Chapter Text
“You can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs,” Han says, wearing pride like a popped shirt collar rather than his current fare, which hangs slouching and halfway unbuttoned over his chest. Luke can barely stop himself from rolling his eyes. “I told you I’d outrun them.”
Disregarding Han’s little parade feels slightly powerful, a lungful of fresh ozone in Luke’s chest. He wants to claim it’s better than the shock to his stomach he’d gotten when the ship first made the jump to hyperspace, but nothing he’s ever felt has been quite the same as seeing the stars bend and streak past the window. He’ll die before he tells Han that, though.
With a shake of his head, Luke redirects his focus from the pilot’s casual slump and grumble at being ignored to the humming lightsaber in his hands. He’s not quite used to the force of it yet; it feels as though if he forgets for even a moment that he’s holding it, the weapon will gain a mind of its own and move accordingly. It’s the potential of power, a promise lingering on the tip of his tongue. Luke grasps the handle tighter.
No amount of grip readjustment, however, can prepare him for the volley of beams the seeker lets out, and he tumbles to the floor with both leg and pride stinging.
Han laughs.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side,” Han says and then, the thing that’s been itching the worst under Luke’s skin, “kid.”
The lightsaber in his hand pales in comparison to the energy that’s vibrating through him now. Anger, mostly, but a breath of excitement too—it takes more than a snide, condescending pilot to ruin your first trip into deep space, Luke figures.
“You don’t believe in the Force, do you?” Luke says, coloring his words with as much flat disappointment as he can. The fact that his own current belief is based on a few hours of watching Ben’s subtle plays hardly matters—so what if his own faith wouldn’t move mountains? Against Han’s clear apathy, there’s nothing to do but dig his teeth in to the idea, lest he lose an incisor tearing into the pilot himself.
Han’s responding smile doesn’t help matters. “There’s no mystical energy field that controls my destiny,” he says with a wave of his hand. “It’s all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.”
“Simple tricks!” Luke says. “Simple tricks are what’s holding this piece of junk together—”
“Hey now,” Han says, but his face still contains a trace of the smile Luke wants to wipe right off.
“—the Force is, is,” Luke glances to Ben, trying to remember what he’d said before, “it’s what holds the universe together.”
“And it’s doing a great job of it,” Han says, dry as Luke’s mouth isn’t. “I’ll stick with my ship, thanks—you know, something that, ah—exists?”
“Sure,” Luke says, trying for the same sarcastic tone; falling short is an open sarlaac pit, but Luke would rather be digested than make the mistake of meeting Han with earnestness. “Go ahead and blow yourself to pieces when that hyperdrive of yours finally sputters out.”
Han laughs again; Luke grinds his teeth to resist baring them. “I’ll let you know how it goes,” he says. He snaps, bringing his hand up to the side of his head. “Ah, what am I saying, you don’t need me to tell you—just use that Force of yours.”
“Maybe I will.” Han sweeps out a hand as if to say go ahead.
“I suggest,” Ben says, unfairly prolonging Han’s life with a sidestep between them; he places a helmet with the blast shield down over Luke’s head, “you try it again.”
With his vision tucked away, movement suddenly seems impossible. There’s something—different about being blinded in a bright room; in total darkness, objects lose their properties, becoming only the potential for themselves. Now, though he can’t see them, Luke is all too aware that he’s surrounded by real things, unable to hide themselves in a lack of illumination.
With a deep breath in, he tries to sense something beyond the odd feeling of being the only dark creature in a room full of light.
Maybe it’s that very strangeness, maybe it’s just always been as simple as closing his eyes, but Luke’s startled to find he can actually feel the beginning of something scarcely beyond the edge of his perception. It’s almost—
He’s aware of the periphery of something huge, moving easily and without hindrance throughout the room, the whole ship. Luke can’t quite find the words, but it’s—it’s almost similar to the way darkness coats a space, but what he’s feeling is deeper, moving inside and through rather than merely changing surface qualities. It flows from the lightsaber in his hands, through his body, into the ship’s floor and the other people in the room. He can feel around the edges of the droids buzzing in the corner, Ben’s steady presence—even the cocky way Han’s arm hangs off his chair.
Luckily, he can feel the seeker too, the blasts hot in his mind before they’ve even fired. When he manages to deflect one of the beams, he can’t help his laugh; as the sound spills out past his mouth, he can almost feel the shape of it, too.
“Hey, I—I did it,” Luke says, taking the helmet off and blinking into the light. The seen world almost seems to have gained a new depth; the humming thing he’d felt remains present just under everything his eyes can comprehend. “I really—felt something.”
“That’s good—your first step into a larger world,” Ben says. Luke grins; maybe it’s childish, but the praise feels almost as good as his success with the seeker.
Of course, there are others that are less than impressed.
“I call it luck,” Han says, shrugging; Luke fights against losing his high to the rusty taste of annoyance.
“And your maneuvering us off-planet was what? Perfect skill?”
“Kid, going up against remotes is one thing,” Han says with a smile that makes Luke wants to throw aside all auspices of the Force and shake him physically. “Against the living? That’s something else.”
Luke scoffs a little. “You don’t know anything about the Force,” he says. “Why should I care about your advice?”
