Archive Date: February 03, 2002
Disclaimer: usual
Notes: written in response to a fic on jedi-abusers. Taking pills is tacky,
esp. for a Jedi. here's a much more dignified end.
Warnings: Slash, deathfic
Leia had cried herself to sleep in the big bed, alone. The children slept fitfully, under Winter's unstinting supervision. Chewbacca paced the rooms, his long stride eating half the floor at a step.
Han sat, unseeing on the sofa, a holocube in his hands. The hard part of the day was behind them. He'd identified the body, made the funeral arrangements, and comforted his wife. Now the hard part of their lives could begin. Their lives, without Luke.
He looked at the holocube again. Something told him he didn't really want to watch it, didn't really want to know. The whole death was strange. There were no signs of violence, no struggle, not even the normal disarray of sleep. Luke had been far too young for a heart attack or cerebral accident. It was as if he had just lay down on his bed, and died. His body had simply stopped working.
Chewbacca had handed him the holocube after the visit to the crematorium. Leia had been a rock, unmoving, her face frozen as she went through the arrangements. The children had been told the bare minimum, and after a supper no one had felt much like eating, Jaina had curled up in his lap and cried a little and Jace had done the same on Leia's. Only infant Anakin had seemed at all unaffected. He was tense from the stress in the house, but an unnatural calm still hovered over him. He cuddled in Winter's arms, twining his pudgy fingers in her long white hair and staring solemnly past her left shoulder.
Now the household slept, and he turned a cube over and over in his fingers.
Will you play it? Chewbacca asked.
"What's on it, Chewie?"
What he thought you should hear.
"I know that, ya big lug."
Play it and know.
"All right, I will." Before he could think twice, he slammed the cube into a viewer and activated it. He regretted the action almost immediately when Luke appeared on the viewing platform.
"I'm sorry, Han." The holographic face contorted, pain, fear, sorrow, Han couldn't tell. "I don't think it was supposed to end this way. I can't go on. There is nothing, nothing except you and Leia, and that's not enough. The purges were far more thorough than we thought. There are no Jedi. No Force-sensitives. Not anywhere. I had hoped that your children might be, but they are as normal as you and Leia are. I am the last relic of an era long gone and have endured past my time.
"The more I think about it, the more I know I should never have survived Endor. That would have been the most fitting. No more Jedi, no more Sith, a universe free of both. Instead, I hung on, the last vestige of a dead past. Dead inside, myself, since Endor, a shambling revenant, draining the life and joy from those around me.
"You're getting ready to protest. Save your breath and time. You know as well as I do it's true. How many fights have you had with Leia about my constant presence? I selfishly clung to you two, when I should have let go long ago. And I hope I haven't drained the life from your marriage.
"Take care of Leia. She'll need you more than ever. She's seen so much death, but none of it has been this personal. There has never been a body to dispose of, final ceremonies to be held, or any of that. Don't let her skimp on them, either." The hologram gave the same wan smile that Han had seen for years. It was a poor ghost of Luke's former happiness. "I don't care for myself, but she will need the rituals for closure. She hasn't had any of that, not with any of the deaths. Let her have it now.
"Love the children. Teach them to fly as recklessly as you do, to live with the joyous abandon I lost. They will be fine people, leaders of the Republic."
There was a pause, filled with the crackle of static, and Han waited for the holo to start over. It didn't. Luke continued, his voice heavier, his face even sadder.
"Chewbacca knows. He has known all along. Don't hold it against him. I wouldn't let him warn you. Living so long, the one thing Wookiees understand is when and how to die. He and I talked often, and he understands more of the why than anyone ever will.
"It won't hurt. There's a self-destruct Force Sequence all Jedi learn. I almost used it on Bepin, and I will use it now. All I have to do is lie down, trip the Sequence, and wait. The end is painless and almost instantaneous.
"I love you. I'm a coward, I couldn't say that if I ever had to see you again. I know, I tried. I tried so many times. I've wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you in Mos Eisley. I never forgot Hoth, but you're Leia's now, and I respected her claim. I just needed to tell you this last thing. I love you. Remember that. And know I am always with you, and will see you again. Good-bye, my brother, my love."
The holo winked out. Chewbacca took it from Han's unresisting hands and crushed it, the only evidence, to powder. Then, he folded his partner and friend into an embrace, and ignored the wetness on his fur.