[Which is to say, I know. The memory still lives inside her, though, and there are times when her skin still crawls with remembered sensations. You don't forget the texture of a Hutt's tongue that easily.]
The alternative seemed worse. [She turns her head slightly in his direction, watching him from the corner of her eye.] We couldn't have left you behind.
[ his eyes are watching a spot on the ceiling, as he talks. luke and leia really could've just left -- they just chose not to, and han is grateful for that. he knows chewie wouldn't have stopped until he found han, and he knows lando probably wouldn't have either. under threat of death from said wookiee, or maybe because he cares.
who knows. ]
But I'm glad you didn't.
[ han pauses, though. ]
He deserved worse than whatever you gave him.
[ he has no idea what happened, really, on much of that day. he had been out of it, and blind, and trying to recover in way less time than was needed. everyone was fine, in the end, but a lot of the details are hazy. and luke and leia hadn't exactly been forthcoming with the information. ]
[She had loved him, and she'd lost too many people she loved in too few years. The thought of knowing where he was and doing nothing about it--when, this time, something could be done--would have been impossible to bear.
Waiting for the opportunity had been bad enough. She can't count how many times her thoughts strayed to him during Operation Yellow Moon.
Leia's lips press together into a thin line, her gaze shifting away from Han's profile into the middle distance.]
He was never going to pay for the things he did.
[A new bitterness slides through her voice. Jabba the Hutt had years to indulge his gluttony unchecked, and the number of lives he'd ruined--or snuffed out entirely--must have been astronomical. As thoroughly as Leia believes in her ideals, she doesn't think there's any punishment possible to balance the crimes he committed or the slaves he kept.]
Choking him with the chain he put around my neck will have to be good enough.
[ there's a silence, at that, and han looks over at her, his brow furrowed.
chain around her neck? was that what jabba had done with her after capturing her? put a chain around her neck and... done what, exactly? did what with her? or to her?
the urge to be angry is pretty compelling, and he is -- furious, that jabba had thought it was acceptable to treat her that way, but anger won't help leia now. instead, han gently pushes himself closer to drape an arm over her shoulders. ]
Should've dragged his body behind the Falcon for a few thousand miles.
[Leia can guess what he's thinking--not in detail, but that dark little comment doesn't come out of nowhere, and she knows Han. If he'd seen her at her most humiliated...
She'll never stop being grateful that he didn't. That Luke had to is bad enough.
When he puts an arm around her, she doesn't shrug it off, but she doesn't curl into his side like she usually does, either. The cot's not all that stable--that's the excuse if she needs one, though she doubts she does--and Han's warmth is no protection from the facts of the matter.]
You worked for him.
[Not accusatory, just a statement of fact. She doesn't meet his gaze.]
You know how he treated his...
[Slaves.
She doesn't want to have to say it aloud. The fact that she was counted among Jabba the Hutt's personal possessions--the fact that his includes her, if only for a few days--churns her stomach.]
[ han is quiet for a long moment before heaving a sigh. ]
-- Jabba picked me up after he heard about the Kessel Run.
[ it's not often that he talks about his past (and even now, he's leaving a lot out), but han feels like leia, of all people, deserves to know how han wound up working for jabba in the first place. ]
He paid well, and he paid me... a lot. But I got boarded one run by the Empire, and I had to drop the cargo, 'cause I made the stupid mistake of thinking Jabba might want his best man not in a jail cell, but turns out he got pissed when I couldn't reimburse him for what I had to drop, and put a price on my head instead.
[ which is pretty common knowledge, in the underworld. when jabba the hutt got pissed at someone, the entire galaxy tended to know about it, especially when that person was han solo. ]
When Kenobi and Luke found me, I was trying to get out of it. I figured if I could pick up a few more jobs, i could pay Jabba off, and get the hell away from him -- but Ben promised me seventeen thousand credits to bring them to Alderaan. Which was what I needed. I was gonna use it to pay Jabba back, get away from him... [ han exhales, puffing out his cheeks slightly as he considers it. ] Which obviously didn't happen.
[ han had come back for luke, and then they had relocated to hoth. and when han tried to leave, the empire had found them. and then... well, the rest leia knows. jabba is dead, but there's alway going to be scum like jabba in the world. and han considers that before continuing. ]
There's a difference between... robbing people who deserve it and then there's people like Jabba, who deserve to get lobbed into the nearest black hole. He's got nothing worth saving, or adding. I used to want to rip out his tongue and feed it to Chewie, but I didn't want to poison my first mate.
[For this, she does look over at him. So much of Han is expression that if he's going to tell a story--or part of one, as the case might be--she wants to watch.
