Committed

by CorellianBlue

(first published 2003, revised 2016, 2020)

Warnings: language; sexual content; mental health issues

I

Fingers quivered over the butt of his blaster, stretching, anticipating the moment of draw.

Focus set on the target remote hovering across the other side of the hold from him.

Breathing slow and shallow as he went through the sequence of the drill in his mind; visualising the movement of muscles and tendons to raise the weapon from the holster, level, aim, the gentle twitch of finger to squeeze the trigger…

Han Solo had performed this practice sequence a million times before: here in the main hold of the Millennium Falcon, and in countless different holo-ranges. He had successfully outdrawn more sentient lifeforms than he cared to think about. Only one opponent had ever beaten him, and even then it had taken a professional gunslinger to achieve this. Han still bore scars from that close call.

Despite his impressive record, a doubt had crept into the faith he held in his own abilities.

I can do this I can do this I can do this—

Without warning, the target remote shot diagonally towards him on a burst of repulsor power. Solo ducked and rolled to the side, the blaster instinctively in his hand before he hit the deck. Levelling the DL-44 at his hip, he aimed and squeezed the trigger.

He yelped as the remote's tracer beam caught him on the lower leg. His own shot sailed across the top of the globe, impacting harmlessly on the bulkhead safety cushions. Before the remote could fire again, he slapped the droid caller on his belt and deactivated the device. The orb powered down and dropped to the deck with a clang.

Recovering from the drill, Han sucked in his breath, resting his back and shoulders against chill and hardness of the deckplates as punishment for his failure. Failure not once, but ten times in as many minutes.

An overwhelming self-disgust washed away his initial rush of adrenaline. He closed his eyes, wiped the sweat from his brow with the edge of his hand. Nothing had been right since returning to the Alliance fleet after his rescue from Tatooine.

Not since Bespin. It's all been fucked since Bespin.

He didn't want to think about it, but he knew why his speed-draw was failing: carbonite. Just another fucked up effect of having been frozen in carbonite for nearly one Standard year. As if the nightmares, insomnia and other problems weren't enough.

One more damn thing…

Han raised his head, let it fall unchecked to the deck—

…one more damn thing…

—raised it again, allowed it to fall—

…one more damn thing…

—beating the back of his head against the deckplates until it ached.

It took a concerted effort for him to roll over and push himself off the deck, cursing the numbing after-effects of the tracer beam. His hip throbbed, and he winced as he prodded the bruise, cringing further when he thought about how Leia would react to this new injury.

She had been coddling him since he'd been discharged from the medical center: ensuring he weaned himself back onto solid food and kept himself hydrated; worrying over his inability to sleep soundly for longer than an hour at a time. When she saw the contusion on his hip, she would become even more unbearable.

That's not fair, Han thought with an annoyed shake of his head, and then vaguely wondered why the back of his skull felt tender, unable to immediately recall hitting his head on anything. If anyone's unbearable, it's been me.

He had become increasingly snappy and short-tempered over the last few days. He had originally pegged his mood being a result of the sedatives that had been pumped into him for over sixty hours. Hibernation sickness had plagued him throughout the journey back to the Rebel fleet, his body racked by spasms as it had purged itself of the carbonite while he wallowed in and out of delirium. Once onboard the Calamari cruiser, the examining doctor had ordered him to rest and recuperate. The only way to convince Han about the efficacy of this direction was to sedate him before he'd had a chance to argue. After being sedated for sixty hours, it had taken another nine hours for him to wake up.

Things had steadily gone downhill for him from there.

The washed-out feeling he'd had upon awakening had not dissipated, and it appeared to have taken up permanent residence in his chest and legs. He persistently felt one step short of exhaustion; at times, almost breathless with fatigue.

There had been nightmares—trapped in carbonite; tortured on the scan grid; watching Leia's face as he was lowered into the carbon freezing chamber and not knowing her fate. As a result, he had been disinclined to sleep, which made him more tired and irritable.

Then there had been the problems caused by the urinary catheter he'd had inserted during his sedation. For over a day he'd been unable to pass urine without the burning agony causing him to grimace and whimper. The anti-inflammatory gel had eventually helped calm things down. But it had also misled him into getting his hopes up on another front.

On their second night back together, Han had attempted to make love with Leia. He blanched at the memory—an attempt was all it was. Despite their mutual desire and eagerness, the one part of his anatomy crucial to the manoeuvre had remained under sedation. There had been two nights since then and two more attempts, and still he and Leia were yet to pick up their relationship from the point they had left it on Bespin.

Han could tell it was starting to frustrate Leia. Hell, he was already beyond the frustrated stage and rushing head long towards panicked.

What if things never returned to the way they had been? He couldn't bear to cast a stray thought towards that outcome. The idea that he might never experience that level of intimacy again with Leia was more horrifying than anything his nightmares could come up with.

The long, slow flight to Bespin had the best thing to have ever happened to him in his life. Away from the Alliance and the Empire, Leia had revealed how she really felt about him: she loved him. Han had quickly come to the realisation that he loved her in return. With nothing else to do and 38 days to do it in, they had spent their time exploring this new stage of their relationship and exploring each other.

Their days cooped up on the Millennium Falcon had turned into love and laughter. Han had rediscovered a part of himself he had long forgotten. It may have been mushy to think it, but Leia completed him, and not just in sexual way. He loved that woman more, than anything.

Han was returning his blaster to its holster when he realised his hand was trembling. He drew his weapon closer and watched the tendons twitch in the back of his hand. He raised his arm, held it out as though aiming, sighting down the barrel of the blaster. From this perspective, the slight quake of his hand became a noticeable shake; no wonder his aim was off.

The heavy blaster pistol flew from his hand as he flung it across the hold. The DL-44 bounced against the bulkhead, triggering a burst of tracer fire, before the weapon smashed to the deck, firing twice more as it clattered against the plates. Han kicked the target remote out of his way and stormed down the ring corridor towards his cabin.

By the time he had stripped himself naked and was standing in the refresher stall, he was breathless with rage. He tilted his head up, mouth open as the cold stream of water gushed over him. The white-hot fury consumed him, searing him inside and out.

It started out as a growl, an expression of his anger and frustration, quickly gathered strength and momentum, reverberating in the confines of the refresher until it became a full-throated howl. Han stood there and screamed.

He had no idea how long he'd had been in the refresher, screaming out his lungs, when Chewbacca reached into the stall and pulled him out of the shower. His eyes wide and feral, Han lashed out instinctively, struggling to get away from the Wookiee's hold. Chewbacca swiped a paw against the side of the Corellian's head. It was only Chewbacca's grip on his friend's arm that stopped Han from crashing into the bulkhead.

The blow seemed to work. The scream died abruptly in Solo's throat and sanity returned to his eyes.

Still holding onto Solo's biceps, Chewbacca reached behind him into the refresher stall, turned off the flow of water and activated the drying cycle. He roughly pushed the Corellian back into the stall.

[Dry off,] Chewbacca ordered. [Get dressed. Then we'll talk.]

Eyes averted, Han nodded awkwardly as he stood in the buffeting currents of warm air, only raising his head after he heard the Wookiee close the hatch to his cabin.

What the fuck is happening to me?