thisavrou_log | everything a goddamn ordeal in area family.

Entry tags:

star wars: luke skywalker

everything a goddamn ordeal in area family.

Who:
1. Leia Organa

imahologram, Luke Skywalker

crudematter
2. Leia Organa

imahologram, Han Solo

straightouttacarbonite
When: Forward-dated to 06.11.16 or so
Where:
1. A hotel room on CLF5
2. Another hotel room on CLF5
What: Talking about Kylo Ren's identity and, uh, Anakin Skywalker's.
Warnings: Spoilers for Star Wars: Episodes III, V, VI, and VII.

After a point, Leia can't avoid the subject of her future anymore. Not with Luke, anyway. He's no longer injured, he's had some time to relax, and now that Obi-Wan knows about Ben...well, it takes just one wrong word to Anakin, and the secret's out anyway. Obi-Wan, she's sure, wouldn't let it slip purposely, but he and Anakin know each other so well...

Perhaps more importantly, she longs to talk this over with Luke. She's so close to the situation that a slightly more distant perspective would be helpful--and she's hoping desperately that telling Luke might lighten the knowledge's burden. Sharing pains with him always seems to make them a little easier to bear, if only because she knows that he'll gladly take on whatever he can, just as she would for him. It's exactly what she longed for as a child, when she wished for a brother or sister, and the certainty of it is comforting.

So she sends him a message on the MID, the first she's reached out since they arrived at the Collective, and asks to meet him at his hotel room. When she arrives, it's with a little rap on the locked door, purposely sharp; she doesn't want to project timidity and ends up forceful instead.

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Luke is, once more, staring up at the ceiling with wonder. Since they decided to get the underwater room with the glass walls and ceiling, Luke's been gazing out at the passing schools of fish and floating seaweed. The knock at the door breaks him of his reprieve.

"Cassandra?" Maybe she forgot something. He opens the door to find his sister. "Oh! Leia! Come in."

As though she could resist an opening like that. The walls in these hotels are thick, but she can still hear his muffled call from inside. Leia's expression brightens a moment when she sees him at the door.

"Cassandra, huh?" she asks, slipping past him. Who knows what the two of them have been up to? "Did you get my message?"

"Leia." Luke closes his mouth and gives Leia a flat look. After spending an eternity circling Han like a rabid krayt, can she really judge him? Apparently so.

Still, he lets his sister inside.

"I got your message. What've you been up to?"

She raises her eyebrows, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. He's found himself a beautiful room--the school of fish currently above their heads shimmer like an oil slick, darting back and forth in a massive group.

(And it was nothing like circling like a rabid krayt. She was busy.)

"Nothing at all," Leia answers, and for a moment, she wonders if they could put off this conversation a little longer. A week or two away from Luke's easy camaraderie, and she misses it awfully. "What about you?"

"Oh, nothing really." Luke takes a seat on a nearby chair. "Some maintenence on my X-wing, finishing up some droids, I made some upgrades on a transport- oh, I made this waterproof." He holds up his cybernetic hand, which is missing his pinky and ring fingers. "Well, mostly."

"You've been busy." By the standards of home, maybe not, but she's spent most of the last week on the beach. Their lives out here are slow, especially since their arrival at the Collective.

Her smile fades to a more serious expression, however, as she goes on. "Have you met anyone called Kylo Ren, Luke?"

Luke shakes his head. "I remember... you mentioned him at the cave on Dagobah." It's an unpleasant memory, and if Leia is bringing it up now, it must be important. He frowns. "I haven't met him, no."

He's avoiding you, Leia thinks, and though she has no proof, it seems more reasonable than any other explanation. Ben's interactions with Obi-Wan and Han have largely been born of necessity; even if he doesn't oppose talking to her, he clearly wanted to do it as a stranger. How could he trust himself around his former master? How could he trust Luke?

You could, Ben, she thinks, the words sinking low in her chest. Luke is the most trustworthy of any of us.

"I think I know why I saw him on Dagobah," she begins, then pauses. This is it; everything changes. But there's no avoiding it. She's already put this off too long. Looking her brother straight in the eyes, she forces the words out. "He's my son."

"Leia, you-" You can't have a son. He's too old. It doesn't make any sense. But as he gets the words out, everything snaps into place. His father, nearly the same age as him. Leia remembering a day Luke has yet to see. Time has no meaning here.

And something about it just feels right in a way he can't quite place. It's a feeling he's learned to associate with the Force's gentle guidance.

