Luke Skywalker (red_five) wrote in the100, @ 2016-02-23 19:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, han solo, luke skywalker |
Who: Luke Skywalker and Han Solo
When: Monday February 15
Where: The Solo apartment
What: Talking
Rating: PG
Han picked at a scab on his hand. Where the droid's blast had grazed his skin was mostly healed now, barely even a scar to remind him that the Empire had been here. He'd hoped that was the last they'd see of the Empire for a while, but given his recent bad luck, he didn't think that hope would hold. "I'm just glad," he said, "that we haven't spotted any ships in orbit. I don't like it. Not being able to go up there and scout. We've got enough space folk here. It's like, we're sitting on our hands waiting for something to happen. And the Grounders… The Grounders are the worst of all." “Why would there be an Imperial probe droid here?” asked Luke. “It would have had to travel through whatever portal brought us all here. They couldn’t have done this deliberately, could they?” There was no way someone from their galaxy could have known they were here. “it doesn’t make any sense. Nothing about this place makes sense though, why should that?” "I wish I knew," agreed Han. "But you're right. It doesn't make sense that the Empire knows we're here when we don't know even know where here is." Han shook his head. "That's not even the strangest part of all this." Han looked at Luke. "Has Leia told you about our son? The one from her world." Luke had wondered if he’d bring it up. He hadn’t wanted to be the one to do it and he certainly wasn’t going to mention the part about Han dying at his son’s hand. It had been hard enough to think about for Luke, he couldn’t imagine what that must be like for his brother in law. “Yes, she did,” he replied. “it’s hard to think of a world where Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin never existed. For that matter there’s no evidence that Mara and eventually my Ben don’t seem to exist there either. I understand the concept of multiple universes and all that but I never suspected that I was living in one.” Han wasn't about to bring up his own demise. It was hard enough that his son killed him, harder still to talk about it like it mattered. "I know the feeling. It wasn't in the greatest shape when I left, but...I miss home. Our home." "It's hard to believe that somewhere it's not the Yuuzhan Vong, but the First Order. That this First Order and my son are somehow connected. I don't know…" Han wanted his thoughts to turn to static, to forget that this was his reality, but he couldn't. Something was bothering him about the alternate universe, something he hadn't given much thought to until now. "The thing is, before all this alternate universe happened, someone mentioned that one of my kids went dark side. And…" Han paused, looking at his arm. "And I don't think they meant Ben. My Ben."” “I miss it too but I’m also grateful that here I can get to know my son without constant fear of something happening to one of the three of us. Things can still happen, I know that but it’s not the same.” Luke raised an eyebrow at Han. “Really? Well considering a lot of people here knew our story already and the memories Leia has and the people who’ve come here are new, they probably weren’t. Which child?” He had a feeling that he already knew the answer to that question just from what little he knew, things he had sensed and he hoped he was wrong. Anakin died, Luke knew that from Mara before the books had shown up, he hadn’t gone Dark so that meant it was either Jacen or Jaina. "I get it. I do. If I could have had an alternate universe to raise my kids, I just might have taken it." Han didn't know how to put the words together. The very idea that Luke was taking this rationally, that this could be a possibility, bothered him. Han hadn't read the books about their lives. What he knew was limited to what Jacen had been willing to share. "Jacen." Han's voice was quieter now. "I didn't want to believe it, but if … If Anakin dies, and Ben turns dark, then who is to say the twins are safe?" It was as he had thought and Luke closed his eyes and shook his head before looking back at Han. “I know he went through a lot when he was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong. I don’t know everything by any means but that had to have had an effect on him. Maybe it made him more vulnerable to manipulation, I don’t know. You know that he always had questions, Han. He had questions that sometimes I didn’t have the answer to but I don’t know how he got from that to the Dark Side.” Luke wasn’t sure he wanted to know either. “If it’s true, I must have failed him in some way, I was his Master. In the other universe, I clearly failed……” he took a deep breath. “Ben. I’m sorry Han, it’s hard for me to call him that. I just...I have no idea what might be in the