A Bond Unbroken

[deeperwonderment]

Title: A Bond Unbroken
Fandom: Star Wars
Words: 2,156
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Han and Leia
Challenge: ladybug218's Lyrical Literature Fic Challenge.
Author's Note: I have played with canon just a little bit (my apologies to George Lucas.) I have set this fic shortly after the escape from Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine. For this fic, Luke learned of his family connection to Leia from Yoda in Empire Strikes Back and told her the truth shortly after they escaped from Tatooine. Processing this information, Leia decides that the best thing to do for Han would be to leave him and never come back. Because of this, she is not part of the ground assault on Endor, but instead is helping to coordinate attacks on other Imperial holdings at the same time.

~~Thanks to rhi_silverflame, kajivar, and illmantrim for the beta.~~






Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life -- "Landslide" by Stevie Knicks




Getting in that ship and flying away was one of the hardest things she had ever done. She knew if she didn't leave at that moment, she never would and everything would end up being destroyed. Perhaps she was taking the coward's way out, leaving while he was out a run to gather supplies and information for the next strike at the Empire. However, she knew that she wouldn't be able to look into those brown eyes she loved so much and tell him goodbye.

As usual these days, ever since they had managed to escape Tatooine, Luke had come to her side, sensing her distress and her pain.



"You don't have to do this, Leia." Luke had said, placing an arm around her shoulders. "Han wouldn't hold something like that against you."

"He may not, but Vader would definitely try to use me as a way to hurt him. He heard what I said to him when he was being lowered into that carbonite and now that he knows we've killed Jabba and rescued Han..." Her voice trailed off.

"And what of your hurt?"

"He destroyed Alderaan, Luke. I wasn't able to stop him. He destroyed Alderaan knowing that it would cause me pain. He wouldn't hesitate to hurt or kill Han if he thought he could destroy me that way."

"You think this will keep you safe?"

"No, but I think it will keep Han safe... at least from Vader."

"You love him enough to break his heart and destroy yourself."

"I would never hurt him if there were another way to keep him safe... and to keep him from finding out who Vader is."

"It's not your fault that Vader is our father, Leia."

"Perhaps not... but look at everything Vader has done to Han."

"Look at everything he has done to you."

Leia shook her head. "I won't watch him be tortured because Vader thinks it will force me to give him the information he wants on the Alliance."

"Would it?"

"Would it what?"

"Would him torturing Han force you to sell out the Alliance?"

Leia flinched and looked away from him and he reached out to grab her chin, making her look at him. "You're worried it would. You think you would sell out the entire cause to save him." He looked down at her. "Leia..." His voice was a soft whisper of disbelief and understanding of the pain she was in.


So now, here she was, flying away from the planet and away from her brother and the man that she loved. So many things had changed over the last several weeks. She had gained a twin brother, discovered the truth about her father... and had fallen in love with a scoundrel named Han Solo.

Leia tried not to think about what she was doing to them both or what she was leaving behind. She believed that what she was doing was the right thing --- but it still didn't make things any easier.

By the time she touched down on the flight dock of Baltizaar, she had almost convinced herself that it wouldn't hurt for very long. She knew Han would be much safer without her around -- but her heart was completely broken over her decision to leave him.

She wasn't surprised to find C-3PO waiting for her at the entrance to her quarters.

"Master Luke thought it best if he sent me to you, Your Highness," he said by way of greeting.

"And how did he know exactly where I was going?"

"I am only a droid, Your Highness, and would not know how Master Luke's mind works."

"No one in the known universe knows how Luke's mind works sometimes," Leia sighed and nodded. "Alright, Threepio. Thank you."



"Galen! Is that hyperdrive on the main cruiser going to be operational by the deadline?"

"It'll be ready long before then, Princess."

"Good to know. We're coming up on the time for our attack. I really don't want us caught unawares and have our equipment fail on us in the middle of a fire fight with the Imperial fighters."

"That won't happen, Princess."

"Please see that it doesn't. I have no desire to become the victim of a great big explosion over some planet."

"Understood."

Leia went to another one of their ships and started tightening down some of the loose components and fixtures in the control panels.

"Scranton!"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Are those special capacitors installed?"

"Just about finished!"

"Good. It's almost time to start firing up the supply freighters and moving them out to their designated locations."

"Your Highness?"

"Kind of busy here, Threepio."

"It is very important, Highness."

"Not right now, Threepio. We can talk when..." Leia picked up a wrench and headed to another ship, -- C-3PO close behind her, trying to get her to stop and listen to him. As she came around the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. A strangled sound made its way out of her throat and the wrench fell to the ground.

"What... no hello? It's been five years, and I don't even warrant a hello?"

"H-Han?"

Leia swallowed and blinked at him, not sure her eyes were working properly.

"Your vocal chords damaged, Your Worship?"

"Han?"

"Yeah, we've established that." He gave her a glare. "You are most certainly a hard woman to track down."

That look stung her deeply. "I'm surprised you even bothered," she snapped back, and then looked at C-3PO. "Threepio, what was it you needed to tell me?"

"That Master Luke arrived on the Millenium Falcon this afternoon and that he and Master Solo were on their way out here..."

