AN: Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed over the last few weeks! Life's been crazy and I haven't had the chance to review, but I did read them all, and I truly appreciated them! My goal this week is to get to them!
Thank you to the wonderful amilynh for betaing this, and for helping me clean this up from an earlier, much uglier version. You're a lifesaver!
I am not really sure if this should be considered an AU or a fix-it, but whatever it is, here's the premise: Han and Leia haven't split up and are out and about in the galaxy together (with Chewie) when they come across the Falcon. This is a few scenes, both from the movie and original, detailing what it might have been like to have Han and Leia together.
"We're home," Han mumbled. Leia's grip tightened on his arm. Chewie rumbled an agreement from behind. They stood in awe for a moment, staring around the freighter that looked the same as it did when they'd lost it all those years ago. Han nodded at Chewbacca, and they broke off to go check other parts of the ship. Han headed straight for the cockpit and the wookiee made a beeline for the engine room. Leia walked slowly down the access corridor, letting the force guide her.
There was something here, something very strong, very powerful.
Her booted feet stopped just short of one of the smuggling holds. She could just barely see inside, and she caught a flash of movement and a gasp of breath. Han came hurrying in excitedly from the cockpit, words just about to spill over his lips. He halted when she pointed into the hold. Chewbacca clamored in just then, too, and Leia made the same gesture.
Han drew his blaster and Leia did likewise. Chewie yanked the grate off the compartment.
The two beings inside held up their hands, frightened as they looked down the barrels of the blasters.
"Where's the others? Where's the pilot?" Han demanded.
"I—I'm the pilot," the girl answered.
"You?" Han stated with disbelief. Chewbacca moaned.
"No, no it's true! We're the only ones on board," she insisted. Han and Leia shared a significant glance. She could speak Shyriiwook. That was a rare skill nowadays.
"You can understand that thing?" the man asked, looking incredulously at his partner.
"Yes, and that thing can understand you, so watch it," Leia insisted. Han hauled first the woman, then the man, out of the hole, then returned to his wife's side.
"Where'd you get this ship?" Han asked.
"Niima Outpost," the girl answered boldly. Han turned incredulously to his wife and his copilot.
"Jakku?! That junkyard?" he demanded. Leia shrugged.
"Thank you! Junkyard!" stated the man.
"Told ya we should've double-checked the Western Reaches!" Han mumbled. "Who had it, Ducain?"
"I stole it from Unkar Plutt. He stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain," the girl recited. Han and Leia exchanged a glance.
"Who stole it from me!" Han completed. "Well, you tell him Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good," he informed the girl before turning to Leia and nodding concisely, as if it were the end of a discussion they hadn't been having. Han turned away from them, taking in the ship. The wheels were turning in his head, trying to figure out where to start, what to do first. Leia's gaze fell on the girl, who was looking at Han in stunned silence.
"This-this is the Millennium Falcon? You're Han Solo? The smuggler?" she breathed.
"Yeah, that's me, kid," Han answered, meandering back toward the cockpit.
"This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!" she said, starting after him.
"Twelve!" Han hollered.
"Fourteen," Leia corrected in a voice low enough for Han not to hear. The girl smiled conspiratorially.
"If he's Han Solo, that would make you the General. General Organa," guessed the man, coming to Leia.
"That would be correct."
"I'm Finn, and I have your droid—BB8," he beckoned.
"How did you end up with Dameron's droid?"
Finn recounted his short adventure, leaving out the part about him being a storm trooper.
"Thank you for continuing Poe's mission. That's why Han and I were in this area. We came to look for him and BB8. He has—" Leia was cut off as her husband and the girl came back from the cockpit.
"Some moof-milker put a compressor on the ignition line," Han grumbled, heading down the corridor to the access panel that covered the hyperdrive.
"Unkar Plutt did. I thought it was a mistake too, puts too much stress on the hype—"
"The hyperdrive," Han agreed, yanking the paneling back. "Chewie, put 'em in an escape pod, we'll drop them at the nearest inhabited planet."
"Han, we can't do that. They have it. They have the map," Leia stated. Han turned quickly.
"To Luke?"
She nodded.
"We can't just leave them here."
Any discussion of the matter was halted by a loud noise from the outside the ship.
"I got a bad feeling about this," Han mumbled.
00
"Sweetheart, the door!" Han called back. Leia squeezed off a shot in the direction of the controls, hoping it would find its mark and buy them a few extra minutes. She stumbled forward and his hand shot out to her, offering stability as they ran.