And she's silent, letting his words unfold as they will without interruption. He needs to account for himself as much as she needs him to explain, she suspects. It's a story that's easy enough to imagine: Han, hungry for greater glories and beginning to put his trust in someone whose concerns are too selfish to justify it. And it twists into the story of something larger, the story of them, and larger still into the story of the war.
When he finishes, she waits a moment or two. First, to make sure there isn't more to come, and then, to find words of her own.]
It's a good thing you didn't. I doubt his tongue tasted any better than it smelled.
[Or felt. Or looked. She wouldn't feed Jabba's remains to a dianoga.
A long pause, one she spends the whole time on the verge of speaking, changing her mind, and getting ready to speak again.]
[ it's said quietly, and han lets his eyes shift down to his hands settled in his lap. he's not really sure what to say after that -- i know you don't, but you should? i know you don't, but if it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been involved in the first place?
how would that have worked? if han had just left and never come back -- paid jabba and gone along his merry way. he would've been miserable. alone. luke might have died. leia, too. the torture and the carbonite and all of that was worth it, in the long run, because he had them. and her. so, in reverse, all of them had to suffer to get what they needed in the end.
still. ]
I got involved with him because it was what I was good at, but...
[ han trails off, trying to figure out what to say. he's excellent at getting what he wants out of people, and sweet-talking his way out of certain death, but talking about your feelings is a lot harder. or talking about your past. your motivations. what drives you to do something versus what doesn't. ]
I didn't have anyone before it caught up to me.
[ jabba had nothing to use against han to get what he wanted, except his own life. ]
[Leia waits, sensing the way he's still drawing up the words, however slowly. Once, she would have called it intuition, and perhaps that's part of it, but now she suspects it's the Force, too. Wait, listen, let him find his way on his own. That quiet sense
She reaches over to take his hand, her slender fingers curling around his. For a moment, she studies his knuckles, her thumb brushing gently over them, letting a response of her own come to her.]
And when you did, he lost everything.
[Whatever else happened, the fact of the matter is that Han will never have Jabba breathing down his neck again. She hopes his bloated body rots away to nothing.]
If I could do it over again, I'd come up with a different plan. [She doesn't know what it would be, but ideally, certain things would go very differently.] But I'd never leave you behind. I never will.
[ it's quiet, and han inclines his head to look over at her, with a faint smile. he squeezes her fingers before leaning over to give her a kiss, exhaling softly. ]
I'm just thinking out loud.
[ it's not meant to guilt, it's not meant to dwell, but just sort of... say what's been floating around on his mind. and to also say, quietly, now that they have privacy -- ]
You're not gonna have to go through anything like that again.
[It's a kiss she suspects they both need, on some level--a small reminder of who they are to each other, and how that, if nothing else, is a point in their favour when they're up against the wall. They're still as human as ever, as fallible, but they have each other.
She'd rather know what's on his mind than not, especially about this. And she'd rather take the opportunity to offer some reassurance, especially since he does the same. Her expression is still a moment, watching him, and then she gives him a weak smile of her own.]
I know.
[She doesn't, if she's entirely honest, but she wants to believe it more than any other promise she's been made.]
At this rate, we might not go through anything again. [Dryly, in search of some levity.] It doesn't usually take us two weeks to mount our daring escapes.
[She hesitates, but after a moment, she capitulates, carefully sliding nearer to him. The cot creaks a little under them--you get used to it eventually.]
As fascinating as being caged in substandard ships is, we have business on Endor. [She pauses.] By the time we get back, it'll probably be business on Coruscant.
[ somewhere, or something, whatever. he's content with sitting close with her now, enjoying her company, and he settles back against the wall to close his eyes. ]
[...But I don't like not knowing goes unsaid, but it's obvious enough in the way her voice trails off. She watches him relaxing into their little embrace, the corners of her mouth slinking up as he closes his eyes.
How he can be quite so relaxed about the uncertainty at home, she might never know, but it's awfully tempting to try to mimic it. Impetuously, she kisses his cheek.]
[ han has perfected the art of relaxation in times of stress, mostly because there's not much else to do but wait. the man had been perfectly content to chill on the death star until obi-wan kenobi opened the doors, after all. and he has leia, and luke, and they're safe. there's not much more he can ask for while being held prisoner.
his lips twitch upward at the kiss on the cheek. ]
[ he could take a nap right, to be honest, and leia is nice and warm resting up against him. he knows he needs to figure a way out of here, and he knows he needs to do it as soon as possible, but he has most of what he needs to get by every day here. han can survive, and be patient, for now.
han is quiet for a few more seconds before speaking again, tone lazy. ]
Pretty sure if I needed a reason, I'd never get anything.
[Despite everything--the dimming spectre of Jabba, their current location, the fact that she's been sleeping on a cot that looks like it belongs in a tent and eating cubes of protein product--she can't help but start to feel overwhelmingly comfortable. Han's voice is a fond rumble, his arm a familiar weight around her. Her own answer is a lazy smile and her head tilting a little to rest against his.]