Han shrugs. “Maybe you shouldn’t—I’m just saying, a kid like you, in so over your head we oughta call a Mon Calamari to fish you out? You’re not exactly in a position to be turning suggestions down.”
“Right,” Luke says, squinting. Before he can think better of it, he sheaths the lightsaber and tosses it in Han’s direction. “Okay then, show me.”
Han fumbles the catch a bit, looking between Luke and the weapon with brows raised. “You want me—to,” Han says, then laughs, derision growing out of it in spikes. “Oh, no, no—sorry, the interior of my ship’s in enough danger as it is.”
“No, come on,” Luke says. “Talking’s easy, show me.”
“Oh, talking’s easy, he says.” Han rolls his eyes with his whole head. “Clearly someone’s never had to schmooze their way out of a bounty collection when the hunter’s got the entire Ahakista casino surrounded.”
Luke raises an eyebrow. “That didn’t happen.”
Han looks at him with a deceitfully open expression for a moment before breaking, a grin spreading quick across his face. “Alright, you got me,” he says, spinning the lightsaber in his hand with a quickly learned grace Luke’s angry at himself for envying. “There were actually two bounty hunters.”
“You can’t expect anyone to—” Luke breaks off, shaking his head. “You’re just trying to get out of it.”
Han splays a hand on his chest, drawing his brows in a way that lends no innocence to the smirk playing around his mouth. “Me? Never,” he says, tossing the weapon in question back to Luke in the same breath. “Been dying to use one since they went out of style half a century ago.”
“You know, for someone who’s never bothered to try the Force, you sure have your mind made up about it.”
“Gut instinct, kid,” Han says. There’s something in his expression that wasn’t there before, something that’s crawled in and settled around his eyes. It’s discomfiting, but not quite a threat—at least, Luke doesn’t think so. He meets the strange look head-on. “My line of work, you get a pretty good feel for the things that are gonna end up killing you.”
Before Luke can say something in response, a light begins to flash on the control panel, and Han turns toward it, releasing Luke from their stand-off. Something of the strangeness lingers, though, and the relief that should be present upon the prospect of abandoning both ship and captain for good sours in Luke’s gut.
***
“I don’t know,” Han says, fighting against revealing his smile outright. “What do you think? A princess and a guy like me…?”
“No,” Luke says, looking away. At the finality in his tone, Han’s expression slips free of its guards and he grins openly at Luke’s turned head. The thrill of flashing his white, vulnerable stomach when danger is only barely out of sight might just get him killed someday, but he’ll risk it for now.
“Oh, what, she tell you so?”
“Might as well have,” Luke says, his eyes resolutely trained on the control board in front of him. “She thinks you’re—some kind of mercenary.” He says the word with much more venom than it warrants, like there’s anything wrong with a bit of honest—or dishonest—work; Han can’t help the stupid, fond feeling growing larger in his chest with each passing hour.
Under normal circumstances, lending his ship to the use of a couple of optimists with eyes bright enough to rival the entire south arm of the galaxy would make every internal alarm in Han’s head blare, but—there’s something about the kid sitting next to him that quiets them. Or, more dangerously, drowns them out.
Instead, Han’s preoccupied with leaning into the scratchier sides of himself just to worm his way further under Luke’s skin, or at least leave a couple abrasions. However damning it may be, it’s better than giving in, satisfying the part of him that wants hold a palm to the smooth back of Luke’s neck and leave it there, just to see how warm gets. He can’t, of course; he’s not stupid, as much as he’d like to be.
Past his own sudden and soft-headed affection, Han can perhaps see the way a story like the one they’re trapped probably should play out. The way she’d handled a blaster back on the battle station, Leia’s no slouch herself; in another holobook, the pirate and princess glare their way into a love story that might be halfway appetizing. Han can count the steps. But, if he’s honest with himself—a loathsome practice—the one who’d grabbed him on site and sunk their fingers in up to the knuckle is Luke, who digs his heels in against every one of Han’s plays at indifference.
He’s doing so now, brows drawn in a scowl as he glares out the front window rather than look at Han, some juvenile attempt to get back at him for his jab at the princess. It just adds to the grin on Han’s face and the burn in his stomach to feel that Luke’s play is working as desired. Nothing’s quite so tempting as poking at something capable of hitting back, of splitting a lip your tongue will poke at for days, of leaving a mark. A fight like that, Han knows, is best approached with the precise knowledge of where to strike to kill once the shots get too dangerous; somehow, though, looking at Luke’s profile, Han wants to walk into the skirmish with shields down and beg the kid to deal him a death blow.
“Is that so,” Han says, leaning back in his chair. “Well, I don’t know how you’ve missed it, buddy, but the princess wasn’t exactly wrong.”
“She doesn’t like it when you call her that,” Luke says, voice clipped.
“What?”
Luke turns to shoot him a glare that could probably rival a blast from Han’s own pistol. “Princess.”
Ah.
Names are funny things, always have been. A nickname for your copilot, and the death threats get more numerous, but less serious. Call her a princess because, hey, isn’t this whole thing funny? A princess walks aboard a smuggling ship… Hell, call yourself Han Solo and just like that, you’re no longer just some scared kid from the Corellian sector, you’re somebody who could be anyone else.
