Recursion

by Erin Darroch

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Chapter 3:

Over breakfast, General Organa began to re-emerge.

Han could see it in the chrono now strapped to her wrist, and in the way she picked at her food, eating very little of the meal he'd selected for her, despite it being one of her favourite dishes. It manifested in the way she sat back from the table with only her cup of kaffe in her hand, her expression growing increasingly pensive as she watched Han devour his own breakfast. And he heard it in her distracted tone of voice when she answered his question about the transport waiting for them at the resort fleet station, which would be their immediate destination after they departed Ord Mantell.

"I have a new ship," she told him. "A gift from an anonymous benefactor."

She blinked away whatever thoughts had been clouding her mind, and gave him a speculative look. "I was going to ask if you knew anything about it, actually."

"Me?" Han swallowed his food and shook his head, eyeing her with curiosity. "How would I know anything about your new ship?"

"Ships, plural. It was one of twelve we received about eight months ago."

"Twelve ships? Free? I hope you scanned the hell out of 'em, Sweetheart. And checked 'em for infestation."

He could see Leia control the impulse to roll her eyes at him again. He grinned at her. Of course she would've had them thoroughly scanned. She was no fool.

"Don't worry. We did scan the hell out of them," she confirmed, giving him a mock-sour smile. "And then we manually stripped and checked them for good measure, even though they're all just out of the shipyards." She nodded in response to Han's shocked expression, and took another sip of her drink.

"New ships?" Han did some rapid calculations, trying to estimate the value of such a gift.

"Yes, all brand new. I was suspicious, too, obviously. So, up until a month ago, they've been in quarantine. I had them split up and stored in a few different places—Moorja, Cerea, Belsavis—and monitored very carefully. They're clean. I've taken one of the Arisaig-class light cruisers for myself."

"One of—?" Han nearly choked on his kaffe. "That's a nice ship."

"Mm," Leia gave him a tight smile of agreement. "And it's a luxury model. Not at all how I'm accustomed to travelling."

For many years, up until it had been stolen, Leia had almost invariably travelled aboard the Millennium Falcon with Han. But he ignored the teasing gibe about his old freighter, too focused on what she was saying. He wasn't just surprised at what she was telling him—he was confused.

"Why would I know anything about that?" he repeated his earlier question, leaning his folded forearms on the table between them, and trying to hold Leia's gaze.

"Well, it's obvious that you don't," Leia said, hiding her expression behind another sip of kaffe.

"But why would you think I would?" Han persisted, really curious now.

She lifted her eyes to his and shrugged. "They're all from Kuat Drive Yards," she said.

Han drew his head back at the mention of that name, and then gave a short laugh. "Yeah, well, they produce half the ships in the galaxy, Princess."

"I know. But these came from a buyer on Corellia."

"How do you know that? I thought you said it was an anonymous gift."

"It was. But my people are resourceful." She smiled, and reached to set her empty cup on the table. "It took a while, but they managed to track the transactions. We don't have the buyer's name, but the purchase order originated in Doaba Guerfel."

"Oh." Hearing the name of his own birthplace on Corellia—and the primary residence of his parents and siblings—made Han blink. "You sure about that?"

"Pretty sure."

He digested that news in silence, and pushed back from the table, lost in thought. After a moment, he met her eyes again and shook his head.

"I don't know, Sweetheart. Funny coincidence, but probably just a coincidence. And you said 'buyer'," he reminded her. "My family wouldn't have to buy the ships. They own 'em."

"Yes, and that's another reason why I think they came from the Corellian Kuats. The original purchase order was actually just a high-level requisition. No evidence of money changing hands."

Han was flummoxed by that news, and now even more wary. He pushed his plate out of the way and leaned toward Leia again, fixing her with a solemn gaze. "And you're absolutely certain they're clean?"

"Absolutely." Leia gave him a wry smile. "They've been practically pulled apart and put back together, and I let them sit in storage for seven months, just to be sure that they weren't equipped with some kind of tracker we don't know about. Or lined with a biological weapon."

"Well." Han blew out a forceful gust of air, and shook his head. "That's one hell of a gift."

That was an understatement. It was a huge show of support for Leia and the Resistance movement, and Han couldn't reconcile that action with anything he knew about his parents, or his younger brother or sister. They'd been on the side of the Imperials in the Galactic Civil War, and Han had been estranged from them since long before that.

