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A Shuffle of the Deck by Deb Durkee art by Liz PART 2 Han was suddenly grateful that he hadn't been planning on saying anything, for his voice had suddenly deserted him. Leia's face was flushed, her dark eyes puffy and bloodshot. He lifted his palms to her face, brushing back her hair in a single smooth, gentle gesture. As he did, he noticed that his own hands were trembling slightly; although she was too distraught to notice, it made him feel uncomfortable. He had never seen her like this. The only time he had ever seen her cry was a single tear shed for Alderaan, and that was--well, years ago. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, and he saw rather than felt her nails digging crescents into his flesh. It was as if she were trying to push him away, willing him to leave her, but was unable to make the gesture that would release her from his touch. He saw a look in her eyes he had never seen there before--fear, pain, desperation, all piling up, spilling over in their hurry to escape. The last time he had seen her, she had pulled away from the stormtroopers to call to him... What if that was all it had been? What if she had seen the fear in his eyes, and she had tried to give him some comfort, to ease his dread? If that was all it had been, that one simple yet strangely complicated statement he had clung to in his time in the darkness could have meant nothing. Sure, she had come after him, but she would have done the same to rescue Chewie, or Lando, or even Wedge. All the time he was in carbonite, he had assumed... He slipped his arms around her. He didn't have to pry her fingers from his flesh after all; her hands slid around his waist even as he pulled her to him. She buried her face against his chest, her trembling hands clutching the small of his back. Just what had he assumed? That she would be there waiting for him when he got out? Sudden realization struck him like a blow to the heart. What did he have to go on--a few stolen kisses on the Falcon?As passionate as they may have been, he had initiated all of them. Maybe she had only been too surprised, or too afraid to push him away, to turn him down as she formerly had. A handful of conversations, none of them delving too deeply into whatever it was that they felt for each other? What exactly did they feel about each other? Hell, he didn't even know how he felt about her, much less her feelings for him. Moments he had clung to, replaying over and over again as he hung in lifeless suspension, came back to him now. After being interrupted by Threepio, he had decided to approach her in the cockpit. They hadn't spoken much. He'd sat in his pilot's chair, drawn her onto his lap, and kissed her. That time, they hadn't been interrupted. But he had made the effort; it had always been him. He suddenly wondered how much had changed in the year that he had been gone. He'd seen the look Luke and Leia had exchanged, had heard but not deciphered their whispered words. Was that what she was crying for? Was there something between the two of them that had developed in his absence? She had told Han that she loved him, but there was no doubt about the stress they had both been under at the time; was it only later that she had realized she had made a mistake in speaking those words? And now, perhaps, she didn't know how to tell him? He guided her back to the bunk, helping her to sit down. She refused to let go of him, apparently oblivious to the leg around her, his knee against her back as he hugged her to him. He cradled her in his arms, much as he would have held a frightened child. Sure, she was sexy as hell, and he'd had quite a number of thoughts about her to that effect. But as he looked at her now, he saw how young she really was. He knew that part of his attraction to her was her youthful, innocent beauty. Such innocence was a rarity in the galaxy, Han knew well enough. Somehow, Leia had kept it in the face of the horrors of war. Damn it all,he thought, resting his chin against the top of her head. What the hell were you thinking? You knew you were going to hurt her...and that you were going to get hurt yourself. You always thought of Luke as a kid, and she's the same age as him. Sometimes, you can really be an insufferable ass, Solo. "What's going on, sweetheart?" he asked as he stroked her hair. He felt her shoulders hitch as she took a breath. "Talk to me, Leia. Is it...is it because I'm back?" It was a fear that he didn't even want to acknowledge, much less speak of. And once it was said, it brought a chill to the one warm spot that he had held in his heart in all the time he had been a prisoner. She looked up at him, her eyes pleading with him to understand something he couldn't even begin to figure out. "Yes. Han, I..." He knew he should pull away from her, but he couldn't. These were the words he had been dreading, but nevertheless it was a response he had never expected. He had thought she would be happy to see him, at the very least. But now she was in tears at his return...and they sure as hell weren't tears of joy. "I couldn't let myself cry for you before," she said, her eyes darting away from his