#it can't be all wine and candies and bubblebaths

[ashlynncoy-blog]

Misfire: Recovering Part VI

I have to go out of town for work. Have some angst for the drive:

Han dropped Leia off at the embassy’s main door with a promise to meet her at her apartment when her work day was over.

Leia spent nearly the whole day distracted by the plans she was making for them. Although they’d both slept well (a feat in itself for two people so prone to poor sleep and bad dreams), their first night back together as a couple—the first night of their engagement—had, thanks to Han’s headache, been less than altogether satisfying.

Leia meant to see to it this night would be far less restful.

Han said he’d be over at 16:30, so Leia made a point to be home well in advance. Their conversation from two days prior was still fresh in her mind—she wanted to be sure Han knew how important their time together was to her. Canceling last night’s dinner with Threkin Horm had been a good start, she was sure, but tonight would be a much bigger step.

Tonight she had plans.

She sent the staff home—all of them—early, keeping only the sentry droid at the door, the two overnight droids in the kitchen, and the always-on-call Two-Onebee in the medical suite active for the night. She had a plate of candies brought up, including a pile of Han’s favorite (those little fruit-filled truffles she absolutely despised) along with a bottle of his favorite sparkling black wine. She ran a warm bubble bath and at precisely 16:30 she turned her commlink and holocom to DO NOT DISTURB and slipped into the divine-smelling water.

Fifteen minutes later, when Han had failed to show, she was beginning to get annoyed.

Thirty minutes after that, annoyance had gone right past anger and she was someplace between infuriated and terrified.

She got more and more terrified with each minute after that.

Leaving a half-finished glass of sparkling wine on the side of the tub, Leia threw on a loose-fitting pant suit, tied her hair up quickly, and headed toward the Millennium Falcon’s hangar bay.

She tried not to let her fears get the best of her as she drove the half hour toward where Han’s ship was berthed. What if his head was worse? What if he’d had a seizure or one of those equipment failures he said her mother was having? What if he’d lost control of his speeder on his way to her apartment and wound up back in a hospital somewhere—he wasn’t really supposed to be driving yet.

No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that there was a perfectly reasonable and not-at-all catastrophic reason for Han’s absence, Leia had worked herself in to a near-tearful frenzy by the time she parked her speeder and headed across the tarmac to the Millennium Falcon.

The boarding ramp was down, and it was all she could do to keep her composure as she bounded up it and into the cabin of the ship.

“Han!” she called as she rounded the corner of the ring corridor into the crew lounge.

She saw him before he had the chance to answer. He’d pulled up a deck plate and was down in the pit beneath, with an assortment of tools spread out in front of him, and a grim scowl on his face. Leia couldn’t imagine what could have gone wrong with the ship that required his immediate attention—just yesterday it had been in the best working order she’d ever seen. But Han was Han, and sometimes he just needed to tinker.

Not that that accounted for his failure to show up tonight.

He looked at her for the blink of an eye before turning back to his task.

Leia felt a pit form in her stomach. There was a terrible sense of deja-vu about this moment. The last time she’d come aboard his ship to find him in this place and in this mood had been the day Isolder had come into their lives. It had been one of the last times they’d spoken before everything had fallen apart for them.

Something about this moment felt very much like that moment. She didn’t know if it was The Force or just her nerves, but her lower lip was trembling as she took a seat on the deck.

“When you didn’t show up tonight,” she said, wringing her hands in her lap and hoping he might stop what he was doing and look at her, “I got worried. I was afraid something might have happened to you.”

“Yeah?” he asked incredulously. “Well, that’s funny. Somethin’ happened, all right. Cause, you see, I did show up.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I did,” he spat back, finally turning his head to look at her. “I was right on time, too. But I ain’t got credentials to the secure garage anymore, apparently.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” he replied, “seems they got revoked right around the time you and me split up.”

“I never…” Leia said, but her voice trailed off. It would never have occurred to her to cancel Han’s entry codes for the secure garage. They’d come in through that garage when he’d brought her home after she’d hurt herself aboard the Falcon; she only realized now that it had been the embassy-issue speeder, and not Han’s personal codes, that had let him into the building.

“So I try to brush it off,” he continued. “I think maybe—it’s been a year—maybe those things expire if they’re not used or something. So I head on over to the main entrance. No problem—until that droid you’ve got manning the entry told me I couldn’t come in.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” he said back. “Said I wasn’t welcome on the premises. Said he had strict instructions from Prince Isolder himself to keep me out of there. And then he said, if I didn’t go quietly, he was gonna call the authorities.”

“Oh, Han,” Leia began, but she couldn’t even fathom what to say next. She just shook her head and looked horrified as he continued.

“So I figured it had to be a mix-up,” he said. “You wouldn’t have invited me over just to kick me out. So I tried to call, only you didn’t answer.”

“I had my commlink off,” she said softly. “I didn’t want anyone to bother us.”

“So finally, the droid at the door came out to the speeder and informed me that sitting parked out front was still considered to be on the premises and I had better get out of there before he called the cops. I asked him to try to call you and he said his orders from Isolder were to do away with me without your ever knowing I was there. So since I couldn’t call ya, and he wouldn’t call ya, and there was no other way into the building, I left.”

Leia couldn’t decide to be more angry or sad. On the one hand she was furious with Isolder for having made such a directive—and a little bit peeved with her staff for going along with it without checking with her first. But mostly she was aching at the sight of the pain on Han’s face as he turned back to the work he’d been doing when she came in.

“I didn’t tell him to do that,” she said. “I didn’t know that he’d done that. I never would have allowed an order like that to go through. Han,” she implored, “please believe me.”

Leia was terrified. She was trembling. There were tears in her eyes. Things had taken such a sudden and wonderful turn that it had been easy to forget it was only two days ago they were barely speaking to each other.

Han stood up straight and turned around.

“I do believe you,” he told her after a moment, “cause of the way you’re lookin’ at me. You never could lie to my face, Leia.”

“I know that,” she said, not bothering to try and stop the tear that fell onto her cheek.

“I ain’t mad,” he said. Then he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “No,” he amended, “that’s not right. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad as hell at the situation and at that sentry droid, and it’s a damned good thing your prince boy toy ain’t here right now, ‘cause I’d probably lay into him with all I got and beat him ‘til one of us was dead.”

“Han,” she said, “I don’t…”

“Leia, please—” he interrupted. “I get it. It wasn’t you. You didn’t even know. Now I gotta work through all this stuff I’m feelin’ ok? I’ve just gotta blow it all out of my system. Do me a favor and get it cleared up on your end so I can come and see you when I do.”

Leia nodded her head and scrambled to her feet.

“I will,” she said. “I promise.” Leia squeezed her eyes shut before turning to go.

“Hey Leia,” Han called after her. She turned around just in time to see him climbing out of the maintenance pit. It only took him three steps to be standing right in front of her. “I mean it,” he said, reaching out to rest his hands on her shoulders. “I ain’t making the same mistake again. I’m not about to push you away when what I wanna do is hold on tighter. Just give me a minute. It’ll be all right.”

“Take all the time you need,” she said back. “I’ll be waiting.”