"Yes, an unprecedented gift. And although there was no name attached, and I have no proof they came from your family, I have a feeling it was them. Doaba Guerfel's not a big city. It's too strange to be coincidence. And I'm not sure I even believe in coincidences anymore." She paused and tilted her head to one side. "I thought maybe you'd arranged it...while you were gone."

Han shook his head. He'd lived so long away from his family of origin and they'd parted on such bitter terms, he seldom thought about them at all. Although he'd re-established contact with them at Leia's behest after the end of the Galactic Civil War, they weren't what Han would call close—not by a long shot. And the idea of approaching them for help had never occurred to him.

"I did go to Corellia after I...after I left you." He swallowed hard after he said the words. Although he and Leia were firmly reconciled now, the memory of that painful time had not faded, not at all. "But I didn't go to Doaba Guerfel. I went home."

Leia's expression softened and her dark eyes met his. "I thought you might."

"I couldn't stay, though, Leia." Han tossed his napkin over the empty plate, rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, and then sat back in the chair with his hands braced on his thighs.

He felt a knot in his gut, a faint echo of the agony he'd experienced when he'd walked into their vacant house on the outskirts of Coronet City. He'd gone there seeking peace and solace in the aftermath of their bitter breakup, but the visit had only amplified his pain. Their empty bed, the kids' old toys, the silence. He hadn't even managed to spend one night there. Within hours of his arrival, he'd been back aboard his replacement ship—a decrepit old YG-4210 freighter that made the Falcon look glamorous—and was soon on his way to the Corporate Sector, where he'd disappeared into the seedy Bonadan underground for a while.

While he pondered over that grim memory, he felt a stirring through the Force as Leia reached out to him. It was a tentative touch, as if she weren't sure of her reception, but he latched onto it like a lifeline and responded with a rush of love for her, and gratitude that those dark days were behind him. Meeting her gaze, he reached a hand across the table towards her and she took it, wrapping her slim fingers around his with a firm grip. They looked at each other for a long moment. Despite their lengthy conversations of the evening before, there was still much they hadn't discussed, and their time alone was running short. Han gave her a smiling shrug, and offered the abbreviated version.

"I knocked around the Corporate Sector for a couple of months. Wound up bunking on Kashyyyk with Chewie and Malla for a while. Then Chewie and I took off to see Maz, to try and make some money. You know the rest."

Leia regarded him solemnly and he knew that she was piecing together the unspoken aspects of his story, reading between the lines in an effort to understand what he'd gone through during their time of separation. Having lost his wife, both of his children and even the Falcon—the source of his livelihood—he'd been as close to despair then as he'd ever been in his life. Not suicidal—that had never been in his nature—but rudderless, adrift, completely lost. When he'd finally gathered himself together enough to do more than lie around the Wookiees' treehouse getting in Malla's way, he'd shifted into a more dangerous mood, becoming as impulsive and reckless as he'd been in his youth.

"That's what we were doing over Jakku," he explained, as an afterthought. "We were on a run for Maz, with some of her people as crew. It wasn't going well."

Leia's eyes narrowed as she processed that information, although the reason for her reaction wasn't clear to Han.

After a moment, she gave a smiling shake of her head and released his hand, then stood and walked around the table to where he sat. He scooted the chair back to make room for her and opened his arms to take her onto his knee. She settled down, leaned against him, then nestled her head on his shoulder as he enfolded her in his embrace. She hadn't done that sort of thing in many years, and the gesture made him smile. This was Leia in his arms, not the general. He angled his head to press a kiss against her forehead.

"So. These ships of yours. Are they all Arisaig-class?" he asked, steering the conversation back into clearer space.

"No." Leia lifted her head and looked at him, a knowing smile in her eyes. She held up fingers as she counted them off. "Two Arisaig light. Two Razorbacks. One Rannoch light freighter. One Corellian strike cruiser, and a Liberty medium. One CC-9600 frigate and one Pelter. Plus, an F76 Trinidan-B escort with medical. An Acclamator-class lander. And a Ratha 580."

Han whistled. "A battleship? Damn, Sweetheart. That's some list. An expensive list."

"Mmm," Leia hummed in agreement. "Very."

Han was calculating again, now that he knew which ships she'd been given. The total value of the gift boggled his mind a little. "That doesn't sound like something my family would do."

Leia shrugged and put her head back down on his shoulder. She smoothed one hand down the front of his shirt and picked a thread from the edge of the placket. "People can change, Han."

Han pondered that for a long moment, then gave her light squeeze. "Even if it was them, you said the ships were offered eight months ago. Why would they have made a move like that back then? Even before what happened to Hosnian Prime?"