"Is Chewie hit?" she asked as they raced across the cargo bay.
"Yeah, t'sfine. You'll haffta fly with me," he said, leading her up the ramp behind Finn and Chewie. They went straight to the cockpit, Han yelling at Finn not to hurt Chewbacca as they ran past the medbay. "Get the coordinates in," he told Leia. He sat down in the pilot's seat and began preparing for fast lift off.
Rey burst in then and sat down in the copilot's chair.
"What are you doin'?"
"Unkar Plutt installed a fuel pump, too. If we don't prime that we're not going anywhere," Rey explained, hitting buttons with just as much precision as Han was.
"I hate that guy," Han muttered to Leia.
"And you could use a copilot," Rey supposed.
"I got two," Han defended, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
"Yes, hotshot, and we're both a little incapacitated at the moment," Leia shot back, trying to resist the urge to kick the nonresponsive navicomputer.
"Whatever. Strap in, both of you. We're goin' out of here at lightspeed."
"From inside the hangar? Is that even possible?"
"I never ask that question 'til after I've done it," he replied, flipping the switch that readied the hyperspace engines for the jump.
"Han…" Leia stated in a warning tone.
"We'll be fine sweetheart," he soothed, sparing a glance over his shoulder.
Chewbacca screamed from the medbay, followed by nervous shouts from Finn that everything was alright.
"Come on, baby, don't fail me now," Han begged under his breath. He pushed the lever—nothing.
"It's the compressor," Rey realized hitting a few things on her side of the consol.
"Right, compressor…" Han flipped the lever again and they jolted from the hangar bay.
00
They'd been in hyperspace for about 10 minutes, and Leia was considering heading to the galley to see if there were any supplies on board.
A warning light started flashing on the console. Three more blinked on a moment later, and Han sat forward to assess the problem. Alarms started sounding in rapid succession.
"That's not good," he mumbled. Rey leaned over to read the gauges and warning lights, too. "Not good."
Lights flashed and alarms blared, and Han and Rey worked hurriedly to get things under control to no avail.
"This hyperdrive blows there's gonna be pieces of us in three different systems."
"Must you be so graphic?" Leia asked. Han opened his mouth to respond, but the alarms suddenly silenced and the lights on the console went dark.
"What'd you do?"
"I bypassed the compressor," Rey answered, holding up a bit of wire. Han looked at Leia. She shrugged.
"Huh," was all he could come up with. He took the bit of wire from her fingers and examined it for a moment before heading toward the main part of the ship.
"He's impressed," Leia told Rey. "He's not an easy one to impress." Rey smiled proudly.
"Sweetheart, this ball wants to show you the map."
00
"It's not complete." Leia sighed dejectedly. Han's arm tightened around her.
"We'll find the rest of it. You know we will," he promised, kissing her temple. Leia shook her head and pulled out of his embrace, walking away.
Chewie let out an inquisitive moan.
"She just needs a few minutes. I'll go in a little bit," Han placated.
"Is…everything…" Finn began.
"Ever since Luke disappeared, people have been looking for him. She's been looking for him. We both have."
"Why'd he leave?"
"He was training a new generation of Jedi. One boy, an apprentice turned against him, destroyed it all. Luke felt responsible... He walked away from everything." Han walked through the misty blue projection that somehow led to his brother-in-law. It was all so…so stupid, everything they'd had to go through to get to this point. He'd known that there was very little chance that Luke had left the map all in one piece, and he knew Leia was aware of that, too, but it hadn't kept them from hoping, just maybe…the disappointment was yet another to add to a frighteningly tall pile.
"Do you know what happened to him?"
"There're a lot of rumors. Stories. Leia 'n' me, we think he went looking for the first Jedi temple," Han explained.
"The Jedi were real?"
"I used to wonder that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo…magical power holding together good, evil, the dark side and the light." Han paused for a moment. "Crazy thing is, it's true. The Force, the Jedi, all of it. It's all true."
"Wow," Rey breathed.
"I'm gonna go find Leia."
00
Leia was in the galley, looking through the cabinets to see what was still there.
"Our mugs are still in this cabinet," she mumbled. "There's a pretty big crack in Chewbacca's." Han leaned against the counter, content to let her ramble until she'd pulled herself together. "Those are the only things left in here. Scavengers on Jakku probably got to it a long time ago."