"He is." Luke frowns, tilts his head to the side. Somehow, he's always known.

She waits for him to put it together, how a man Han's age looks at her and sees his mother. When he agrees, she nods, already weary of this conversation.

It would be so much easier to explain if Luke had met him.

"He's..." Broken. Disturbed. Unstable. "Something's wrong with him, Luke. Something happened to him."

"He's fallen to the Dark Side, you mean."

Luke thinks of their father. Of course he does. "Do you think it was... some kind of outside influence? Unnatural?"

"I'm not sure." So much of his life is a blank space for Leia, and the only person aboard the Moira capable of giving them some clarity has little desire to do so. He's been so reticent about all of this. "Something must have happened. I know he wasn't always like this--but I don't know what changed him."

"Why don't you start from the beginning," he reaches out to take her hand. "Tell me what you know of him."

Leia squeezes his hand once, appreciative even if this is probably a downward slope for her mood.

"I got a holo from him in the mail last month." It's not quite the beginning, but it's somewhere to start. "From when he was a little boy. He was...so much happier then. I can show you, I have it here with me. He was training with you, waiting for his lightsaber...he missed me."

And now? Now, there's the hole where an explanation should be, followed by a man who's violent and pained by turns. "Something happened between then and now. Something must have made him hate us--he thinks I abandoned him, but I--"

I'd never she wants to say, but she's not the one who's seen what the future holds.

He squeezes her hand. "Whatever happened can be mended. It might not be easy, but we have to try. Or if it's his nature, that can be overcome."

He's dancing around the subject again, he can feel it. He's been doing it for months; it's become a strange second nature, to mean the truth without saying it. There's no reason anymore, he realizes. Maybe there never was.

"The potential for darkness runs strong in our family. I have it. You have it. Our father does as well."

"We have to do something. He's not happy how he is--you should have seen him when he realized I knew." The memory of his face has haunted her since.

The rest of Luke's statement seems opaque from her vantage point. The potential for darkness is part of any Jedi's life, isn't it? That's the fight Obi-Wan's council is waging, with their rules about the ways a Jedi's life can go. "What are you talking about?"

"Our father... has more potential for darkness than you know. I'm sorry, Leia, I didn't know how to tell you..." He lets go of her hand. He knows his sister; she won't want to be near him when he tells her.

Where does he begin? At the beginning.

"On Bespin, when I fought Vader, he asked me to join him."

On Bespin, when I fought Vader. The pit of her stomach grows cold at the juxtaposition of Anakin and Vader. He can't seriously mean this. Their father has been so kind to them--to her--and so happy to become a part of their lives. Even on the occasions when his temper has come through (briefly! briefly!), his goodness seems assured.

He can't possibly mean this. He must be mistaken.

"Luke..." she says, half warning, half plea. She knows what's coming, but she'd give anything not to hear it.

But it's the truth, and he has to say that. He knows that now. He has to say it, because she always deserved to know. He's done her a disservice, and he wonders if she can ever forgive him. If she can't, he can't blame her.

"He wanted us to rule the galaxy as father and son. Ben lied to me... and I'm no better. I'm so sorry, Leia."

"You lied to me." Leia stands, taking a step back from her brother. Her jaw clenches as she stares at him, her teeth gritting together. "You've been lying to me for months."

It's more than indignation; it's fury at the idea that he'd keep this from her, let her get close to Darth Vader without breathing a word to her. And fury at herself for not realizing. She was taken in by a cocky grin and a sense of humor, and by a childish longing to know her past, a longing that should have died off long ago. She let herself become fond of, perhaps let herself love, one of the evilest men the galaxy's known.

She doesn't want to ask, but she has to. "Why?"

Luke wants to argue, but he can't. He meets her eyes with a saddened expression, knowing he deserves whatever she throws at him. He takes it quietly, waiting for the inevitable question he still doesn't have an answer to.

"Because I was afraid. And because of how happy you were. And because I thought... maybe it wasn't true." He still wants to ask Yoda, confirm it somehow. He lost his one chance on that other Dagobah. But he knows, now. He's met Anakin Skywalker, and he can feel the similarities. "But it is, Leia. I know that now... I'm so sorry. I... I failed you."

His voice becomes bitter, there, and his expression twists into a frown.

Edited (wrods) 2016-06-08 01:20 (UTC)

"Our father is Vader." It's a whisper. She needs to convince herself; she needs to hear the words flat before her and try to see the truth in them. If Luke's telling her the truth, and the twinge of grief in her gut says he is, she needs to resign herself to it.