"I can think of a few reasons," Leia said thoughtfully. "The threat of the First Order was quite clear even then, for anyone willing to look at the facts. Maybe they recognised that threat sooner than most. Maybe their experience with Palpatine and the Empire taught them a lesson…."

"Maybe they listened to one of your speeches." Han suggested.

He'd watched from afar as Leia had gone head-to-head with her former colleagues in the New Republic Senate in a valiant but vain attempt to get them to take pre-emptive action against the First Order. He'd been frustrated and disgusted by how easily dismissed she'd been on the sole basis of her parentage, once it became known that she was the child of Anakin Skywalker—Darth Vader—the Sith Lord hated throughout the galaxy. Despite more than thirty years of experience in service to the Alliance, and then to the New Republic, Leia's words of warning had been openly derided and ultimately ignored by the younger generation of senators. They seemed to have missed the fact that the long period of peace enjoyed throughout the galaxy for the past twenty-nine years had been achieved largely due to the efforts of Leia Organa.

"Maybe they did listen," Leia mused softly, and Han could hear the faint ring of hope in her voice.

She was still comfortably cradled in his arms, her head on his shoulder, one hand resting lightly on his chest. He covered her hand with one of his own, savouring the contact. He'd missed her so much over the past year, at times he'd felt a physical ache there, just under where her palm was now pressed. They'd been back together now for scarcely fourteen hours, but already he could feel a sense of well-being and hope rising within him. He was beginning to wonder if there was something beyond the physical realm at work between them. His newly developed sensitivity to the Force was making him rethink his perspective on a lot of things.

He thought again about the remarkable donation she'd received in his absence. He wasn't completely convinced that the new ships had come from his family, but he was intrigued by the idea. The notion of his staunchly Imperialist parents offering the Resistance an unsolicited gift like that was, frankly, ludicrous. They were both in their late eighties now, and unlikely to change their views, even though the Emperor and his Galactic Empire were long dead. Han supposed, if the ships had come from the Corellian branch of the Kuat family at all, they'd been gifted by his brother or sister. But even that suggestion made him shake his head in disbelief.

"Whoever it was, at least they had the good sense to send you a couple of starfighters in that lot," he remarked. "Two Razorbacks, huh? R-12s?"

"R-20s," Leia responded. "Six rounds of proton torpedoes each."

Han laughed. "Somebody's trying to impress you, Princess."

"I am impressed." Her voice took on a teasing tone. "But do you think they'd be offended if I sent an envoy to exchange one of the frigates for a few more fighters?" She lifted her head to look at him, her expression brightening as if an idea had just occurred to her. "That could be your first mission."

She was half-joking, but her words made Han fall silent as he considered the fact that he was about to rejoin the Resistance—whether officially or unofficially—and what that would entail. He'd long ago resigned his formal commission with the New Republic, a fact for which he'd been heartily thankful after he'd seen their treatment of his wife. Prior to that he'd served as a general with the Alliance, and in his youth he'd been a member of the Imperial Navy. He was familiar enough with military life, but he'd never been a model soldier. He had good skills that aligned nicely with that kind of work—he was a natural leader, a hell of a pilot, and good at strategizing, setting objectives and making quick decisions. But he'd never been the type to blindly follow orders, and he often relied upon instinct and intuition to guide his choices, neither of which were traits particularly compatible with a military career. On the other hand, he had another set of skills entirely—those he'd acquired during his long career as a freighter captain and smuggler—that he could put to good use again if Leia needed them. Her joking mention of a "mission" made him wonder exactly what sort of role she had in mind for him.

Leia was watching him as he mulled over those issues, and she seemed to pick up on his train of thought. She slipped her hand from under his and brought it to his face, drawing his eyes to hers. She looked abashed. "I'm sorry, Han. I'm making a lot of assumptions. I don't mean to—."

"Oh, I'm with you, Sweetheart," Han interrupted her swiftly, wanting to erase all doubt. Just in case it wasn't perfectly clear, he repeated with emphasis. "I'm with you one-hundred percent."

"Good. I'm glad." She dropped her hand and reared back to look at him more openly, still balanced on his knee. "We need you."

"We need?" He gave her an incredulous look, simultaneously exasperated and amused by her choice of words. A faint tinge of pink coloured her cheeks then, and she ducked her head.

"I need," she whispered, and leaned in to brush his lips with a soft kiss. "I need you, Han."

