Carbonite awakening ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The first thing he sensed was how much it hurt to draw in oxygen.

It reminded him of that burning feeling you get when you're trying to run while being out of breath, but adding to it the feeling of a Gamorean sitting on your chest.  It hurt so much that he didn't notice the sensation of falling onto the ground in a heap or even smacking against the floor, though his head did bounce against the ground in a way that would make the average bystander wince.

For a while, all that he can do is breathe.  It seems to take every bit of his limited energy to keep the air going out of his weak lungs.  He's trembling reflexively and in less than a standard minute there is visible sweat collecting on his brow.

Air in.  Air out.  Chest throbbing in pain from the effort.

Comments

[jedi_librettist]

Ben can't help hearing Han's pondering. He's not prepared for this. If only Mom were here. She would know how to tell Han he's a father.

"We've been looking for you since before I was born."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han recalls the words just spoken in his memory like he was rewinding a holovid. Since before he was born? He's been frozen since before this guy, who easily sounds like he's in his mid-twenties, was even born?

His legs feel weak and his stomach is dropping. He feels sick all over again, but this has got nothing to do with the carbontie. How could he have been gone for so long? Where are his friends? Worry and confusion roll over him like waves. He needs to sit down for a second.

The smuggler takes a step back and gropes out his hand for the wall. When he can feel it around him, he lets himself slide downward. It takes him a second to realize that this curved, padded wall is awfully familiar to him. Then he closes his eyelids and listens to the sounds around him - it's most of the same knocks and groans that he remembers ...

"I can't see." Han finally murmurs. Opting to ignore all the questions he really wants to ask. He's not sure that he's ready for the answers just yet.

[jedi_librettist]

"They said that would happen. Your sight should come back but I don't know when. Do you want to go somewhere more comfortable?"

Ben moves to sit next to his father, crossing his legs and leaning against the wall. "We've kept her running as well as we can. Rey insists she's garbage but she doesn't mean it. Mom gave her to me when I was old enough to fly on my own. She wanted me to have something of my dad's."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

With his eyelids still closed over eyes that can't see, Han rests his head back against the wall. It's not like the wall was padded for purpose of people laying against it, but he's kinda thankful that is right now. He needs to ...

He doesn't know what he needs to do. He'd love a drink, but it doesn't seem like a great idea to mix alcohol with all the awful he's feeling right now. Even with Ben doing his best to ease his father's aches and pains, he still feels like crap. It would have been kinder to let some of this information come to him a little more slowly, he thinks. ... but when had life ever been kind to him? This was probably more fitting.

So far he knew that he'd lost a good twenty or thirty years. That Leia had been pregnant when he'd been tortured and thrown into a carbonite prison. His ship no longer belonged to him.

"Sounds like you've been taking care of her." He says, lamely. It's hard to think of anything else to say right this second.

[jedi_librettist]

"I do my best. You can have her back if you want. You'll fly her more than I do."

Ben sits there quietly for a few minutes. For all the stories he's heard from Mom, Uncle Luke, Chewie, Han is a stranger to him. He's normally not too good with strangers.

"You'd probably be more comfortable in your bunk. I can help you walk. There are some pain killers there."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Would he? Maybe. Maybe not. He wasn't going to be doing any flying in the short term, though. That was for damn sure.

Han opens his eyes again and turns to look at Ben. He still can't see anything. Not even the faintest outlines of what his kid might look like. He supposed that his son must have had Solo height, though, not Organa height. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to hold him up so well.

"I didn't know." He says quietly. In his mind he starts rolling back the days. What was going on between him and the princess was something the two of them hadn't been especially open about. Nor had it been going on for very long.

"I'm not even sure that Leia knew on Bespin ..."

[jedi_librettist]

"No one knew. Uncle Luke figured it out first. Apparently he told Mom he could feel me."

Ben nudges Han to get up. He pulls one arm across his shoulders.

"They talked a lot about you. We travelled a lot when I was young, looking for you. Every time you were gone before we got there."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He doesn't know why he wanted the kid to know that he'd faced death on the cloud city without knowing about him. It could be because of the fact that if he had, he wouldn't have gone into the freezing chamber with that numb sense of acceptance he'd had at the time. Or it could be that he wanted to make some kind of excuse for him not being around.

Anyway, at the prodding, Han does get up to his feet. He assumes that he's using the term uncle the way that some people do with their parent's close friends.

"Are they okay?"

He was almost afraid to ask, but as long as information was getting piled on him ... that was the one thing he really needed to know.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben nods, forgetting for a moment that Han can't see. He walks him back toward the captain's cabin slowly.