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no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 07:08 pm (UTC)[Which is to say, I know. The memory still lives inside her, though, and there are times when her skin still crawls with remembered sensations. You don't forget the texture of a Hutt's tongue that easily.]
The alternative seemed worse. [She turns her head slightly in his direction, watching him from the corner of her eye.] We couldn't have left you behind.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 07:22 pm (UTC)[ his eyes are watching a spot on the ceiling, as he talks. luke and leia really could've just left -- they just chose not to, and han is grateful for that. he knows chewie wouldn't have stopped until he found han, and he knows lando probably wouldn't have either. under threat of death from said wookiee, or maybe because he cares.
who knows. ]
But I'm glad you didn't.
[ han pauses, though. ]
He deserved worse than whatever you gave him.
[ he has no idea what happened, really, on much of that day. he had been out of it, and blind, and trying to recover in way less time than was needed. everyone was fine, in the end, but a lot of the details are hazy. and luke and leia hadn't exactly been forthcoming with the information. ]
no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 07:34 pm (UTC)[She had loved him, and she'd lost too many people she loved in too few years. The thought of knowing where he was and doing nothing about it--when, this time, something could be done--would have been impossible to bear.
Waiting for the opportunity had been bad enough. She can't count how many times her thoughts strayed to him during Operation Yellow Moon.
Leia's lips press together into a thin line, her gaze shifting away from Han's profile into the middle distance.]
He was never going to pay for the things he did.
[A new bitterness slides through her voice. Jabba the Hutt had years to indulge his gluttony unchecked, and the number of lives he'd ruined--or snuffed out entirely--must have been astronomical. As thoroughly as Leia believes in her ideals, she doesn't think there's any punishment possible to balance the crimes he committed or the slaves he kept.]
Choking him with the chain he put around my neck will have to be good enough.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 07:49 pm (UTC)chain around her neck? was that what jabba had done with her after capturing her? put a chain around her neck and... done what, exactly? did what with her? or to her?
the urge to be angry is pretty compelling, and he is -- furious, that jabba had thought it was acceptable to treat her that way, but anger won't help leia now. instead, han gently pushes himself closer to drape an arm over her shoulders. ]
Should've dragged his body behind the Falcon for a few thousand miles.
[ it's said under his breath.
-- maybe a little anger. ]
no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 07:59 pm (UTC)She'll never stop being grateful that he didn't. That Luke had to is bad enough.
When he puts an arm around her, she doesn't shrug it off, but she doesn't curl into his side like she usually does, either. The cot's not all that stable--that's the excuse if she needs one, though she doubts she does--and Han's warmth is no protection from the facts of the matter.]
You worked for him.
[Not accusatory, just a statement of fact. She doesn't meet his gaze.]
You know how he treated his...
[Slaves.
She doesn't want to have to say it aloud. The fact that she was counted among Jabba the Hutt's personal possessions--the fact that his includes her, if only for a few days--churns her stomach.]
no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 08:26 pm (UTC)-- Jabba picked me up after he heard about the Kessel Run.
[ it's not often that he talks about his past (and even now, he's leaving a lot out), but han feels like leia, of all people, deserves to know how han wound up working for jabba in the first place. ]
He paid well, and he paid me... a lot. But I got boarded one run by the Empire, and I had to drop the cargo, 'cause I made the stupid mistake of thinking Jabba might want his best man not in a jail cell, but turns out he got pissed when I couldn't reimburse him for what I had to drop, and put a price on my head instead.
[ which is pretty common knowledge, in the underworld. when jabba the hutt got pissed at someone, the entire galaxy tended to know about it, especially when that person was han solo. ]
When Kenobi and Luke found me, I was trying to get out of it. I figured if I could pick up a few more jobs, i could pay Jabba off, and get the hell away from him -- but Ben promised me seventeen thousand credits to bring them to Alderaan. Which was what I needed. I was gonna use it to pay Jabba back, get away from him... [ han exhales, puffing out his cheeks slightly as he considers it. ] Which obviously didn't happen.
[ han had come back for luke, and then they had relocated to hoth. and when han tried to leave, the empire had found them. and then... well, the rest leia knows. jabba is dead, but there's alway going to be scum like jabba in the world. and han considers that before continuing. ]
There's a difference between... robbing people who deserve it and then there's people like Jabba, who deserve to get lobbed into the nearest black hole. He's got nothing worth saving, or adding. I used to want to rip out his tongue and feed it to Chewie, but I didn't want to poison my first mate.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-13 11:00 pm (UTC)And she's silent, letting his words unfold as they will without interruption. He needs to account for himself as much as she needs him to explain, she suspects. It's a story that's easy enough to imagine: Han, hungry for greater glories and beginning to put his trust in someone whose concerns are too selfish to justify it. And it twists into the story of something larger, the story of them, and larger still into the story of the war.
