a/n: not sure if many people will like this one.

Killer

Han Solo was slumped back in his pilot's seat, an almost catatonic gaze fixed on the Falcon's viewport. Safely into hyperspace, with a course set for the hidden rebel base and the wrath of the Empire seething behind them, he still couldn't believe they'd managed to get off that battle station alive. He'd done a lot of risky, wild things in his life, but none of it had ever come close to as blatantly suicidal as marching into the Empire's backyard with no more back-up than a Wookiee, an excitable teenager, and an old priest.

If he was a younger man – like Skywalker – he might be still shaking, still nervously yammering on about what had happened, but he had years of practice in controlling the adrenaline that came from battle and from fear of death, and so he sat quietly.

Until Chewbacca growled warily at him, ducking into the cockpit.

[The kid fell asleep.] He informed Han, slightly amused.

"Where?" Han grunted.

[In the main hold.] Chewbacca answered. He jabbed his paw in that direction. [His head is in the middle of the holo game.]

Han snorted, shaking his head – well, in his defense, Luke had gotten a lot of excitement at once, for someone whose life experience was limited to moisture farming and staring at the Tatooine sky. Sleeping was probably a good way for him to cope with it. Which reminded Han –

"Where's the girl?"

[Princess.] Chewie corrected pointedly.

Han gave him a baleful look.

"Okay," he corrected. "Where is her Royal Ungrateful Attitude?"

Chewbacca snuffled at Han, reprimanding him, and gestured again with his paw.

[I treated her ankle. It was sprained.] He answered. [I told her she could have your cabin.]

"Aw, Chewie, c'mon!"

[She's a female! They need privacy!]

Han stood up, shaking himself out of the funk he'd been in. A frown fixed itself on his mouth, and he sighed, running a hand over his jaw. He turned to leave, figuring he'd better go check on the precious cargo – she was worth a lot of money, after all – when suddenly he paused, struck by what Chewie had said.

"Ankle? Her ankle was sprained?"

The Wookiee nodded, and gave a mournful, sympathetic sigh.

"She did all that running and fighting on a sprained ankle?"

[She was probably less concerned about the ankle than she was about getting a blaster charge in the chest.] Chewie pointed out dryly.

Han hesitated.

"Still," he said. "Kind of impressive."

[Not everyone is as much of a baby about injuries as you.] Chewbacca snorted smugly.

Han shot him a glare, and stalked away from the cockpit without another word, scowling when he heard Chewbacca laughing to himself. He was quiet as he went through the main hold – Luke was, indeed, asleep at the table, sprawled over it with one arm flung over his head and his cheek resting on the other. Han paused to turn off the game that had been left on, considering the kid for a minute.

Skywalker sure had a lot of guts, he had to give him that much. What kind of person just up and charged into Imperial bases on missions to rescue women he didn't even know – without any promise of a cash reward? It was enigmatic, and there was probably more to the story – but Han wasn't paid to care about that.

Standing outside the crew quarters, he peered at the door for a moment, and then knocked loudly enough to ensure he'd be heard even if the Princess was sleeping. She must not have been sleeping, though, because she quickly told him he could come in. He did, and found her laying stiffly on the crew cot, her foot elevated on a pillow. She stared at the top of the bunk, not looking at him when he came in, her hands cushioning her head.

He cleared his throat.

"You need anything?" he asked.

He wondered if she was high maintenance. This ship was high maintenance, but in what was likely to be the exact opposite of the way he imagined a Princess would be, so he wouldn't know how to deal with it. He waited for her to answer, focused on her profile, and after a moment, she turned her head.

"I don't need anything, Captain," she said formally. "Thank you."

She sounded like she was dismissing him from her presence. He arched one eyebrow, and folded his arms, watching her a moment longer. Then he went around the corner into his cabin and grabbed a spare blanket out of a drawer, shaking it out and eyeing it briefly to see if it was clean. It was, so he brought it back into the crew quarters, and crouched down beside the bunk.

"Here," he offered. He tilted is head at her exposed wrists. "You're cold," he said, taking note of the little bumps peppering her skin.

She shifted, and sat forward, her lips pressing together tightly – pain, Han though, frowning to himself, she's in pain, and she's lying about it. She took the blanket, running her fingers over it thoughtfully. She drew her knees up slightly and spread it over her.

"Thank you," she said again, and this time the dismissive tone was absent.

He nodded.

"I'm gonna ask you again," he said intuitively. "You need anything?" This time, he clarified: "Food or pain meds?"

In addition to pained, she looked half-starved.

She examined her knees intently, and then placed her hands on them delicately, shaking her head.

"I'm fine, Captain," she said, a bit edgily.

He shrugged; he had tried twice, so he figured he'd leave her alone. Her whole planet had been destroyed, after all. That was something he couldn't fathom, and he wouldn't be much help if she decided she wanted to talk about it. He definitely wouldn't be much help if she started to cry.

He stood up and gestured casually at a box in the corner.

"There's a first aid kit in there," he said gruffly – just in case she changed her mind about those pain meds.

He was at the door, when she suddenly spoke up.

"The blasters on that Death Star," she said, her voice grim and resigned. "They weren't set to stun, were they?"

Han turned around, blinking – now what kind of naïve question was that? He had a smartass retort on the tip of his tongue, but he held it back when he saw her face – ashen. He folded his arms slightly anxiously. Her eyes were hollow, and somehow, deeply sorrowful, and he looked at her uncertainly for a moment before clearing his throat.