gaze. "It would have been too much like you were already dead... everyone thought you were. People talk, Han, you know that as well as I do. They were saying...they were saying that I was foolish to spend so much time trying to find you. They said that...if you weren't dead already...it didn't matter. They said that Jabba would never let you escape..." She trailed off, taking a deep, shaky breath. "Han...they said that if I did find you and manage to free you that I would just in time to see your execution. And, if you hear something often enough, you start to believe it, no matter how little you might want to, or how much you try to convince yourself that it's not true." "Hey, don't--I told you, it doesn't matter what anyone..." Now she did pull away from him, bracing her hands against his chest. "No, you don't understand. It was never a matter of hearing people talk, or even of having Mon Mothma cover for us. I was finally able to admit not only to you but also to myself that I love you. And then, as soon as I let myself say it, I lost you." She put a hand to her forehead, trying to hide her face from him, but Han wouldn't let her. He took both of her hands in one of his own, reaching up with the other to brush the dampness from her face. "Leia, stop it," he told her gently. "You haven't lost me. You made sure of that." He paused, lifting her hand to his lips and lightly kissing her fingers. "I owe you my life, sweetheart. I've never owed anyone anything before. And that's not something I take lightly." She tried to speak, but the words stubbornly refused to form. They dissolved into sobs instead, and Han gathered her to him. Suddenly one of the memories that had reoccurred to him in carbonite came back to him again. Once, many years ago on Commenor, Han and Chewie had found a little girl in a bombed-out building on the fringes of an Imperial battle zone. They'd smuggled her off-world to safety, and he'd held her and comforted her as he was holding and comforting Leia now. That long-ago girl had been no more than a few years old, and she had lost everything she had ever known. She had huddled against him, sobbing to the stranger who had come from nowhere to save her. Han felt the same despair now that he'd felt with that child, and he reflected briefly that despite everything that had happened to her, Leia was really not much more than a girl in her own right. Just before they had reached Bespin, Leia had confided in Han, saying things he'd never heard her discuss with anyone. She had talked about her family on Alderaan for the first time, and confessed to him that in Luke, Chewbacca, and himself, she had rediscovered a new kind of family. Now Han realized that he had not rediscovered a family, but found one for the first time. And he didn't want to lose that. "Han..." She looked up at him, and there was something in her gaze that reached out and gripped his heart. He had promised himself long ago that he would never let anyone get too close to him. Love was a weakness, one he had found out about the hard way. And he had promised himself that he would never make that mistake again. Yet here he was, cradling this woman he had learned to love. She pushed herself to her knees, having to struggle to do so. He touched her face gently, brushing away the last remnants of her tears. But before he could, she raised her hands to his face, her fingers lightly brushing over his lips before she smoothed back his hair and laced her hands together behind his neck. He could see in her eyes that she was about to lay her cards on the table by telling him what she had kept hidden in her heart for too long. "I should have told you a long time ago," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "If I had told you how I felt, everything might have been different." "No, it wouldn't have," he told her. His hands slid from her slender waist to rest on her hips. "Fett would have gone to hell and back to find me and get that bounty--there's nothing that could have changed that. Now it's over, sweetheart, and I'm not planning on going anywhere." Leia barely managed to stifle a sob as she leaned forward, bracing a forearm against his shoulder as she kissed him. It wasn't until they parted that Han realized he was stretched out on the bunk again, this time with Leia in his arms. She flushed when she recognized it as well a second later; she tried to push herself off of him, worried that she was hurting him. He tightened his arms around her waist, though, not letting her back away. "Han, I'm sorry." She tried to shift in his arms, but he stubbornly held onto her. It had been so long since he had held her, and it felt so good. He grinned up at her, surprised to find that he was enjoying her concern for him. It was an odd sensation, to have someone worried about him, and it was one he found he could get used to. "No, my fault," he told her. His tone softened the look of worry in her eyes, and she even managed a small smile. "I think my balance is pretty much shot, and..." he trailed off thoughtfully, then pulled her down to kiss him again. "And?" she asked breathlessly as they parted. It was almost as though the sensory deprivation in which he