When he finishes, she waits a moment or two. First, to make sure there isn't more to come, and then, to find words of her own.]
It's a good thing you didn't. I doubt his tongue tasted any better than it smelled.
[Or felt. Or looked. She wouldn't feed Jabba's remains to a dianoga.
A long pause, one she spends the whole time on the verge of speaking, changing her mind, and getting ready to speak again.]
...I don't blame you.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-14 04:59 am (UTC)[ it's said quietly, and han lets his eyes shift down to his hands settled in his lap. he's not really sure what to say after that -- i know you don't, but you should? i know you don't, but if it weren't for me, you wouldn't have been involved in the first place?
how would that have worked? if han had just left and never come back -- paid jabba and gone along his merry way. he would've been miserable. alone. luke might have died. leia, too. the torture and the carbonite and all of that was worth it, in the long run, because he had them. and her. so, in reverse, all of them had to suffer to get what they needed in the end.
still. ]
I got involved with him because it was what I was good at, but...
[ han trails off, trying to figure out what to say. he's excellent at getting what he wants out of people, and sweet-talking his way out of certain death, but talking about your feelings is a lot harder. or talking about your past. your motivations. what drives you to do something versus what doesn't. ]
I didn't have anyone before it caught up to me.
[ jabba had nothing to use against han to get what he wanted, except his own life. ]
no subject
Date: 2016-01-15 12:07 am (UTC)She reaches over to take his hand, her slender fingers curling around his. For a moment, she studies his knuckles, her thumb brushing gently over them, letting a response of her own come to her.]
And when you did, he lost everything.
[Whatever else happened, the fact of the matter is that Han will never have Jabba breathing down his neck again. She hopes his bloated body rots away to nothing.]
If I could do it over again, I'd come up with a different plan. [She doesn't know what it would be, but ideally, certain things would go very differently.] But I'd never leave you behind. I never will.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-17 12:31 am (UTC)[ it's quiet, and han inclines his head to look over at her, with a faint smile. he squeezes her fingers before leaning over to give her a kiss, exhaling softly. ]
I'm just thinking out loud.
[ it's not meant to guilt, it's not meant to dwell, but just sort of... say what's been floating around on his mind. and to also say, quietly, now that they have privacy -- ]
You're not gonna have to go through anything like that again.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-17 01:30 am (UTC)She'd rather know what's on his mind than not, especially about this. And she'd rather take the opportunity to offer some reassurance, especially since he does the same. Her expression is still a moment, watching him, and then she gives him a weak smile of her own.]
I know.
[She doesn't, if she's entirely honest, but she wants to believe it more than any other promise she's been made.]
At this rate, we might not go through anything again. [Dryly, in search of some levity.] It doesn't usually take us two weeks to mount our daring escapes.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-19 02:21 am (UTC)[ lightly, settling back into his usual dismissive self, and han gently circles his arm around her a bit more snugly. come here, leia. ]
You mean to tell me you're not enjoying your trip through reality television? Strike me down where I stand.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-19 02:53 am (UTC)As fascinating as being caged in substandard ships is, we have business on Endor. [She pauses.] By the time we get back, it'll probably be business on Coruscant.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 05:23 am (UTC)[ somewhere, or something, whatever. he's content with sitting close with her now, enjoying her company, and he settles back against the wall to close his eyes. ]
I'm sure someone's got it under control.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-20 06:43 pm (UTC)[...But I don't like not knowing goes unsaid, but it's obvious enough in the way her voice trails off. She watches him relaxing into their little embrace, the corners of her mouth slinking up as he closes his eyes.
How he can be quite so relaxed about the uncertainty at home, she might never know, but it's awfully tempting to try to mimic it. Impetuously, she kisses his cheek.]
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 03:37 am (UTC)his lips twitch upward at the kiss on the cheek. ]
What was that for?
no subject
Date: 2016-01-22 06:00 pm (UTC)She settles back into his side, giving him a little smile bordering on smug.]
I need a reason?
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 12:58 am (UTC)[ he could take a nap right, to be honest, and leia is nice and warm resting up against him. he knows he needs to figure a way out of here, and he knows he needs to do it as soon as possible, but he has most of what he needs to get by every day here. han can survive, and be patient, for now.
han is quiet for a few more seconds before speaking again, tone lazy. ]
Pretty sure if I needed a reason, I'd never get anything.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-23 02:30 am (UTC)You're your own reason, Han.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-25 01:56 am (UTC)[ under his breath, amused, and he draws his fingers along her arm, in quiet thought.
stuck with her, that's not so bad. ]