"Mhm," he answered, running his finger over the long crack in Chewie's giant mug. Leia's eyes squeezed shut like they did when she was forbidding tears from falling, and he reached for her hand.
"What if the map's gone, too? Who knows how many pieces it's in, and where he hid them…They could be anywhere."
"Your brother's a pretty smart guy, Sweetheart. We'll find him. We're one piece closer already." Leia wound her arms around him.
"I knew that it wouldn't be in one piece. But, I hoped…I hoped I was wrong and that it would be together, or that we'd at least be able to figure out what sector he's in…"
"Leia, look at me. We didn't give up in that trash compactor when we were five minutes away from being squeezed to death. We didn't give up when the hyperdrive failed in the middle of open space. We didn't give up when they built a new Death Star or when they didn't believe that there was an Imperial uprising or when our son turned. We didn't give up then, and we sure as hell aren't going to give up now. Deal?" She nodded in agreement. They kissed to seal the deal.
"Where is the—I'm sorry," Rey turned around abruptly, hurrying out the way she came in.
"I forgot how hard it is to kiss on this ship," Han muttered.
"We always found a way to make it work," she remembered.
"That we did. How'd we do that again?" he asked, peppering playful kisses down the side of her face and neck.
"Mmm, the cockpit…our cabin," she listed.
"Might be a little crowded, with the kid up there pokin' around."
"Hey, Mr. Solo—Captain, sir, what are the sleeping arrangements?" Finn interrupted awkwardly.
"Chewie's takin' the crew quarters. She can take the medbunk, and you get the acceleration couch," Han directed, pointing Rey to the bed and Finn toward the lounge.
"Captain, you failed to assign me sleeping quarters," Leia teased.
"Right next to me, Princess. Wouldn't have it any other way."
00
Leia found one of her old nightgowns still in the locker in their cabin. It was a little musty and a little tight, but it would suffice. There was still some extra bedding in that locker, too, and she forced down memories of tucking her son in with those blankets many moons ago.
Finn was attempting to make himself comfortable on the acceleration couch when Leia emerged from her cabin. He accepted an extra pillow from her only after sneaking a glance to see if Rey had a suitable amount.
Rey was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the medbunk, looking around in wonder at everything.
"I can't believe this is real," she murmured to Leia. "I heard stories about this ship, and about your husband and you…they were magnificent. He…he's my hero," Rey admitted quietly.
"Don't let him catch you saying that. We're not quite as legendary as we're made out to be," Leia brushed off.
"It's still magnificent," Rey insisted. Leia smiled softly.
"Thanks. Here's an extra blanket; it can get a little drafty in this part of the ship," she explained. Rey accepted the blanket and stretched out in the bunk.
Leia followed the curved corridor up to the cockpit, knowing that her husband would be there. She'd seen him sitting in that cockpit hundreds of times before, and tonight was no different: he was in his chair with his feet kicked out far in front of him, elbow propped on the arm of his chair, scruffy chin in hand. He'd sit out there to think, or to look at the stars, when he couldn't sleep, when he was stressed. Usually, he would look out the viewport in slight amazement at the stars whizzing by, but tonight, he was looking fondly over the control panels. His fingers traced each row of buttons and knobs and switches with a loving familiarity that wasn't unlike the way he traced her own curves and lines.
She stepped up beside him and put her arm gently over his shoulders. He leaned his head into her waist and wound his arm around her.
"I'd given up all hope of ever being back in this chair," he stated.
"I know."
"It's gonna take some work, but I'll get her back to normal again," he promised. "I'll be flyin' her for your fleet again soon, Princess." Leia smiled and pressed a kiss into his graying hair.
"Can we start in the morning?" she asked. Han nodded and rose from his chair, giving the console one final, affectionate pat. They crawled into their bed together and Leia curled into his side.
"This mattress got a lot harder," Han complained, shifting uncomfortably before putting his arm around her.
"Are you sure it's not just you being older?" she teased, running her fingers over his chest.
"Pretty sure it's the mattress, your worship," Han insisted. Leia chuckled and stretched up for a kiss. They lay together in the dark for a few moments, appreciating the familiar sounds of the Falcon.
"It doesn't matter. We're home."
AN: Thanks for reading, please leave a review! Next week, I have a Politician and the Truck Driver 'verse fic for you, and I think you'll really enjoy it! After that, I'll probably be taking a brief hiatus for the end of the semester, just so that I can really focus finals and on getting Organas finished! ON