had existing had heightened all of his senses. He could feel the gentle rise and fall of her breast against him; he thought he could even feel the beating of her heart against his own chest. He slipped his hands under her shirt, caressing the cool, smooth skin of her back. "And...I'm really hungry." She only looked at him for a moment, then she began to laugh. It was the frantic, nearly hysterical laughter of relief. He felt the tears on her cheeks as she buried her face against his neck. "I love you." The words were out of his mouth before he was even completely aware of the fact that he was even thinking about saying them. They sounded strange, words that he had heard others say a thousand times to strangers. But he had never thought he would be saying them himself, much less to a princess, to royalty... She lifted her head, enough that she could look into his eyes. He had surprised himself by saying it; he could see that her reaction was the same. "Do you mean that?" "When did I ever lie to you before?" he responded. "I know. It's just that...you never said it before." Her voice was suddenly very small, and very unsure. "I know I didn't. It wasn't exactly something I was expecting to hear," Han confessed. "Now," he said in his authority-figure voice, "I'm still hungry, and I still don't see any food in here." Leia laughed again, this time it was an easier, more relaxed sound. "Some things never change, do they?" "No. And they never will, either, sweetheart." He picked up a sheaf of her long chestnut hair as he said it, twisting it around his fingers. She didn't have to ask what he meant, for he could see the understanding in her eyes. Understanding, and a bit of fear, too, perhaps. But the fear passed almost as quickly as it had surfaced, and she gently pulled away from him, sitting up. He let her go, reluctantly. "I might be able to find something for you in the galley," she told him, changing the immediate subject. She absently tucked her loose hair behind her ear, a girlish gesture that made Han want to pull her into his arms and kiss her again. He didn't, only sat up as she got to her feet. He cautiously swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. He didn't entirely trust them, all too aware that he hadn't totally recovered his use of balance yet. "Are you all right?" she asked as she looked back at him. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Go on. I want to get cleaned up first. I haven't taken a bath in a year, after all," he said, a bit sheepishly. She only smiled and shook her head, and Han had another strange urge. He almost asked her to join him. Han leaned gratefully into the warm spray of water--real water, not the processed, synthesized stuff that passed for water in most starships' refreshers. He had no idea how long he had been out of the carbonite; there was no working chrono in his bunk anymore, and there was no other way to tell time in the deep abyss of hyperspace. His temperature had gone down some, slowly going back to normal, and his stomach had calmed somewhat, along with his frayed nerves. His muscles were still in knots, but his headache was receding to a dull, vague throbbing that muted the colors of the world around him. It made everything seem surreal and almost dream-like. The first thing he'd done when he got up was strip off the clothes he had been wearing for what seemed like an eternity, and throw them in the Falcon'srecycler unit. He knew he would never be able to bring himself to look at them again, much less wear them. He wasn't superstitious, but too many bad things had happened to them, and he just wanted to get rid of them. Feeling as if he would never get clean again, he just stood in the shower unit and turned the water on full blast, letting it wash over him. It wasn't able to wash away the memories of the last year, though, and it was those memories that he really wanted to get rid of. Carbonite had left him deprived of all senses, with no way to look outwards. The only thing left for him to do was to turn inwards, into his mind, his soul, into the darkest corners of his heart that he kept hidden from everyone, including himself. He had recalled things he had forgotten, that he had blocked out. He'd been forced to fight, not for his life, but for his sanity. He had been faced with everything that had made him into the man he was now--the betrayals that had made him a loner. And yes, the killing. The first time he had killed, he had been fifteen years old, living on the streets of Corellia. It had been a Twi'lek, a sad, pathetic creature. He hadn't even heard it until it grabbed him from behind, holding a vibroblade to his throat and threatening to cut him to pieces even after it found he didn't have any credits on him. It had reeked of stale whiskey, its breath hot and stagnant. He had been dragged back into the narrow alleyway, his boots sliding through the sludge that seemed to cover all the roads this deep in the city. Terracrete had been crumbling slowly off the sides of the buildings, and he had reached out and grabbed the first piece of it he touched. It had been heavy and awkward, but he had always been strong for his age, his life on the