future for my Ben but the potential is there. It’s there for every Jedi but for our family, it seems to be stronger.” "It's a long leap from asking questions to…" Han didn't need to finish that sentence. They both knew what the dark side was capable of. "I didn't ask for details, but Luke, you can't… It's not on us, not completely. You might be the Jedi master, but you can't know everything. I don't know too much about the Force, but even I know it can't work like that." Han had gone a long way from seeing the Force as a made-up hokey religion, but he wasn't about to place the weight of the universe's wrongs on Luke's shoulders. "Hell, if any of us should be to blame, it's me. Who am I to have kids, when one dies, two go dark, and… Jaina. She's got enough of her mom in her to be alright, though." “It’s best that we don’t know the details, I think,” Luke said. “and it’s best that Jacen not know at all. I hope no one tells him or has already told him. That would be a lot to bear, I wish it hadn’t been necessary for Anakin to learn of his death but there was no choice there once the material was available.” That was the thing that bothered Luke the most. Their lives, everything about them, were just stories to many of the people here. They seemed to forget that they were living, breathing, human beings and they had lived the events that others saw as fiction. “I know you’re right. No one made the decision for him and no one made it for your Ben either. They both made the decision on their own. Not a good decision but still it was theirs to make,” he sighed. “it’s easy to look at the facts and wonder what we did, what we said, what did we miss that might have prevented things. The truth is that there probably is nothing that we could have done to change things. Yoda said that the future is always in motion, one choice and it goes in a completely different direction. I didn’t understand that at the time but now it makes sense.” "I know," agreed Han. "He won't hear it from me. I only thought that if something were to happen one of us should know what to do, and that's not going to be me. I don't know what decisions I did or didn't make for this to happen. Probably didn't make a whole lot of good decisions knowing me." Han knew himself well enough to know that the glue that held him close to his family was only as thick as he wanted it to be. He'd felt it after Chewie's death, the need to pull away into himself until nothing around him mattered. There wasn't anything easy about being respectable, which he supposed, was the whole point. "What I do know is that this world is different. We can make different choices here. And maybe, without everything else, we'll make better ones. For one thing, I'm not going out by lightsaber." It was a little hollow to joke about his own demise, but it was Han. He'd faced worse fates and survived. “It does feel like a second chance being here, doesn’ it?” Luke mused. “We’d just found out that Mara was pregnant when I came here, she told me some of the things that happened after Ben was born, how we were both constantly worried that something might happen to him. Here we can enjoy him, Chewie’s been great about watching him for us a couple of times. I think he likes having a little one around again.” Luke smiled. Han’s remark sent a chill through him. Leia had told him how it had happened and he’d seen (and caused) enough deaths by lightsaber to imagine the pain. “I always thought you’d go in a blaze of glory on the Falcon with Chewie to be honest,” he said. “because to me the three of you are all one thing. I’m really glad that Chewie is here, Han. I know that’s been good for Anakin and I’m sure it’s helped you adjust to all the changes in Leia’s memories.” "You're right. I didn't think...After Sernpidal…" Han shook his head. He'd been in a literal fog since the night he'd woken up to having watched that planet disappear, but having Chewie here and knowing what they faced in both universes had changed things. There wasn't just the possibility that he might never see Chewie again, but that in some universe, the reverse was true. "Well, we all know what happens. It's better we're all together now. This is how it's meant to be." Luke nodded. “I agree. Whatever this place is and however it works, it does seem to grant second chances in a way. At least while we’re here, things are right, we all have each other. I’m glad we do.” For nineteen years, Luke had thought he knew his family only to find out that he was wrong. He had a family he might never have known about and it continued to grow. Even though he knew they would lose Anakin and now he knew that Jacen was destined to fall, Luke still believed that maybe they could change at least that part of the story. Anakin’s fate couldn’t be changed but maybe Jacen’s could. Maybe something that would happen here might change the future. Who knew? |