No, she corrects herself. My father isn't Vader. Vader watched my father die, and he didn't feel a thing.

"The person who failed us," she says, her voice burning acidic in her throat, "is the one who cut off your hand. I never thought you'd do something so like him."

Having said her piece, and already feeling a faint stab of guilt for it, she turns to leave in a rush of pale fabric.

And Luke, a credit to their shared heritage, doesn't flinch. "I do things like him all the time. We both do."

A second too late, he realizes how she'll likely take that. But there's no taking it back. He'll stand by his statement, and take what's coming to him. That's all he can do. It's what a Jedi would have done from the start.

She freezes in the doorway, turning back to look at her brother. He can't really mean--but of course, he does. Luke sees the best in everyone, and everyone, Leia can see, includes Darth Vader.

The thought still makes her stomach turn over.

"I don't recall torturing anyone recently," she snaps, and slams the door behind her.

Leia stomps away from Luke's room, her heartbeat heavy in her throat. I drank caf and laughed with Darth Vader. I hugged Darth Vader. I was starting to care about--

She stops herself, unable to settle the thought with the nauseous feeling deep in her stomach.

"I can't believe this," she mutters to herself, and it's half caught by the MID as the sound recorder turns on. Her voice turns forceful, sharp. "Han, Luke lied to us. He's been lying to us for months. All this time, he knew, and he never--look, come to the room as soon as you can. I need to talk to you."

If she was mad about Ben, she's incandescent over this. It's an anger that she can nearly feel on her skin, the knowledge of her father's future crackling around her like static electricity. When she gets back to their hotel room, she can't relax enough to stop pacing, let alone sit down.

Edited 2016-06-11 02:34 (UTC)

Being summoned back to a lavish hotel room by his princess girlfriend should be a nicer experience than this, Han thinks.

"I can--" Well, he's not in the middle of anything important, just dithering in one of the shopping districts, trying to find something new and interesting to eat. It's an embarrassingly easy task, but it passes the time. The declaration (a hard one to believe) and the tone of voice brooks no disagreement.

"Yeah, I'm on my way."

It takes longer than she'd like, probably, but eventually he does show up, looking bewildered and worried.

One of these days, maybe she'll summon him for something nice. One of these days, when conversations with others from their galaxy don't end in painful revelations.

She has too much time to herself before the door opens again. Her thoughts have been racing ever since she moved past that first stunned disbelief, and inevitably, she wonders how she's going to tell Han.

It turns out my birth father is Darth Vader. I hope that won't be a problem. We won't be having any more dinner parties with family after this. Don't worry.

The future no longer seems quite so assured to her by the time he shows up. It's easy to love a woman--to marry her, have a son with her--when her only official parentage is royalty of the elder houses. To realize that the blood in her veins comes from one of the greatest terrors of the galaxy is another matter. Especially having seen what kind of homocidal terror Vader's grandson can be--she might be the last person in the galaxy Han Solo needs to keep company with.

She can't (or won't, but it feels like can't to her) disguise the anguish in her drawn brows when Han comes in. Once the door is closed, she closes the distance between them, wrapping him up in an embrace. This might be the last time she holds him; she wants to remember every sinew of his arms around her as clearly as she can.

Edited 2016-06-11 04:12 (UTC)

Given how the last time panned out, his first guess is that this, too, has something to do with their son. He's been mulling it over as he travelled, trying to find some way to make sense of disconnected facts and guesses. Maybe Luke knew somehow or other about Kylo Ren, but so what? He can see why her brother might not have wanted to break that news, but he can't see why she'd be quite this upset about it.

For the first moment he just lets her cling to him, a little stunned that her distress hasn't faded at all. Wordlessly he holds onto her in turn. Whatever she's upset about, it doesn't really matter. Comforting her doesn't depend on the cause. He strokes her hair absently, smoothing stray strands that have pulled themselves loose from her braids. Without knowing the details he can't exactly offer any comforting words, so instead he tries to make it clear physically. Solid and dependable, he lets her hang onto him, waits for her to ground herself enough to explain.

He's so kind with her, so gentle when she's in his arms. At one point, she might have scoffed at the idea that Han Solo, ill-tempered smuggler, could hold anyone so tenderly without an ulterior motive. Now, she wishes she'd seen the truth earlier; they would have had more time together before this conversation.

It's possible, of course, that his stubbornness will win out, and he won't be spooked by the thought that his lover--possibly his wife, possibly the mother of his child--is the daughter of a man who tortured him without remorse. It doesn't seem smart, though. Her genetic legacy comes with a body count, both the generation before and the generation after her. How can she ask him to stay for that?