"No," he answered flatly. "They were tryin' to kill us," he pointed out unnecessarily.

She looked away, staring straight ahead of her.

"Then I killed two of them, when I took your weapon," she remarked with an eerie sort of finality.

He shrugged.

"Probably," he agreed. He went on: "You're a hell of a marksman in a crisis." After he said it, he thought maybe it wasn't the best comment to make at this particular moment. Regardless, she didn't look at him. She kept staring straight ahead of her, staring into nothing.

"The kickback is different when it's not on stun," she said quietly.

Han unfolded his arms slowly and let them hang at his sides, realization dawning on him like the slow creep of a sunrise. He grit his teeth together – the way she'd taken that weapon with such confidence had made it seem like she was an old pro in a firefight, but listening to her now, he wasn't so sure.

"You've never killed anyone before," he said bluntly.

It wasn't a question. He could see it in her eyes when she looked back at him. He didn't know what he expected her to say in that moment, but what came out of her mouth was quite composed, and almost comical in its serenity:

"I am contemplating what it feels like to be a killer."

He swallowed hard – her eyes flicked away then, and he sensed she was deeply affected by it. On one hand, he thought it was an absurd thing to dwell on – they'd survived, and why should she care about taking the life of one Stormtrooper, when their boss had just taken her whole world? On the other – he remembered his first kill, and he'd been face to face with the opponent.

"Have you ever killed someone?" she asked, turning her eyes on him again.

She hadn't seen him take anyone out on the Death Star.

He thought of Greedo, in Mos Eisley. He hadn't thought twice about executing the bounty hunter; it had been do or die, and he did not want to die. He didn't regret it. He didn't dwell on it. But suddenly, under her penetrating gaze, he was having a crisis of self. This girl could sit there and mourn her part in an act of violence – against her captors! – and yet he couldn't remember the last time he'd bat an eyelid at killing someone.

He was shaken by his reaction to her simple question.

When he finally answered, though, all he said was:

"Yeah."

The lack of eloquence in the word was astounding, but he had nothing else to contribute.

She looked for a moment like she expected more – she even looked slightly eager, as if he would make her feel better; when nothing else came from him, her eyes grew frighteningly intent, critical even, and her lips pursed.

"Who are you?" she asked in a whisper.

It brought out a grin in him – she didn't really know who he was, did she? And he didn't know her – they'd been thrown together so fast, he wasn't even sure she remembered his name – which might explain why she was so formally referring to him as Captain, and nothing else.

"Your hero," he drawled dashingly. He snorted. "Princess, I'm just a guy your friend bribed to fly him out here to get you."

She looked at him strangely.

"I've never met that boy," she said softly.

Han arched his brows – interesting. Before he could say anything, she said:

"This rescue," she said quietly, "was such a risk that it outweighed every monetary benefit you could have earned."

What kind of mercenary took a job like this, a job that was a surefire failure – or it should have been, though by some miracle they'd survived.

Han reached up and rubbed his jaw.

"It just sort of went this way," he muttered, deflecting. "I was supposed to take him to Alderaan."

She looked away quickly. She was quiet for a long time, and then she said, assertively:

"You don't like the Empire."

He bristled a little at her analyzing him – they'd been on that damn battle station by mistake, it was Luke who'd turned it into an opportune moment. He hadn't been involved in this out of some bleeding heart desire to change the world –

"I'm not a revolutionary," he said bluntly. "I'm a smuggler."

Her lips turned up slightly.

"No one is a revolutionary until they are backed into a corner," she said simply.

He supposed that was true, but this conversation was getting heavy – and he wasn't in the mood for any sort of campaign speech, or an attempt to get him to join this harebrained anti-Imperial society. It didn't matter if he disliked the Empire. He'd just wanted to make sure she was okay, that he was going to get her back to her people as unscathed – physically – as possible.

In the silence, he turned to go again, but then thought better of it. He grit his teeth, and turned back, raising his hands.

"Look," he started awkwardly, surprisingly loud. She jumped slightly, and he swore under his breath. "Back there, you did what you had to, to stay alive," he told her gruffly. "You don't have to – mope about it. No one'd blame you."

To his surprise, she looked at him evenly, lifting her shoulder slightly.

"I know," she said hoarsely. "It's not the killing that bothers me."

He tilted is head.

"What's bothering you, then?" he asked curiously.

She hesitated for a mere second.

"That I liked it."

He lowered his hands, caught off guard. Her expression didn't change – and she wasn't saying it with any sort of perverse glee, or nihilistic pleasure; she wasn't confessing to a streak of sociopathy. He understood what she was saying, and he didn't give her any reprimand about it.

"Well," he said, straightforward. "They hurt you," he justified, shrugging.

He wasn't a stranger to being glad someone was dead.

"Yes, they did," she agreed simply.

She turned away.

"But I'm not ready to live in a world where killing makes me feel free."

Her back was to him now, and she lay back down, curling up in the blanket he'd given her. She left him to stare at her back, bore a hole in her back with his gaze, wondering how many different dimensions a person that small could have concealed within her soul. He watched her laying there for a long time, contemplating what it must feel like to be here, right now, surrounded by strangers, last survivor of a dead world – finally, he left her alone to come to terms with the things she needed to face, well aware he didn't have to inform her that there came a point when all revolutionaries were forced to become killers.

She'd already figured it out.

peace is such a bloody concept.

-alexandra
story #283