Call him kid because—Han can’t quite say why exactly it is that he falls back on this, except that he’s got a stone feeling that, if used too lightly, his guts might come up and out along with the word Luke.
Han stretches his legs out in front of him as casually as he’s able and is rewarded when Luke’s nostrils flare even wider. “Oh, I know.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
“It annoys her, right?”
“Well—yeah,” Luke says. “Of course it does, it’s annoying.”
“It’s stuck in her teeth like a jogan seed,” Han says, screwing a knuckle into his jaw in a pantomime. “And she’ll keep working away at it, getting more and more annoyed.”
“And that’s what you want to happen?” Luke says, some of the annoyance in his voice giving way to genuine curiosity. He considers Han with a tilt of his head and the start of an incredulous smile. “Boy, you must be just awful with women.”
“Like you know anything, Tatooine—point is, the entire time she’s worrying away at it, she’s thinking,” he spreads his hands with a grin, “about me.”
Luke looks at him for a beat, then shakes his head with no little amount of disgust. “Right.”
Han swallows a laugh.
As fun as it is to rile him up a little, there’s a practicality to the little dance he and Luke are now performing. If Han clouds his eyes with offense, he’s a little less likely to get into a particular kind of trouble than if he has to look directly into Luke’s clear and grinning face.
He’s not the only one who knows this; before they’d even managed their—if Han can editorialize—daring escape from Tatooine, he’d caught a heavy glance from Chewbacca.
“What?” Han had said, though he thought he might’ve known what was coming.
Chewie’d let out a guttural growl that had meant something like, is this twink going to be a problem?
“What? No, of course not,” Han said, and he meant it—pissing off pretty desert natives was fun, sure, but it was hardly enough of a gas to make him lose sight of the fact that credits were owed, and the big dark universe cared very little if one Han Solo lived or died.
Chewie rolled his eyes. So keep your eyes on the prize, spacehead, we’ve got work to do.
It was a little useless, lying to Chewbacca, but he tried anyway. “You know me better than that,” he’d said. “Do I ever get distracted by a pretty face?”
Yes, Chewbacca said. And when it’s arguing back? He shook his head in a resigned way Han thought was at least a little unfair. That’s when I know the delivery’s not getting in on time.
“Like you don’t get distracted by—hey, what do you get distracted by?” Han’d said. “Oh, is that it? Jealous of letting me have all the fun? You can join in anytime, you know.”
Chewbacca had sounded indignant at that. I’m a married man.
Now, in the cockpit, he thinks Chewie might’ve had something of a point.
“Okay,” Han says. “So what’s your plan, exactly? Stare at her with akk puppy eyes and tell her how much you care until she’s falling all over you? That’s not gonna get you anywhere with a career woman like her, buddy.”
Luke’s face colors slightly at that—victory and defeat. “Who says I have a plan?”
“Oh,” Han says, drawing out the word. “Sure, sure.”
“I don’t!”
“I believe you, kid.”
“You,” Luke starts. “I don’t—Leia’s right, you know? You really must not care about anything.”
“What?” Han says, halfway to a laugh. “What’re you talking about?”
“She’s a princess,” Luke says. “She’s so—beautiful and, and brave and you,” he shakes his head and looks at Han, his anger gaining steam, “you’re treating her like it’s all just some kind of game.”
It almost stings, the vehemence with which Luke’s now delivering his words, having abandoned the threshold of bantering annoyance to get real and spitting mad. The words to take it all back, tell Luke the truth, that he doesn’t really mean it, are floating somewhere in the air, just in reach. Han doesn’t grasp for them, of course, because that’s half the point.
Despite the aggrandizing flair that he’s done his best to hammer into his bones, Han knows he’s no key player in this story; he’s not going to win the princess, he won’t deal the final—or any—blow. The most he can do is get the kid who’ll actually shovel all that bantha shit well and truly pissed off.
“How am I supposed to treat her?”
“What?” Luke says. “What kind of question is that?”
“Well, c’mon, if you’ve got such a problem with what I’m doing, I’m more than open to suggestions,” Han says, hand splayed on his chest, other arm swept out. “What? Red carpet over the smuggling containers? A bottle of Alderaanian white at the door?”
Luke rolls his eyes, but there’s the gut-punch of a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. “You could act like a human being.”
“Human being—keep it down, Chewie’s ripped a guy’s arm off for less.”
“I’ll bet—you know, for a couple of violent space criminals, I haven’t seen you do much more than fire a few shots and run away.”
“Well, yeah,” Han says with a grin. “Why do you think we’re so successful?”
“This is success?” The thick paint of disbelief on Luke’s face draws a snort out of Han.
“Let me let you in on a little trade secret,” he says, leaning closer to Luke in an attempt to rattle him a little; unfortunately, he fails to back away, looking unimpressed. Unwilling to be bluffed out of his own play, Han leaves their faces just a breath apart. “Anything that’s not kicking it on an Empire prison planet or dead—that’s success, beyond your wildest dreams.”
“And years from now? What’s a smuggler’s retirement plan?”