"I think you should sit down," she says, her voice quiet, and she disentangles herself from him. Looking him in the eye won't be an enjoyable experience, but it's not fair to Han to tell him from the circle of his embrace. "If this changes the way you feel about...us...I'll understand."

That just leaves him all the more perplexed. He lets her go as soon as she tries to wriggle away, absently running a hand through his hair, eyes fixed on her.

"What the hell is going on?"

A little gruff, maybe (although his tone is much softer than the words), but he's at a real loss here. They've been through a lot already, and Han can't actually imagine anything that would scare him off-- which, actually, doesn't bode well for this conversation. If it's something so bad that an inveterate pessimist can't come up with it, it's got to be a doozy.

Carefully, uncertain, he sits on the edge of the bed. What could make her even think that?

"It's--" And though she spent far too long trying to sort out how to tell this to Han, actually starting in on it leaves her flummoxed for a moment. It's different when he's sitting before her, worried and confused and waiting for an explanation neither of them wants to hear. If her hair was short enough to justify it, and not currently bound up in a crown of braids, she'd be mirroring his gesture right then. At the beginning, start at the beginning. "I always thought I was a war orphan. That's what my parents, my real parents, told me. And of course, no one here knew any better. No one except Luke."

This must be what was weighing on his mind for so long. There's little comfort in figuring that out now. While she can understand why he'd keep it to himself when they were only friends, when he found out they were twins...

...She realizes, belatedly, that she's started to pace again. With some effort, she forces herself to stop, clasping her hands before her waist as though this is a public speech.

"Han, Anakin isn't dead in our time." There's a bitter tang at the back of her tongue. She forces herself onward. "He's Vader."

Edited 2016-06-12 03:00 (UTC)

He could have spent an hour guessing and never come up with that one.

"What?"

For a moment, when she starts, he thinks she's taking back that first revelation, that fact from which everything else has somehow cascaded: that maybe Anakin isn't her father, though why that should be such an upset he can't guess. But then she continues on, and she makes her point plainly, and he... just stares for a moment.

It's bigger, even, than when she announced she was Luke's sister, and even that took him a long moment to process.

"That doesn't make sense."

They know Anakin. That can't be right.

Leia waits, focusing on her breath as though this is merely a case of nerves before an important engagement. She knows, on some level, that Han's not going to have an answer for her right away; it's impossible to believe on first blush, when the Jedi all perished when the Empire came into being. The waiting is enough to make her feet itch to move again.

"He told Luke on Bespin," she answers quietly, her throat tightening around the words. "He asked Luke to join him."

It's true, she wants to insist, but there's nothing to prove it except Luke's testimony and the knowledge that, somewhere deep inside her, she's sure of it. It fits together in a sickening sort of way: Anakin's little moments of anger, Luke's year of fretting over something he couldn't bring himself to burden anyone else with.

Han will see that, given time enough. She can give him that--time, and space, if he needs it. A hotel room to himself to think this over, maybe.

A fair amount of thinking it through is inevitable. She insists, and he still can't make any sense of it. Going back through all their interactions, he can't find anything to make it make sense. No hint that the man-- the Jedi, the pilot, the young man worrying over his relationships-- could be the tireless, huge shadow that tortured the both of them, the inhuman creature hunting them all.

There's absolutely no reason to believe it. But Leia believes it-- and somehow he's got the sense that if he presses, she'll go on about feelings and the Force and they'll get nowhere.

"Vader could've lied," he points out, because he he has to point that out. With all this mystical nonsense sometimes the obvious things fall through the cracks. But it's a weak protest, and after another beat, he pats the bed beside him.

"I guess you know what he's been hiding, now," he murmurs.

"He could have. But Luke would have known." Even now that she's met Jedi who were trained for years, her faith in Luke's abilities is overwhelming. Surely he would have heard a lie so blatant.

She hesitates for a moment; if she sits down beside Han, she'll be all too tempted to bury her face in his shoulder. But standing before him, as if waiting to be stoned, isn't much better. She can be stiff and proud about all of this, but all she'll get for her trouble is the cold comfort of knowing she bore one more thing alone.

And Han doesn't seem to want her to have to.

So she perches on the bed next to him, as primly as if they were back on Hoth. Her body doesn't touch his; she refuses the desire to lean into him.

"I do. And I know why Ben is..." She waves a hand vaguely. That's a can of worms she knows they probably shouldn't open, but it's true. "The potential for darkness runs strong in our family--that's what Luke told me."