"Mom and Chewie are fine. Mom's with the Resistance or she'd be here with me. She's too recognizable to come to a First Order planet. Uncle Luke... No one's heard from him since I was fifteen. We think he died killing Snoke."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Much of that goes right over Han's head. He doesn't know what the Resistance is. He doesn't know what the First Order is. He has no idea who Snoke is. What he does know is that the phrase 'Mom is fine' sounds like music to his ears.

The rest he can kind of guess at. Leia's still waging some kind of war. Luke had faced some kind of dangerous enemy. Were they all still stuck in some kind of war that was like a twisted reflection of the one he'd been frozen during? That ... almost made it seem like carbonite had been the better option.

To be fair, Han could have probably stumbled through the Falcon and found where he needed to go by himself, if Ben hadn't moved things around too much. The thing about YT-1300's was that they were very customizable, though. So his old ship might not be very much like he remembered it. And even if it was ... better to lead him through so he doesn't fall on something.

"You'll have to tell me more in the morning." He was tired. Laying down while he felt awful seemed like a good idea. Yet, he suspected he wasn't going to get much in the way of sleep.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben eased him onto the bed and pulled up a blanket. He pulled out a painkiller and carefully injected it into Han's arm.

"Do you think you can sleep or should I put on a holomovie?"

Either way, he wasn't going to be leaving unless the cockpit called him. He hadn't found and thawed his father to risk not being there for him if something went wrong.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han, like most other people who are stuck by something without warning, bristles at the feeling of a needle piercing through his skin. Before he can balk or complain about being jabbed he's already starting to feel relief in the injection site and it's slowly beginning to spread throughout his body.

"Couldn't tell you. I have tried to sleep in a long time."

Ben might detect a note of bitterness, if not in his voice than in his mind, directed at fate or perhaps the Empire for that. It's not as if he'd been conscious in the cabonite block, but there wasn't a lot of joy rattling around in his head right now.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben definitely did sense his father's bitterness and it worried him a bit. He guessed that was his Jedi training coming through. He'd been warned so many times about how bitterness wasn't far from hate and where that would lead. But he didn't say anything. It wasn't what Han needed to here now.

"Well, try now. If you can't, we'll take it from there."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

At least he needn't worry that, despite all of the dark emotions swirling around in side of him, he didn't have much of a connection to the force. Han had always been the kind of person who was quick to get frustrated.

"Alright, alright."

He's still moody, but he knows that his son means well. Beneath the more volatile emotions on the surface of his mind, he is grateful. And curious about the kind of man his son is. He doesn't really even have a guess, to be honest ...

[jedi_librettist]

Ben sat on the floor next to his father's bunk. He didn't really expect Han to have a peaceful sleep as much as he hoped he would. He tried to project calm to the other man, hoping it would help him sleep.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It’s a strange sensation to be closing your eyes to sleep even though you can’t see. Between his son’s efforts and hearing the familiar sounds of the Millennium Falcon, he does manage to relax a little bit.

It takes a while, but he does, eventually drift off to sleep.

[jedi_librettist]

Now that Han was asleep, Ben had time to think. He had to call Mom to arrange a way to get his father home once they landed without the press getting wind of it. Han wasn't ready for that murder of porgs. And they'd need a doctor to look him over. There was no telling what being in carbonite for this long could do to a person.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It was a long time for a human to have been frozen in carbonite. There weren’t a lot of cases of revivals, either, so it was hard to say what kind of shape that Han would truly be in when he ‘recovered’. He needed to be evaluated, regardless, so having someone with a medical background would be important - a sentient and not a droid, of course, would have been Captain Solo’s preference.

The best way to protect Han would be to send him to one of Resistance bases, probably. Leia can control the surroundings there in a way that they she can’t control the private sector.

Regardless, the Captain is just along for the ride. He certainly wants to see Leia again, more than he felt like he wanted anything before.

[jedi_librettist]

A Resistance base would be the obvious solution but Ben's a civilian, even though his mother is the leader of the Resistance. He doesn't know where their bases are. He stand and steps just outside the cabin and comma Leia.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Then it certainly wouldn't the first time a Solo went with seemed best at the time and hoped things worked out.

As Ben and Leia discuss their options, Han starts to become restless in the cabin. It was hard for him to get comfortable in the first place and lets face it, when your last day of being conscious was like his ... is it all that surprising that you might be having bad dreams when you wake up?

Perhaps it's his subconscious senses picking up what's going on around him, but he begins to dream of The Princess. The way that she looked the last time he had seen her, at first. Then slowly aging before his eyes. It was strange, even in a dream, to see a face he knew so well changing into one he didn't recognize ...

[jedi_librettist]

It didn't take long for Ben and Leia to figure out a solution. Ben ended the call and stepped back into the cabin. He let his father's thoughts flow over him. For once, not being able to shut people out was useful. This dream didn't seem distressing so he left it alone.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It wasn't much of a nightmare, all things considered. It was more melancholy than anything and it still tugged at his heart strings to watch the love of his life grow old so suddenly. To watch the worry lines at the corners of her eyes deepen and her skin lose the luster that it had when he'd met her.