“Weren’t you listening when I said prison planet or dead?”
“Oh, come on—really!”
“Kid, Jabba’s only the most recent guy I owe a kriffload to—the next one I piss off probably won’t be half as forgiving.” He gestures towards his face. “Keep an eye out for this handsome mug tacked up on wanted signs.”
Luke raises a brow. “I would, if I’d ever seen a wanted sign in my life,” he says. His face clears. “Hey, maybe if—you should just come with us.”
Han takes a second to trace his meaning. “Join the rebellion, you’re saying?”
“Yeah, why not?” Luke says, warming up to the idea as he speaks. “You’re a pilot, Leia could give you a recommendation—I mean, if you treat her like a person—and there are probably plenty of missions that—” At Han’s growing smirk, he stops and scowls, shoving at where Han’s elbow rests on his chair. “Hey, cut it out.”
Charmed, that’s the word for the snake curling in his gut. Luke, with his overflowing earnestness that believes Han is merely a letter of recommendation away from joining a cause, is charming.
“No, no, I want to hear the full plan before I refuse.” Han beckons with a hand. “Come on, hit me—what’s next, I work my way up through the ranks with hard work and dedication?”
The hint of a smile might as well have never been there; Luke’s glare has annexed every part of his face. “You just—why won’t you take this seriously?”
“Take it seriously? I am taking it seriously,” Han says. “Listen, all that I said about prison and dying? That’s years, or, if I’m lucky, decades, out. Did you see the battle station we just barely escaped from? If I join this little movement of yours, I’ll die tomorrow.”
“Gee,” Luke says, loading the word with a scorn it was not made to carry. “For a guy who’s apparently flown the Outer Rim, you sure have a lot you’re scared of.”
Perhaps if this conversation had taken place when Han was younger, a bit more eager to break out and prove himself, he’d have a fierier response. As it is now, though, it takes abusing something Han cares a little more about than his pride to stir him into action.
“Come talk to me when you’ve flown a few thousand more parsecs and you realize being afraid is the only thing that keeps you alive up here—I’m just a guy who owns a ship,” Han says. “What were you expecting?”
It’s almost embarrassing, the idea that he might be the receptacle of Luke’s misplaced belief; it makes Han’s shoulders want to ascend to his ears, to squirm sideways out of the spotlight of his confidence. As far as business deals go, a blaster in his face is manageable, carrying the faith of somebody like Luke is not.
Strange, though, because he can’t quite make the opposite true. The Force may be the biggest swindle he’s never been a part of, but Han can’t help but be a little swayed by the kid who’s chosen to wrap himself up in it all. It’s clear, even after just a scant day or two of accepting his lot, Luke is something more than his skinny frame can hold. Looking at him, Han gets the same gut feeling he does right before a deal goes off without a hitch, the same kind of thrill that makes him want to fly in loops across deep space.
Through the falsity of anything that claims to be fate, he can see that Luke is going to cajole and badger and flash his big eyes unceasingly at the rest of the galaxy until it’s powerless to deny him the lead role in this little cosmic play of theirs.
It doesn’t hurt, Han thinks, that he’s cute.
Luke regards him, said eyes now squinted in something that had better not be disappointment.
“I don’t know,” he says after a moment, the drop of his voice confirming what his expression began to convey; Han raises his eyebrows, half amused, half annoyed. “Sorry.”
With a sudden movement that’s almost startling, Luke gets up from his chair and starts towards the cockpit door.
“Hey, c’mon, what now?” Han says. “Gonna go tattle on me to the princess?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Luke says, barely turning his head enough to look back over his shoulder. “You’ll still get all your money.”
With that, the door whooshes shut; Han is alone.
In his newfound privacy, he sighs.
There is a place for Han in this grand unfolding tale, but it’s firmly contained to a footnote. Luke, for all Han likes the grin that flashes onto his face like a flood, had better get used to that idea. The splitting of their two plots needs to happen soon, though; it might hurt near the same, but a clean break is a hell of a lot easier to set.
Han rolls his shoulders, trying to shake the remaining tension off his back as best he can before turning back to the command board. With any luck, this entire thing—Luke, Leia, the peril of Imperial ships—will soon be a hyper jump or three behind him.
***
Outside the cockpit, Luke’s stomach rolls with so much feeling he it takes a second to even remember he’s angry—but, oh, is he.
Before he’d left Tatooine, he hadn’t been aware he could get this mad—nothing, not even the prospect of being forced to work another season on his uncle’s farm has gotten to him like the smug, smirking pilot a room away is doing now.
For the millionth time since they fled the battle station, Luke wishes Ben had made it off with them. The old man might have been cryptic, slightly too serene, but he’d possessed a quiet kind of resoluteness that hadn’t stuttered even against a direct confrontation with Vader, one that Luke sorely envies. He’s not quite sure he’ll ever understand what it means to look Vader in the eye and not cower; niggling, at the back of his mind, is a small voice that says Ben may have made a mistake trusting Luke with the responsibility he had.
As much as Han is a sand gnat that won’t stop trying to land in his eye, Luke’s a little jealous of him, too. He, at least, seems confident in his role in the proceedings. There’s obviously no doubt that in another day or two, Han will be lounging in some new bar, just the same as they’d found him on Tatooine whereas Luke—Luke might be strewn across the galaxy in a million particles, along with the rest of the rebellion.
