Work Text:
He Stopped Loving Her Today
He said, "I'll love you till I die"
Coruscant
45 ABY
Chewbacca walked into the old military hangar. Announcements droned from the speakers as though this were an ordinary day. A crane hauled an engine assembly overhead while pilots argued beside an X-wing.
The Millennium Falcon waited at the far end of the hangar. She looked the same. She had looked old and weathered even when she was young.
Memories threatened him then. Good times. Bad times. All the long years in between, when two beings had become family.
Most of the hangar traffic flowed around him without notice, but a few people stopped and stared. Every step toward the Falcon carried him closer to what waited inside.
Carlist Rieekan stood at the end of the boarding ramp, older than Chewie remembered.
“Chewbacca.”
Chewie rumbled a greeting.
The man’s mouth opened but no words came out. He shook his head. “He’s inside.” He cleared his throat. “There was no pain.”
He was too late. He had taken the fastest ship available on Kashyyyk.
It had not been the Falcon.
It had not been enough.
Chewie growled and lifted his chin toward the entrance.
Carlist shook his head. “Nobody else is inside. Skywalker is on his way.”
Chewie laid one massive paw heavily on the general’s shoulder.
Carlist’s face tightened but he only nodded and patted Chewie’s paw.
Chewie climbed the boarding ramp.
The hollow, metallic sound summoned memories of all the times he had climbed that ramp before.
Running. Walking. Limping. One or two times crawling.
Dragging Han behind him. One or both of them hurt. Or drunk. Or tired. Or angry.
But mostly happy.
Before.
He reached the lounge and looked around. Nothing had changed.
Lights were blinking at the technical station. There was a faint smell of burnt wire coming from the air handler. And that stuck relay was still clicking in the circuitry bay.
Once, it had been just him and Han: hauling cargo, memorizing every space lane, and finding the best booth in every seedy cantina. One day they rolled in credits. The next, they couldn’t afford fuel.
Chewie headed toward the captain’s quarters. He ran his paw along the cushioned bulkhead.
He stood at the doorway to Han’s quarters.
Outside of this line, I don’t care what you do. But this is my domain.
Han complained, but Chewie came and went whenever he wanted.
Before.
Even if Han had been entertaining company. If Chewie needed to get to an access panel in this room, he entered.
Han would swear at him. Whoever was with Han would either laugh or scramble for a blanket. Chewie would fix the ship.
She had been different. For her, Han had tried to make the line real.
Chewie crossed the invisible line.
Han lay on his bunk. A portable med-unit sat powered down beside him.
Chewie whined.
And then he walked closer.
Chewie tilted his head and stared at his friend. The lines on his forehead had smoothed. One corner of his mouth rested slightly higher than the other, as though he had kept one last remark to himself.
Behind Han, a holo had been pinned to the bulkhead.
He took it and held it in his paws.
Han and Leia flickered in the holo. They were in that cramped apartment they lived in after the war. Han was watching Leia laugh at something outside the frame. Leia had not yet noticed him looking.
Chewie placed it on Han’s chest.
His paw lingered, then withdrew.
He looked around. From the nook above Han’s head, Chewie retrieved several flimsis. Their edges were worn, and some of the lettering had faded, but Chewie recognized Leia’s delicate, looping hand.
Words that lasted longer than that apartment had.
The earliest were creased from being opened too many times.
Beneath Leia’s letters lay one more flimsi, folded but unsealed. Her name was written across the outside in Han’s uneven hand. The fold had gone soft from age.
Chewie unfolded it.
You knew where I was. I kept telling myself that was enough. Turns out it wasn’t.
He had never sent it.
Chewie looked from the words down to Han.
Han sitting at the comm for hours, Leia’s frequency entered but not engaged.
Leia waiting beneath the Falcon until the hangar lights dimmed, staring up at the closed ramp.
Han on one side. Leia on the other.
There had been a few answered calls. Meetings. One dinner that ended before the food arrived.
Afterward, the silence had settled deeper.
Separately, they had each asked Chewie about the other.
“How’s he doing?”
“How’s she doing?”
Chewie had argued with them both and knew Luke had, too. Han had ordered them to stay out of it. Leia had insisted there was nothing left to discuss.
He should have shoved them into the cargo hold and left them there until—
“Chewie?”
It was Luke. Chewie said nothing. He waited, staring at his friend.
Luke stood at the doorway. He looked from Chewie to the bed. Then he stepped inside, rested a hand on Chewbacca’s forearm, and nodded.
Luke crossed to the bunk and placed a hand on Han’s shoulder. “I’m here.”
His gaze lingered on the holo lying on Han’s chest.
Chewie growled low and long.
When Luke stood, Chewie gathered the letters and slipped them beneath the holo, tucking their edges inside Han’s dress uniform jacket. He had only ever worn that uniform when someone forced him to: ceremonies, hearings, military functions.
Chewbacca could hear the complaints and see him tugging at the collar, swearing that the fabric itched.
Chewie huffed.
Luke and Chewie made their way to the boarding ramp.
Soldiers in dress uniform climbed the ramp with a repulsor bier. They returned carrying Han.
Chewie moaned plaintively, then stepped down the ramp to the hangar floor with Luke close behind him.
The work had stopped. The announcements were silent. Even the astromechs seemed quieter.
For the first time ever, Han was going somewhere that Chewie could not follow.
The uniformed soldiers formed up behind them. Luke looked up at him and gave him a solemn nod.
And then they began walking.
Rieekan stood rigid beside the path. Wedge’s salute trembled at his brow. Every pilot, worker, officer, and soldier stood at attention and saluted General Solo. Chewie kept walking beside Han.
Among the rows of unfamiliar faces, Chewie saw her.
He never understood how something so small could take up so much space.
When they drew closer, she stepped forward.
Luke and Chewie stopped.
She hugged her brother, then Chewbacca.
When she pulled away, her gaze moved past them to Han.
For a moment, she did not move.
At last, she crossed to him. She reached toward his hand, hesitated, and smoothed the hated collar instead.
Her fingers brushed the corner of the holo beneath his jacket and stopped.
Leia drew it out. Several flimsis followed, and she caught them against the bier.
She recognized her own handwriting at once.
Her thumb moved over the worn creases. One sheet rattled softly against the next.
Then she saw the folded page beneath them.
Her name was written across it in Han’s hand.
She opened it.
Chewie watched her read the few lines once, then again.
“I thought…” Her eyes moved to Han. “I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”
She glanced at his words and then back at him. Her mouth twisted. “Nerfherder.”
Chewie reared his head back and whined.
She returned the holo and her old letters to Han’s chest. The page in his handwriting remained in her hand.
She tried to step away, but her free hand closed around the edge of the bier.
Luke crossed to her and drew her against him. Her fingers slipped from the bier and knotted in the fabric of his jacket.
Chewie began walking again. After a moment, Luke and Leia followed.
Behind them, the Falcon stood open and empty.
The stuck relay kept clicking.