Growing old with the people you cared about didn't seem so bad as long as you were going through it together. It was just going to make it all the more obvious that he'd been gone. That everyone had lived almost a lifetime without him. Even in a dream it made him feel very bitterly alone ...

[jedi_librettist]

Ben could feel the loneliness set in. He winced as it flooded his mind. He bit his lip, trying to hold on the pain of it. It was overwhelming, drowning out the joy of finally finding his father.

Once he finally regained control, he touched Han's mind. He projected belonging and a sense of family, anything to let him know he wasn't alone.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han, of course, has no idea that his son can read his emotions like flight manual. It might have made him feel guilty for making his kid feel like he didn’t care about finding him - he can’t quite help the way that he feels, though. It’s been a stressful time for him and let’s face it, controlling his emotions hasn’t exactly been his strong suit.

A few of those Jedi training lessons might have done Captain Solo some good. The reassurance that Ben projects out to him with the force does soothe him. Han begins to settle and has visions of sitting beside his grown child in the cockpit of the Falcon, traveling through the brilliant blue starlines of hyperspace.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben can finally breathe again once Han settles. For a few moments, he just focuses on controlling his breathing, enjoying the peace. Then he smiles as he sees his father's dream. He can guarantee that dream, at least, will come true. It's a dream he's had since he was a boy. He'd almost given up hope of it ever happening.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han manages to rest comfortably till the Millennium Falcon transitions from hyperspace back to real space. There is a faint chime of indicator noises to alert the pilot coming from the cockpit - when Han had owned the ship - the Falcon never made that shift very gracefully. It usually made Captain’s Solo’s stomach do sumersaults.

It makes Han start to wake up. And though he can’t see yet, he can start to see blurs of things and a bit of color.

“I think we’re here, kid.”

[jedi_librettist]

"Yeah, I'll be right back."

Ben runs to the cockpit. He had to argue with the spaceport authorities about landing where he and his mom planned. Finally, he resorted to threatening to inform General Organa about their refusal to acquiesce to her son's request. No one wanted to cross the force of nature that was Leia Organa.

The landing went smoothly and soon he was back in the cabin. "We're here. Welcome to Chandrila. Mom should be here any minute."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He’s too far away from the cockpit to hear Ben’s words and the ship was old and noisy, too. He was trying to listen to the tone of his son’s voice anyway. Might as well, right? He still couldn’t see all that great. He’d have to figure that his kid must sound like Leia. She was the one who had been around for him. Pauses in the places she would have. Assertive when pressed.

The thought of his kid being like the princess and the two of them having each other, for the first time, made him feel good. When he could get passed the thought of being left behind - admittedly very hard for him to do - there was no other woman he’d have ever wanted to be the mother of his son.

The the kid is back. And he tells him they’re on Chandrila. Han makes a distainful face at the thought of it.

“Chandrila? That’s about the stuffiest planet in the whole galaxy. At least it was, anyway ...”

Of course, Han wasn’t going to be a huge fan of the place. They’d cracked down hard on the illicit dealings that happened on their planet years ago and consequently, there wasn’t much of an appeal to the place for someone who’d been a smuggler. He decided to try ignore that part of the news and instead focus on the good part. He was gonna get to see Leia again soon.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben tried to stifle a laugh. "I live on Chandrila. It's only stuffy if you're stuck with certain senators. Or 3PO."

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Ben smiled as his mother appeared in the doorway. "Ben. Han?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han, sounding skeptical, replies, “you’ll have to be the one showing me around.” He’s not sure that he believes a planet like Chandrila could have changed so much, but ... there’s a lot of room for him to be surprised with how much the galaxy had changed in thirty years or so.

And speaking of the things that had changed, there was the princess. Her silhouette had changed. Her voice had changed, but somehow, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Leia had entered the room. The last thing he told her when he’d seen her is that he knew that she loved him, which, he also knew had taken a lot for her to admit at that time. Did she know that he loved her too? That she was the last thing that he thought of when he went into that chamber and the first thing that he was able to think about when he could tolerate the pain of waking back up?

“You should know ...” Han’s face pulls into that well meaning, but confused look when he pauses. Like he has far too much to say and he doesn’t know the way to put it. “... that I missed you. A lot.”

And if she answered him with an ‘I know’ of her own? He’d be alright with that,

[jedi_librettist]

"Poe could show you the disreputable places better than I could."

But he still had his own favorite places for when he wanted to escape the press, politicians, and celebrities. He would be glad when the Senate moved back to Hosnian Prime in a few months.

Ben had never seen his mother smile like this before. She walked over and wrapped her arms around Han in a tight embrace, clinging to him like he might disappear again. "I know. I missed you, too."