Safe from the scrutiny of the cockpit, he lets out a harsh sigh.
“Well alright, then, what’d he say to you?”
Luke whips around to see Leia sitting in one of the main deck’s chairs, chin resting on her knee where its pulled close to her body. She regards him with the flicking eyes of a reekcat.
“Huh?”
“You look about as annoyed as I feel after five minutes with our, ah, esteemed pilot,” she says, smiling slightly. “So, what’d he say?” She raises a brow. “You get called princess?”
Luke laughs a little, shaking his head. “No, he’s got a different one for me.” Kid. The reminder of his greenstick bones rankles him till his shoulders are in his ears, but, somehow, seeing Han look to Leia and slide a sarcastic princess between his teeth annoys Luke even more.
“Right,” Leia says. She tilts her head and her smile slopes with it. “For future reference, rescue missions for important political figures usually do without smuggling pilots and their,” she gestures a large shape with both arms, “big, hairy better halves.”
“Hey, Chewbacca’s not too bad,” Luke says, then pauses. “Well, I think—I’m not very good at understanding him yet, but—he’s gotta be better than Han.”
“Better than Han,” Leia concedes. She considers him for a moment. “Hey, sit with me. Who knows how long we have until this hunk of space junk gets to Yavin—I didn’t think to pack any holonovels before I got captured, so you’ll have to do for entertainment.”
Luke tries to ignore the spark plug start in his stomach as he does so. Somehow, despite the days of captivity and their brief sojourn into a trash compactor, Leia is still the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
“So,” she says once he’s seated. “Who the fuck are you?”
Luke lets out a startled laugh he’s instantly embarrassed of. “Uh, Luke,” he says. “Skywalker.” Stupid.
“No, I know that,” she says. “But—imagine you’re in my position, right? Princess,” she jabs a thumb at her own chest, “captured by big, evil Lord Vader, rescued by a mysterious old man with magic powers, a mercenary smuggling pilot and,” she tilts her head forward in a nod, “you.”
In the face of her full attention, Luke suddenly wishes he were back in the cockpit, current resident regardless. “Me?”
“Yeah, you. The rest of it fits—sloppily, but it fits. Why the hell is Luke Skywalker here, though? You, ah,” Leia gestures towards the doors he just emerged from, “old friends?”
“What? No—no,” he says. “I’ve barely known him longer than you.”
“Really?” Leia’s surprise stirs some of the same in him. “But you—hm.”
“What?” Somewhere in the spongy base of his lungs, there’s a laugh that wants to burst out at the very idea that Luke might somehow be an associate of Han’s. He swallows it, eager to disabuse her of the notion.
“Nothing, it just seemed—back in that composter room, he seemed really worried about you drowning in thousands of gallons of Empire waste, that’s all,” she says, then scrunches her nose. “Speaking of, as soon as we land, there’s a sonic shower with your name on it.”
Luke ducks his head and laughs. “Sure thing.”
“I’m joking,” she says, ruffling his hair. She withdraws her hand and rubs her fingers together. “Well, kind of.”
“I’m sure Han was just worried about the logistics of getting seventeen thousand credits off my corpse,” Luke says, trying to ignore the sudden heat in his face. “The only thing he really cares about is getting paid.” As he says it, though, Luke’s not quite sure. It would be stupid, he realizes, to claim anything about this man he just met, the one who lies for a living.
Leia seems to have similar reservations. “He’s crazier than I’d thought if he’ll get into a stormtrooper uniform for a stranger’s money,” she says, but shakes her head. “Never mind though, I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being a topic of discussion—why are you on this ship?”
“Because,” he says, blurting it out before he knows the rest of the sentence. He stalls out before he can think of anything else to quickly sum up the past few days of his life.
“Oh, because,” Leia says, a grin crinkling the corners of her eyes. “If only I had you to write my senate speeches.”
“It’s a long story,” Luke says, not wanting to get into the whole thing right here, right now. “But I was just in the right place at the right time and it was—it was the right thing to do.” It’s trite, maybe, but true enough.
Leia raises her eyebrows. “Mmhm,” she says. “And the planet-hopping, ancient magic swords, hologram stuff had nothing to do with it?”
Luke opens his mouth to defend himself, but on seeing the smile hidden somewhere around her eyes, he rubs the back of his neck. “Well, maybe a little.”
She laughs, and he looks back up to see it, grinning.
“Thanks for the honesty,” Leia says. “Seems to be a rare resource on this ship.”
“I’ll be honest about whatever you’d like,” Luke says. He hears the earnestness in his voice strike the air like a whip, but he can’t quite care. It’s true, isn’t it? Whatever Leia wants, he’s going to break his back to give to her, the sharp diamond of a princess in a story in which he’s very much trying to be the hero. “Ask me anything.”
“Okay, Luke Skywalker,” she says. She thinks for a second, humming. “Where’s home for you, then?”
