Chapter Text
Hold my hand (it’s a long way down)
It’s a long way down,
A long way down,
And if you fall,
If you fall…
*
Han didn’t think about the spider cracks he stepped on, the cracks which grew beneath his feet as he ran after the infinite tide of black swaying around his son.
He doesn’t think about the tremble of his heart, the shaking of the ground beneath him when Ben turns, eyes wide in the darkness, parted lips imprisoning a thousand words which leave a bitterness in his throat and a sourness on his tongue.
He doesn’t see Kylo Ren, the lord. He doesn’t see The First Order reflected in the same eyes he’d wake beside a long time ago, doesn’t see the fury reflected in the flowing saber in Ben’s hands.
He sees his son.
Han wants to beg, plead, please. He would get on his knees if it made a difference, fall on any saber if it meant Ben came home. But his voice is lost somewhere in his throat, his thoughts and plans drown in the orbs of a boy that isn’t a man yet. A boy who needs his father.
“Come home” he says, with a crack that burns his skin and breaks the air like a whip. His arms itch to be wrapped around those slender shoulders, to feel that sharp chin fitted against his shoulder, to have his hands in those long unruly curls. He’s never missed the weight of his son against him more than he does in these moments, when they’re so close, so close yet divided by a river of something born from ideals and misunderstandings and longing.
Ben just looks at him for a moment, and it is truly when Han knows he is looking into the eyes of his son, not Kylo Ren, not this poison that built up The First Order and crippled the Resistance.
“I…” Ben lets out a crumbling breath, the most immeasurable quiver on his lips. He’s facing Han completely now, Han who has the most illogical urge to rip that horrid black cloak from those thin shoulders and drape a warm blanket in its place. To hide those scarred hands from the war, to send his boy back to his mother.
Instead, his hand moves of its own will and mind, and cradles the side of Ben’s face. He feels the too-cold skin, the blemishes of old scars. Runs a rough thumb over a too-prominent cheek bone and remembers a boy who could fit in his arms, who used to sit on his shoulders and point at the stars with chubby fingers. A boy who laughed the rays of the sun day and night, whose eyes held the brightest and most beautiful galaxies Han had ever seen.
Eyes now bathed in pain and sorrow and sadness, to match a quiet voice which shreds the loudest silence.
“I’m being torn apart…”
Han knew when his son was born, that his heart would now forever walk outside his chest. It clenches painfully, twists in the cruel hands of those who broke Ben, who seduced him with false ideals and painted him in fury the same colour as the saber which glows in his hands.
So when Ben leans in, and red bounces of those dark eyes, Han almost expects to feel the sting of a saber piercing where his heart should have been. But he doesn’t move, the love he feels for his sons glues his feet to the bridge, toes sinking into the sands of too much time past.
And then he feels something cool wrapped in his fingers, watches scarlet light dance like flames across Ben’s skin as his son hands him his hilted lightsaber.
His eyes widen, and he feels confusion cloud his mind, his thoughts, blur his vision, and then his son’s breath is warm in his ear as he whispers-
“Run.”
*
Han’s head snaps up, and Ben looks back at him, hands now devoid of anything.
“Not without you.”
Ben blinks in surprise when his father’s hand closes around his own in an iron grip and pulls him back almost painfully, urgently. Han won’t lose his son again, won’t give him up for anything in this world or the next.
And so they run.
Han leads the way and their footfalls are the loudest in the base. He barely feels the scorch of heat graze past his shoulder, looks up at the forgotten Stormtroopers which had rolled in like a thousand dice, gleaming white like forgotten bones against the walls.
He hears Ben’s quickened breath as they run, hand in hand, Rey and Finn and Chewie covering them with their own fire best they could. No path had never felt so long, the end only leading to an infinite number of corridors, separate streams of a murky river that never meet.
He stutters when they reach a closed door, and feels something in him shatter when his son’s hand slips from his own. His whips around, the artificial gravity never heavier, words ready on his tongue to beg Ben not to leave when they almost made it.
He’s breathless when his son says,
“I know the way.”