"You've got me, Sweetheart," he assured her, murmuring against her mouth.

Mollified by her confession, he lifted a hand to her face and drew her even closer, kissing her thoroughly and with warmth. When they parted, she was smiling again.

"So…," she ventured, her tone still lightly teasing. "If I asked you to go to Doaba Guerfel and see about exchanging a frigate for me…?"

"Whatever you need, Leia." He looked into her eyes and hoped she could see the absolute conviction he felt when he said those words. "Anything."

Her expression sobered and he saw her swallow hard. She nodded.

"You'll need a few things, too," she said, softly. "A ship, for one. You can have the Rannoch, if you want it. It's a nice freighter."

Han briefly jogged the knee she was perched upon and scowled at her. "Hey! I've got a ship!"

She shook her head in disbelief. "Han, these are new ships, remember?"

"I don't care," he insisted stubbornly. "When Chewie gets back with the Falcon, we're going to strip it out and re-fit it."

Leia regarded him with an incredulous expression, then leaned against him again and put her head back on his shoulder, hiding her face from his view. "We did what we could to help Chewie get it in shape before they left for Ahch-To, but it's definitely seen better days. Chewie said most of the modifications you made to it have been removed."

"I know. I got a look at some of that on the way to Takodana." He was still scowling, deeply vexed at the thought of how his ship had been treated by the thieves who'd stolen her from him, and the string of owners who'd abused her in the meantime. "It's going to take me a year to put her back to the way she was."

"Luckily, I think you'll have some time, provided the First Order behave as we expect them to. Certainly not a year, but a couple of months anyway."

"And even more luckily," Han ventured, "I know a very well-connected general who can commandeer me some parts."

Leia gave a soft snort and lifted her head to look at him. "And you think this well-connected general of yours is going to help you out?"

"I know she is. They ripped out the real-water shower and put sonics back in." He raised his eyebrows and nodded at her appalled expression. "Ah-ha-ha! See? I knew that would motivate you."

Leia's look of exaggerated outrage melted swiftly into amused affection. She kissed him briefly and then straightened up, preparing to stand. She tilted her wrist to glance at her chrono. "We'd better get going."

"Okay." Han gave her a casual pat on the hip as she stood. "I'll get our cases."

"Oh, that reminds me," Leia said. "I have something for you in mine. Wait right here."

As Leia disappeared into the bedroom, Han cleared away the breakfast dishes from the table and carried them back to the small kitchen. Leaning back against the countertop, he glanced around the suite again and smiled. Whatever else happened, he would hold on to the memory of their reunion here on Ord Mantell for a long time.

Leia returned a moment later carrying both small cases. Crossing the room, she placed them on the table, then popped open her own case and rummaged around in the bottom. As Han approached to stand at her side, she withdrew a bulky item that made his face split into a broad grin. One of his old DL-44 blasters. She handed it over with a faint smile, and then reached back into her case to extract a well-worn holster rig—one he'd long ago replaced but had never discarded—and then she turned to face him.

Han stared at her, grinning like a Gungan, momentarily lost for words.

Leia gave a smiling shrug at his expression. "I didn't know what sort of shape you'd be in, but I figured you'd have been stripped of weapons. And I thought you'd feel better with one of those by your side."

"Hell, yeah," Han said with deep sincerity. He hefted the blaster in one hand, smiling with satisfaction at the familiar weight of it, and the way the grip fit snugly into his palm.

Leia moved closer and reached around him to pull the holster rig around his body.

Han stood still, gazing down at her as she pulled the ends around to the front and clicked the metal clasp together, then settled the belt around his hips. He watched in silence as she leaned down to snap the retaining strap around his thigh, and then straightened up to look at him.

Holding her gaze, he slid his blaster smoothly into its holster, and pulled her into his arms. She slid her hands up to rest lightly on his shoulders and grinned up at him, clearly pleased with herself.

Han gazed into her dark eyes and swallowed hard, tightening his grip around her. "You know what I'm going to say right now, don't you?"

"Yes." She lifted her face to his, stretching up to brush a smiling kiss against his lips. "I know."

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Thanks:

With thanks to my (very prompt!) beta readers Sue Zahn, Gus Downey, YellinYee, BonesBooth206 and CoriMariee.

End note: This started out as a very fluffy "plot bunny" based on the phrase that I started with: "Han gets his blaster back." As ever, though, it took me something like 7000 words to get to the point.

Please consider reviewing or commenting. I write for my own pleasure, but I publish it on the Web because I like receiving feedback!