“Oh.” He’s a bit surprised the information she wants to know is about him, but he’s not complaining—well, not much. The story of his life before these past few days is not an interesting one, and Luke wracks his brain for ways to spice it up for the royalty sitting beside him. “Originally, uh, Tatooine.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Most people haven’t—kind of a nowhere planet. My uncle ran a moisture farm,” he says. “The most exciting thing we’d do is trade with the Jawas so they wouldn’t try to make off with the equipment.”
“Uncle?” Leia says. Something’s sparked in her eyes, a sort of hungry expression. “You’ve still got family back there?”
There’s a sudden lump in Luke’s throat, one he’s been trying to avoid.
“No, uh—no,” he says. “I did, he and my aunt raised me, before—” He coughs a little, trying to summon up a laugh—it comes out in parts, broken in the middle. “Well, you know what happens to a place when information that the Empire wants lands there.”
“Oh,” Leia says. “Luke.” Her eyebrows draw together to form a miserable expression. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, don’t be, it’s not your fault,” he says, waving her off. “It’s nothing compared to Alderaan, you know?” A second too late, he realizes he might have broached a topic you aren’t supposed to with the lone survivor of a dead planet. “Kriff, I shouldn’t—I’m sorry, forget I said anything.”
Leia doesn’t respond for a moment, long enough that Luke starts to think she really has taken offense. He begins to scramble for something else to say—another apology, an offer to hand over the lightsaber and let her go wild for five minutes—but he only gets a few words out before she slams the flat of her hand into the wall and curses.
“Fuck them,” she says to Luke’s widened eyes. “No, I mean it, fuck them and their stupid little empire, their—they think they can—” she hits the wall again, just as angry, “my entire goddamn planet.”
“I’m—sorry,” Luke says, somewhat at a loss of what to say to her outburst.
“Did you blow it up?” Leia says, then deflates, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I’m just—it’s not my fault, I know that, it’s this evil fucking Empire’s fault but—I was right there. It happened right in front of me.” She lets out a sigh through her nose and closes her eyes. Luke’s heart pangs a little, for her and for every person she’s mourning.
After a moment, he speaks. “They’re gonna pay for it,” he says, wary of issuing another apology. This though, doesn’t feel like the wrong thing to say. Maybe not exactly right either, but it’s the best he’s got. “They’ll wish they’d never even built the thing.”
Leia’s spine remains curled for a moment more before straightening suddenly.
“You’re right,” she says, opening her eyes to glare somewhere into the middle distance. “I’m going to rip to pieces and sell it for parts.” She swings her gaze to him, all jaw-jutting determination. “And you, Luke Skywalker—you’re gonna help me.”
Luke nods; with the echo of blaster shots playing under his eyelids, it’s not quite easy to be confident in the certainty of this outcome, not yet, but here, now, in the face of Leia’s ferocity—he believes her.
***
Despite the hungry bite of the storage containers’ edges into his palms and fingers, Han loads them unceasingly into the speeder Chewie’s preparing. Between trips, he briefly scrubs his hand against his sleeve, trying to rub away the sting that almost gets worse upon unclenching his fingers. It works about as well as his attempts to not notice who’s approaching him from the side.
“So,” Luke says. Han doesn’t want to look over, but Luke remains stubbornly unignorable. “You got your reward and you’re just leaving, then?” The abject hurt in his voice would surprise Han if he weren’t now familiar with Luke’s stubbornly unbruised skin, the way he manages to see the galaxy through big, undimmed eyes that still believe the best in people.
“That’s right, yeah,” Han says, tired of the charade. He thinks for a second, then makes a desperate play—just because it looks like an ending doesn’t mean it must be one. “And why don’t you come with us? You’re pretty good in a fight—I could use you.” It’s selfish, to try and steal away the hero of a story he wants no part in, but Han’s never been ashamed of playing a little outside the rules to get the things he wants.
Luke, like too many things in the damn galaxy, is unwilling to cooperate.
“Come on,” Luke says, nostrils flaring. He glances quickly around the hangar before his blazing eyes land back on Han. “Look, don’t get a big head or anything, but they could use a pilot like you—you’re turning your back on them.”
Han shakes his head, trying not to think about the careful excision of Luke’s made of himself from his statement. “Turning my back is the only way I’m getting out of this thing alive,” Han says, “and even then, you’d be an idiot to bet the house on us.”
“If the odds are that bad, just stick around,” Luke says. His expression loses a bit of its severity, like a couple of soft, pleading eyes are all its gonna take to make Han reconsider a suicide mission. He’s a little alarmed to feel that’s not so far off from the case.
“Don’t even joke, kid.”
“I’m not!” Luke sighs, visibly changing tactics. “Listen, you don’t even have to fly in with us just—you shouldn’t take off just yet. This is only the beginning; I can feel it.”
“Getting real tired of hearing about you feeling things,” Han says, but it’s amused, half-smiling. “Nobody’s gut is that good.”
Luke rolls his eyes, a side of his mouth tilting up like a sinking ship. “So, what? Are you staying?”
“What? No—no,” Han says. “What about that was supposed to convince me? We’re jumping into hyperspace as soon as the Falcon clears the atmosphere.”
“Really?” Luke says. “All that’s happened to us, and you’re still scared?”