As skeptical as he is of all that Jedi nonsense, he manages to keep himself from rolling his eyes at the notion that Luke could somehow just know. Whatever the truth is, she's hurting, and he doesn't need to start that fight right now.

For the moment it's as though he's forgotten all her careful hedging, the warning that he might think differently of her, because of course he doesn't, he wouldn't, not because of some accident of parentage. The stiff, careful way she's holding herself has him a bit puzzled. Is she just trying to be strong? Maybe the full weight of it hasn't quite broken, and she's still in shock?

Whatever the reason, it's ridiculous. He scoots a little nearer, putting an arm around her, if she'll have it.

"It can't be that simple," he says softly, with a frown. It's a tempting possibility, that they could absolve themselves entirely and blame their son's descent into madness as an inevitable inheritance, but if that's true then there's no explanation for Leia herself, or for Luke. Which means, in a way, that it doesn't mean anything at all.

He wants to say I'm sorry or ask if she's all right, but no matter how earnest his sympathy the words seem empty, so he just tugs her closer.

He slings an arm around her as if none of this matters, and it's more than she can manage to pull away--even if she thinks she should. Leia doesn't want to let herself grow too comfortable, but she can't resist the familiarity of his presence. Soft with her, but solidly built, he's comforting even when she's sure she doesn't deserve comfort. She relaxes just a little, shifting her weight towards his.

(How he can still look at her without seeing the specter of the man who tortured him, she doesn't know. She's not sure she's ready to question it.)

"I've felt it," she whispers, her arms crossing over her stomach. "There are times when I'm so angry, Han..."

That blistering fury keeps her standing when grief could bend her to the ground. She needs it; she'd be someone completely different if she couldn't shape and focus her anger into action. But since her ill-fated trip to Dagobah--for one so young, much hate you have--she's started to see the times when her grip on her anger has been white-knuckled, just this side of controlled. She's never let it grow uncontrolled, but there's no promise that won't change. War wearies everyone, even a woman who devotes her life to appearing tireless to the people around her.

If she's truly Darth Vader's biological legacy, it might only be a matter of time.

Seeing and admitting are two vastly different things. She's said nothing of it to Luke, to Obi-Wan, and if they weren't already speaking of Vader's oppressive darkness, she wouldn't bring it up to Han. But he doesn't understand, and he needs to. They have proof of the danger in her father and her son.

As he sees it, their son's fate is the only reason to give any credence to the inevitability of that influence, and he can't buy it. Not when things are so tense and strange. It feels, as far as he can tell, like Ben turned away from both of them, not only from Han. There's just no way he can give much credence to what she fears.

And of course, he understands why she fears it, why she's so struck by this news. It's an awful thing to learn in more ways than one bad enough to think Darth Vader could be anything but a sworn foe, but here she's gotten to know Anakin as well. They were immediately so close-- now, she's got a real relationship with him to lose.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, rubbing her shoulder.

"So what?" he says softly, as soothingly as he can. How can she think he doesn't understand? He's seen her angry-- the white-hot intensity of it terrifying in the moment, but there's nothing in the world stronger than her self-discipline. So what, if she has a temper? She's always had it, and things are no different now than they were before she knew.

"So what?" She turns to look at him, her expression stricken. "So what? Han, I'm going to get you killed."

At their son's hands, no less. Right now, that act has the same set-in-stone feeling for her as it does Han, a miserable inevitability they can't overcome. When this knowledge sets in, perhaps she'll be able to believe in the possibility of changing the future again, but right now, she can't see anything but destruction before them.

And while the thought of losing Han so violently was difficult before, knowing that there's a precedent in her family sharpens the thought of it. If the future was an unknown, that would be one thing; now that she's aware of its shape, she can't help but see the enormous red flags her heritage seems to raise.

"How can you--" she starts, quiet, wondering if she should be looking for the wherewithal to draw back from him and try to convince him to be sensible about this. She doesn't want to, doesn't want to try and argue in favour of throwing her over--but it seems as though she should. "You really don't care?"

Against all reason, that protest gets a faint smile.

"I'm pretty sure I can get myself killed," he jokes, though it's hardly a joke when he's so certain it's accurate. Still, as much as he hates Vader-- and make no mistake, he does, all the more now knowing this-- it's too convenient to blame this on him. Particularly when they don't know what happened, not really.

For a moment he pulls away, only so they can look at each other a little better, and instead he reaches for her hand.