"You couldn't have given me more warning?" Leia demanded.

"Master Luke instructed me not to."

Leia glared at C-3PO for a long moment and then looked at Han. There was a great deal that she wanted to say, but instead, she turned back to the ship she had been starting to work on. She wasn't expecting him to grab her hand to pull her away from the ship and force her to turn around and look at him.

"We need to talk."

Leia shook her head. "Not now. These ships..."

"Can be left in the capable hands of Chewie and your men. You owe me that much, Princess."

"I have work to do and you need a shave worse than a Wookiee."

"I'm also in a temper high enough to put a Wookiee to shame," he warned her. He glared at her again. "We can either talk here and cause a scene in front of your men, or we can go somewhere a little more private. Either way, Your Worship, we are damn well going to talk before you try to disappear again."

Leia sighed, her shoulders drooping just a little. "Alright," she said quietly. "We can go back to my quarters and talk. We won't be disturbed there."

The hard look in Han's eyes stabbed at her as she turned her head and led him through the mass of ships and other components before heading outside and into the storm that was raging. They walked for a few moments in silence before she stopped in front of a building and unlocked a door.

"Make yourself at home," she said as she ducked inside.

"Cozy," Han said as he came in and looked around. "It's smaller than I expected a Princess to have."

"I don't need much," Leia countered. "No matter what Threepio and Luke seem to keep thinking."

"Yeah, you certainly didn't need me, did you?"

Leia flinched. "Han..."

"No, I've had a good five years to get angry and work out what I was going to say to you if I ever found you and you are going to listen." He glared at her. "You left, Your Worship. You left me high and dry and you never even had the decency to say goodbye or tell me why you were leaving. After everything we went through, I though we had something, that you had come down off of you pedestal and you really gave a damn about someone other than your precious rebellion."

"I did... I do," Leia snapped back at him, reacting to the attack from him. "I did care about you, Han, deeply."

"You couldn't prove it by me, Princess," he bit out. "The moment I was out of the area for a supply run, you bailed on me quickly enough."

"I loved you," she repeated. "I told you that, more than once."

"So you ran out."

"I had no choice. I thought that what I did was the right thing to do under the circumstances."

"You had no choice? Oh, like you had no choice but to masquerade as a bounty hunter and go into some of the seediest parts of the Empire to make your arrangements at times?"

"How did you know about that?"

"Never mind. What were you thinking?! You could have been killed or worse!"

"It needed to be done and I would never ask any of the men to do anything that I wasn't willing to do myself."

"The last time you played at being a bounty hunter you ended up being a slave girl to Jabba the Hutt!"

"And why was that, Han?" Leia demanded. "Because your friend Lando sold us out to Vader who sold you out to that bounty hunter! Did you honestly think I was going to just let that happen and not try to find you and get you out of there?"

"So if you were just going to runaway afterwards, Princess, why did you risk yourself to come after me in the first place?"

"Because, though you may be an ill-mannered, scruffy looking nerf herder, I love you."

"So to show how much your love was worth, you ran away?" Han knew he was being harsh, but five years of worry and hurt over her disappearance caused his emotions to come out as anger and callousness. "You sure know how to make a guy feel special and important, Your Worship."

"I wasn't trying to hurt you, Han!"

"What makes you think that you hurt me, Princess?"

Leia flinched inwardly. She wasn't sure if she was relieved at the thought that her actions may not have hurt him -- or devastated that he didn't seem to have cared enough to be upset over her disappearance, except for the wound to his pride.

Leia... She heard the admonishing tone of her brother in her head.

Leia was off-balance in trying to deal with this. The love she felt for the smuggler known as Han Solo had not faded in the time they had been apart. "Han, you have every right to be angry," she attempted to say calmly. "But the reasons I left had nothing to do with my feelings for you changing at all. I had no choice. I had to leave before anything else happened."

"Like what? What possibly could have happened that would have been worse than anything else that we had already been through together?"

Leia looked down. She couldn't tell him about Vader. She didn't want to see that look in his eyes that she was so afraid of. After everything that Vader had done... how could Han accept her or still want to be around after that information was brought to light? "Having me around you guys is a dangerous thing right now, Han -- in more ways than one."

"Compared to what? I've been a smuggler and a space pirate for years, Princess. I had a bounty on my head from Jabba the Hutt that was one of the largest ever issued. I'm used to being in risky situations. I highly doubt anything now could be any more dangerous than what I am accustomed to." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You're going to need to come up with a better excuse than that, Leia."

When Leia didn't answer, Han gave her a disgusted look.

"When you're ready to stop lying and treat me like you actually care, like I am worth telling the truth too, look me up, but don't take too long, Princess." He walked over to the door and then glanced back at her over his shoulder. "I won't wait around forever, Your Worship. As soon as Luke says we're done here, I'm leaving... maybe for good this time."

Leia let him walk out the door, and then went over to the door to watch him walk away from her. She hadn't thought anything could hurt her more than the day she had left, but she had been wrong. Watching him go, knowing that he could be leaving forever soon, the princess retreated back into her quarters and sat staring into a fire for a very long time.

How did one tell the man you love that the monster that haunted their days was the monster that gave her life?