“‘Course I am, but—attacking a battle station like that isn’t courage,” he says, a last-ditch effort in convincing Luke of the infinitesimal likelihood he’ll make it out alive. There’s a stone in his gut, however, that says Luke already knows. “They’ve got a different word for it: suicide. And kid, you don’t have to—”
“Alright,” Luke says with a nod, confirming Han’s fears. His expression makes an effort at hardening—maybe, Han thinks, it would fool someone who hadn’t had Luke in the backseat for a round trip tour of the most dangerous spots in the galaxy. “Well, take care of yourself—that’s what you’re best at, huh?” With that, he turns away, a few steps from becoming just one more orange pilot’s uniform bobbing through the hangar.
Suddenly, Han is unable to leave it there.
“Luke!” Despite everything, he turns back to look. Han shoots him a wink that is both utterly too flippant for the circumstances and not quite out of place. “May the Force be with you.”
Luke’s face is clouded as he beholds Han for a second before lifting his hand in a small wave; he turns away, finality coloring his movements this time. Han resists the urge to call again, to memorize Luke's face a last time before its stupid grin is scattered in a million pieces across the star system.
Chewie growls beside him. What the fuck are you thinking—you like this kid, are we really going to leave him to die?
“What’re you looking at?” Han trains his eyes back down on the crates to avoid the sight of the dead kid walking away from them. “I know what I’m doing.”
Obvious lies have never given Han much trouble, but for some reason, this one barely makes it past the catch in his throat.
The trip off planet is quiet. Maybe it’s just the contrast, maybe Han has somehow become used to the noise of strange people on his ship in a matter of a few days—looking at the long, solitary voyage ahead, he hopes not.
“Look,” he says, though Chewbacca hasn’t said—growled—a word since they took off. “It’s fun, sure, to buy into their little rebellion for a few hours, but you know as well as I do that if we have anything to do with it, Jabba’s gonna be the least of our worries. And besides,” Han continues over the beginning of a grumble issuing from deep in Chewie’s chest, “they seemed fine! Right? They’ve got hundreds of pilots; they don’t need us.”
Chewie huffs. Dozens, maybe.
He’s right, but that doesn’t mean Han has to admit it. “Get off my back, like you’re so eager to die at the hands of those Imperial punks.”
Chewie issues a noncommittal grunt.
“Don’t give me that,” Han says. “Beneath all that hair, you’re still a wanted criminal—act like it. The kids can handle themselves.”
In the rearview screen, Han sees several small objects break away from the moon that’s currently disappearing behind them: X-wings. They fly in formation in the opposite direction until he can’t tell them from the blackness of the surrounding space.
Han sighs through his nose, thinking. If he leaves now, quick enough, word about the inevitable and brutal quashing of the rebellion might not reach him until he’s safely tucked into a seedy Outer Rim bar, drowning his sorrows in the cheapest Trandoshan ale on the shelf. If Han really leans on the hyperdrive, it might not reach him at all.
“Who am I kidding,” he says. Chewie doesn’t look up from the control panel; Han continues anyway. “There’s no way we’ll miss it—he’s gonna explode brighter than our window reflectors can handle.”
So do something, Chewie says, or step on it—there’s a bounty that needs paying.
“Shut up, I’m thinking.”
It’s not hard to picture what’ll happen to them if Han reverses course now—the inside of his ship, torn to sparking pieces, his last moments painfully wrenched from him inside an exploding tomb. The luckiest probable scenario is hard enough to stomach: capture, slavery on some distant mine planet, or maybe just the quick death of a blaster shot. His hand steels on the hyperdrive; the only thing he’s leaving behind is certain death, death and—
It’s all shot to hell the second he slips enough to picture him: the glow of Luke’s grin, the way his eyes had lit up upon deflecting that first seeker blast, even—especially—his scowl at Han’s claimed cowardice, the way he’d believed something better of him up to and past the point where Han’d washed his hands and abandoned planet. Even now, Han can feel the gravitational pull of that same damnable faith.
He groans. “A soft spot for the dumbest kid in the galaxy, just my fucking luck—Chewie?”
The wookie rumbles a question. Han teeters on the threshold for one more moment before falling through with all the grace of a blurrg in its death throes. He can run from his place in the story some other time—right now, for once in his life, there’s somebody who needs him.
“You know damn well what,” Han says, waving his hand in a circle with a sigh. “Bring her around.”
Their approach to the moon-sized station is an even more frightening event than when Han’d last seen it, if not only because that instance occurred in a glimpse over his right shoulder. Despite all the additional trouble it brings, Han briefly wishes he could take a moment now and tap into the Force just to see if they make it out of this thing alive—not that he even knows if that’s even within the capabilities of the stupid undefinable thing Luke’s currently betting his life on. With a twist to his mouth, Han thinks about how much simpler all their lives would be if Luke was just using it to get rich cheating at sabacc.
As they near the station, particularly close X-wing explosion makes him wince.
“That’d better not’ve been him,” Han says, half-joking, but it turns to lead in his stomach as he continues to watch the rebel crafts zipping around the station. “We didn’t come all this way to watch the kid die.”