They keep running.
*
Their footsteps echo forever until they reach the end, but the Stormtroopers are ever present only ever moments away. With every slide of each door, every ricochet of every plasma beam, the taste of freedom becomes sweeter on Han’s tongue, a lightness spreading like a plague on his chest. It makes him feel weightless, like his bones are made of fine china and his eyes made of glass that will shatter should he blink too hard. His knees twinge and the saber feels awkward in his long fingers, feels dark and heavier than it should be, but he runs like a leaf in the wind behind Ben and recognises the burning feeling.
Hope.
Carved into his ribs with a serrated knife, deep into the whites of his bones and the inside of his eyelids. In the midst of the danger and terror, and running close yet far enough not to tread on the edges of Ben’s black robes, he wants to scream,
Leia, I’m bringing our son home.
Until they reach the end, through the labyrinth to the Millennium Falcon where Rey and Finn and Chewie await, and a herd of Stormtroopers flood through the gates like mosquitos drawn to a fire.
He hears Chewie’s deep roar, but it’s drowned by a ringing in his ears when Ben waves his arm and dozens white suits are flung back with the Force, pinned against the walls of Starkiller, what will not remain of Starkiller. Like butterflies on display. Plasma rays are still in the air, vibrating angrily, as if strung up for this moment. Han takes a moment to marvel at the power of his son, the gift that is his son. He has seen little that is so incredible.
“Come on!” Finn yells, the boy radiating with urgency which flows in electrical currents through his veins.
The ground begins to shake desperately, and Ben’s eyes widen for a moment, surprise gleaming through them like thunder. A split second where the universe freezes and a stray plasma ray evades his hold, evades the Force, and Han has never screamed louder in his life.
“BEN!”
The beam, surging with life, slams through his son’s chest. The sound of skin tearing echoes, sickening, grotesque, plasma fingers shredding the bone underneath to ribbons. Crumbling something so precious as gem.
The lightsaber slips through Han’s grip as the world slips beneath his feet.
Everything quiets for a moment as Ben stutters, losing his footing with a spray of blood through his pale lips. It dyes his chin, his cheek, a sharp blackened red on a blank canvas. Han sees his son fall back in slow motion, and his feet are moving beneath him before Ben’s back cracks against the cold floor, a puppet with strings severed and joints broken.
His son will never be too old for him to carry. Ben is a weight Han will always bear around his shoulders, on his hands, in the space between his ribs, whether made of china or glass or stone.
He doesn’t think about liquid which paints his skin as he fits an arm behind Ben’s shoulders and one beneath his legs, the warmth leaving through the tear between his black robes, the coldness which spreads to Ben’s cheeks and makes Han shiver when his son stifles his scream against the arm of his jacket.
The silver Stormtrooper stands there, commanding, unmoving, blaster trained on them without worry or fear. Dread courses through his veins, a heaviness settling into the china that was his bones. He can almost hear the cracking, too much pressure, too little strength. He’s going to die. He’s going to die with his son in his arms.
They were so close.
I’m sorry, Leia.
The trooper’s finger tightens and Han watches the trigger twitch-
BANG
The side of the silver arms gleams in the light as it shatters into a thousand pieces, torn and broken and scorched. The pieces bounce helplessly off the ground as the Stormtrooper is thrown back violently, weapon sliding across the floor with a screech.
Behind the crumbled form is a man, hair a red ruffled mess in the sharp light, features almost as pale as his son’s, uniform adorned with marks of high command in The First Order. Han can already see the red dripping from his ledger, soaking through his pocket and dripping onto his pristine shoes.
General Hux.
“Move!” The man yells, slicing through the ringing in his ears, and Han doesn’t need telling twice.
He’s aboard the Falcon and the door creaks in protest when Chewie closes it behind the three of them, the moments seeping through their grasp like Ben’s blood through his fingers.
He barely notices Chewie disappearing, the Falcon as she glides upward, away from the broken silver Stormtrooper, the remnants of a base.
All that remains is the unmoving weight in his arms.