"You've only known him a few months, why would that change who you are?" He shrugs slightly. "Do you think this makes Luke evil?"

Because Luke Skywalkers is the most annoyingly, aggressively good person Han has ever known. How ridiculous does that sound?

"Han," she groans, and only by grace of the Force doesn't roll her eyes. It's an awful joke, even if she sees his point. If they're really in this together--and if they have a grown son, they clearly are--she can't take all the blame here.

A lot of it, though, she's willing to own up to. Ben's biological grandfather is Darth Vader. Does he even know? Do they?

"Luke's different." Leia glances away momentarily, down towards the carpeting. Luke is everything she isn't: quick to trust, quick to love, quick to forgive. His good humor is unassailable. "And it's not his son who's wreaking havoc on the future."

He's being horribly reasonable about this. She appreciates it, even if it's difficult to express when her own beliefs are stubbornly despairing.

Letting him take all the blame is much more reasonable, obviously. But they can table that for another day.

"He's not that different." Well, okay, maybe he is, but that's beside the point. Leia might not be so open, but there's a similar intensity in their beings, something he can't quite explain. It's compelling. Inspiring. Frustrating as hell, and it's maybe the one thing that convinced him that they honestly were siblings.

"Anyway, I don't care who your parents are."

So, there.

Leia has no intention of letting them draw that conclusion--if it isn't all her, it isn't all Han, either--but for now, she's reasonably satisfied to pin the blame on them equally.

Them and Anakin Skywalker.

"Really?" she asks. He's not lying--Han doesn't lie to her as a general rule, and there's nothing there now to suggest he's hiding th truth--but it seems too easy to believe. He's shrugging this off like she told him it might rain tomorrow. "Even knowing what he did to you?"

Stop asking him to reconsider, Leia, she thinks--but she can't. Knowing what a menace Anakin is to the galaxy, knowing their child seems to be the same way, she has to be certain he's not going to change his mind later. Her voice grows soft. "Even if our son ends up killing you?"

"I'm not dating your father."

Whoever her father might be. The Jedi, the Alderaanian senator-- it makes little difference, why should the shadow of a monster be so different? The joke is a little flat, though, considering the scope here. It must be terrifying, when she's felt so much kinship with him, to know what he's going to become.

As inclined as he is to make light of things, yeah, it's horrible.

With a slow breath, near a sigh, he bends to rest his forehead against hers for a moment. The thought that their son could do that-- will do and has done-- is still more than he can comprehend. But he doesn't think they can pin that on Vader... Or, for that matter, do anything to change it.

"I don't just love you when it's convenient for me," he adds.

That's what she needs to hear--and it's the kind of small, intimate gesture she needs to feel.

"I wouldn't blame you if you did," she tells him, closing her eyes for a moment. Maybe she would, a little, but-- "This is a little more than inconvenient."

But he's serious. Everything he's done in the last few weeks has only proven just how serious he is, and somehow, he doesn't seem too shaken by this news. Maybe they've simply come to a point where he's desensitized to just how strange their lives are--or maybe it's as simple as he said. I'm not dating your father.

Leia tilts her head just enough to brush her lips against his--and hopes that serves as thank you and I'm sorry all at once. Thank you for staying with me, even though-- I'm sorry you have to say all this.

"I love you," she tells him, draping her arms around his neck.

Thinking too hard on the prospect of his own death is pretty damn miserable, which is why he hasn't been doing it. Much. Certainly not with company. On the other hand, there's an odd upside to it. He knows he'll live through the war. He knows they've got a few good decades together, and in an odd way that's not so different from the youthful sense of invulnerability he's grown out of. Their son's betrayal is something he'll have to make peace with, somehow, someday.

For now, though? Darth Vader isn't who he's worrying about.

I know, he might as well have said, smiling softly at her.

"C'mere, lay down."

She seems like she could use to curl up and not talk about this for a while, he thinks.

That smile is a great argument in favour of curling up in bed with Han--that smile and the utter weariness that comes with the thought of refusing. (What would she even do if she said no, I can't--? Even with everywhere to go, there's nowhere else she wants to be.)

"All right," she tells him. Twist my arm, why don't you. She crawls up to the pillows and drags back the freshly made sheets. "C'mere, yourself."

It's not so different from finding out about Ben. A generation back, instead of a generation forward, but they're each still the best thing for easing the pain the knowledge brings the other. And as long as room service keeps accepting their credits, there's no reason to do anything else with the day.

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everything a goddamn ordeal in area family.

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