They circle on the outskirts of the battle for a few more minutes, avoiding stray fighters and trying to triangulate where exactly the main action is. The size of the station doesn’t lend itself to their task, however, and Han is soon tapping his fingers on the dashboard in frustration.
“C’mon, c’mon,” he says. “If I were a kid with the most undeserved confidence in the galaxy, where would I be—Chewie, anything?”
Before Chewbacca can respond, something catches Han’s eye: an X-wing, pursued by three Imperial ships, flying in a formation that’s clearly meant to protect the middle craft. The lone craft they’re after flies like it’s got something to prove, like it doesn’t quite care if it’ll take crashing to do so. Han feels the barest smile creep onto his face.
“There,” he says, pointing. “Pull around there, now.”
It’s not quite experience, not quite his gut, but something tells Han to follow the group closely, the Falcon skimming barely above the textured surface of the base below. He hopes it is Luke—he hopes he lives long enough to find out.
Sudden fire from the central Imperial ship makes the navigation droid on the X-wing explode in sparks; Han feels the twist in his gut that means he’d better act now or sprint off somewhere into the dark of deep space never to return. With a final nod to Chewie, he bears down on the gear shift and fires.
The bolts find their mark; Han can’t hold back a whoop of premature victory.
“Okay, easy part’s over,” he says, half under his breath. “Now, let’s see just how committed these bucketheads really are.”
Sometimes, Han thinks as the Falcon barrels towards the remaining two fighters, to win money on a game of chicken, you’ve gotta put your credits on the coward. Sure, the bet goes sour nine times out of ten, but sometimes—sometimes it takes a person who lives shrouded in the stuff to recognize fear in someone else’s eyes. Before Han even comes close enough to collide, he knows he’s won.
Sure enough, the side craft veers in just the wrong direction, colliding with what must be Vader’s ship, causing it to spin wildly off into space. Han briefly lets himself hope that’s the last anyone ever sees of him and switches on the transmitter.
“Hey, kid,” he says; the smile makes his voice entirely too warm. “You’re all clear—let’s blow this thing and head home.” It’s out of his mouth before he registers the strangeness of it—in all the vastness of space, home? Where the hell is home?
By the time the base begins to crumple and explode, Han’s safely situated several miles away. The destruction is—brilliant; he can’t help the grin on his face.
“What a shot.” It’s quiet, reverent, almost, like it should be. “One in a fucking million, Luke.”
Yavin is practically unrecognizable upon their return; Han can’t turn his head without seeing a lump of orange-clad pilots clinging to each other in celebration. Still, it’s no effort to find Luke’s ship, to catch an eyeful of the shaggy-haired kid swept up in an embrace.
“Hey, hey,” Han says, jogging up to where he and Leia are caught in each other’s arms. “What, did something important happen?”
Luke laughs and grabs onto Han, who can’t help but clutch him in return. “I knew you’d come back!” His voice rings with confidence, confidence that Han, despite everything anyone’s ever heard about him, is worthy of Luke’s gold-plated faith. And perhaps, simply because Luke believes it, it’s true. “I—I knew it!”
“Well,” Han says, pulling halfway out of the embrace with reluctance. He lets his hands remain clasped hard to Luke’s upper arms. “You said it yourself—you need pilots, who am I to deny you the best around? C’mon, you really think I was gonna let you take all the credit?”
Luke grins with a bright ferocity, blinding as he swats Han’s side, Han shoves at his face a little in response. It’s not enough, it’s more than Han deserves.
“Oh, sure,” Luke says. “You shot one ship, we oughta throw you a parade—in case you missed it, I blew up something they’re calling the Death Star. I’m a hero.” He laughs again, like it’s just too big to keep contained within himself.
“Yeah, kid,” Han says. He can’t rein in the smile on his face either, but maybe it’s alright to leave everything out in the open for just this one moment. “You are.”
“And don’t you forget it.” Luke’s smile is so wide it crinkles the corners of his eyes till they’re near shut; Han has a brief fantasy of somehow—tractor beam, wormhole, who cares—stopping the rotation of the moon beneath their feet just to remain in this second, looking at him, for a little while longer.
“Hey, break it up,” Leia, wrecking ball that she is, says from his side. She elbows her way between them and slings an arm around each of their waists. “We’ve got places to be.”
“We do?” Luke says.
“What, did you think you could destroy the rebellion’s biggest threat and not sit through an award ceremony?” Leia shakes her head. “You’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about the inner workings of an underground government.”
“Ah,” Han says, pulling away slightly. “You two have got this handled, I’m sure. I’ll be—”
Luke reels him back into their three-way walking embrace by the edge of his sleeve. “Nice try, Han,” he says, still smiling, “but you’re in it now.”
Han looks to Leia with an expression that’s had a 50/50 success rate of getting him out of prison sentences, but she merely snorts.
“You’re not getting out of this,” she says, “but the medal’s gold, if you want to melt it down and sell the pieces later.”
“With inflation what it is, why bother,” Han says with a sigh. He leans back into her side as she and Luke laugh, an unfamiliar comfort in the strength of her petite shoulder, the line of Luke’s arm over his. They walk together through the arched doorway to a wave of cheers, each sound of joy overlapping until it’s indistinguishable from the next.
The moon spins on.