streets giving him the trappings of manhood if not the wisdom. The first blow had clocked the Twi'lek at the base of one of its head tails, the second had taken it off its feet, and the third had killed it. Han had wandered from the alley in a state of eerily calm shock, his blood mixing with the blood of the Twi'lek on his shirt. He had been called murderer by many, but it had never been true. He had only killed in self-defense, or in the defense of others who couldn't help themselves. There had been those who had chosen not to see it that way, though, engineers of Imperial propaganda who wanted him to be branded not only as an outlaw, but as a heartless killer as well. And it had worked. There had also been a very few places where he had been known as someone with something approaching a sense of honor, but not many. He had been the gunslinger from Corellia, and he had been feared for it. There had been other things, too, that he'd remembered in the carbonite--things he had thought he'd come to terms with long ago. They had resurfaced, and the rationales he had used before to describe his beginnings no longer worked. He had been called an orphan, but he had been worse than that. No one had wanted him. No one had ever given a damn about him. He had grown up on his own, teaching himself how to steal, fight, survive. His age was only an estimate, based on his reasoning and the date he had taken as the date he had been born. He could be off a few years either way, he didn't know. He had thought he didn't care, either. Leia was a princess, royalty. It didn't matter whether or not she had been adopted; she had been raised in a palace, in the care of nurses and governesses, the daughter of a senator in name if not in truth. And by comparison, Han had many scars left over from his childhood. Some were physical, and some went much deeper that any mark that could be seen with the naked eye. The physical ones didn't bother him much--he could have had them removed, of course, but it seemed like too much effort. If nothing else, they reminded him whom he had once been. Whom he didn't want to be again. The lights suddenly flickered, not a strange occurrence, by any means. He knew perfectly well what caused it--too many operating systems were draining the ship's power--but for a terrifying instant, it didn't matter what it really was. What he saw, what he felt, was a moment he had relived a thousand times. Darkness, scorching water, steam rising--blinding him. The small, claustrophobic room...it was the carbon-freezing chamber all over again. He groped for something to hold onto; his hand found the metal bar that ran the length of the wall behind him. One fist pounded the opaque door before he was even aware he was doing it. The darkness lasted only for a second before the artificial yellow of the lights flooded the room again. He had to remind himself to breathe. A sudden cramp seized his hand, and he looked down to see he still had a death grip on the rail. He tore his hand away, and it was only then that he saw he was trembling, and he had broken out in chills in spite of the heat. "What the hell? I've got to get out of here," he muttered to himself as he wiped the water and sweat from his face. He had known that the carbon freeze episode was something he was not likely to forget, but he hadn't expected the flashbacks to be so damn powerful. He dried himself, dressing in clean clothes. Clean pants, at least--to bother with anything more seemed like a waste of effort. So, shirtless and barefoot, he left his cabin. The lounge was for the most part silent. Threepio was sitting at the tech station, bent over the main console. He looked up as Han entered. "Captain Solo, how good it is to see you," Threepio fussed, hurrying over to him. Han couldn't help but wonder if he meant it, or if he was programmed to say that. "Thanks, Threepio," he replied anyway, wondering how long he could deal with the binary headache converging on him at a frightening speed. He was surprised to find that he was even glad to see Threepio; anything that was a change from black nothingness was good. "How long was I asleep?" Threepio cocked his head in an eerie imitation of a human gesture. "Medical scans report that you were unconscious for a little over twenty-one standard hours," he told Han. Han ran his hands through his still-damp hair. He couldn't help but regret being out for so long; he had a lot of catching up to do, and little time to do it. But, comparing how he felt now to how he had felt twenty-one hours ago, he decided that it was worth it. "Where's Leia?" "In the galley. Preparing you both something to eat, I believe." Ah, Leia,Han thought. You may be beautiful, but you can't cook worth a damn.Suddenly his stomach growled insistently, and he realized that he was starving. "Thanks, Threepio," he said, reaching out to pat the droid's metal shoulder. Threepio managed to look surprised. "Of course, Captain." Even as Han turned and began to head toward the galley, Threepio dared to call out to him. "Captain Solo?" Han glanced over his shoulder. "It is good to have you back. We have all missed you." Han grinned, nodded, and continued toward the galley. |