think," his voice was hesitant, almost tender, "do you think you can get some sleep in the meantime?"

"I don't know." She couldn't say whether or not she was tired. "I'll – I'll be okay."

"Okay. Good." Han touched her shoulder again and rose from the booth. "Maybe, uh, you can go shower and get dressed. Put on some new clothes."

A trembling sprout pushed its way through the dirt. It clung to its roots, to the warmth of the sun, to the water in the soil. It clung to its fragile life; its only purpose was to survive.

Leia yearned to tell her husband about the sprout but she did not want to risk losing it. Instead she met his eyes, nodded, and started for the cabin.