Pax Blank - Into the Storm

"Yeah, that worked out great," Han deadpanned, looking about him meaningfully. "Where the hell are we anyway?"

"Vader's Super Star Destroyer, I think."

"Great. So that's twice as far to run to get to Chewie an' Leia," Han said dryly. "How long have you been here?"

"We're in a detention cell, in hyperspace. How would I know?"

"How many meals?" Han reasoned.

"Not nearly enough. Feels like one a day, which means I've been here three days. Two days elsewhere. But I was out cold before that, and I have no idea how long for."

"Out?" Han frowned.

"In a medi-center. They put me in here when I tried to go walkabout."

"Medi-center? What happened?"

Luke shrugged, not wanting to stay on this conversation any further. "Vader."

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Han frowned, blinking rapidly as he stared at the blurred outline of the kid's hunched form, where he'd retreated to on the floor by a huge pillar which dominated the small cell. "You okay?"

"I'll live," Luke assured dismissively. But there was something else--something in his voice...

"Luke?"

He vaguely saw the kid raise his head, blurred and indistinct. Saw him hold his arm out in silence, and Han squinted at it, the white bandage against the white walls making it difficult to see just what...

The air left him in a rush of compassion as he shook his head and looked away, uncertain what to say.

"It doesn't hurt so much now." Luke said quietly.

"What the hell happened?"

"Vader," Luke repeated, voice strangely neutral as he said the name.

"Why?"

Luke shrugged. "I...got a blow in with my lightsaber."

Han was silent for long seconds. "You hit him...with a lightsaber?"

"Yeah."

Clearly the kid didn't want to give up any more information on this. Han considered for long seconds before finally nodding and saying quietly, "I'm impressed."

Strangely, the kid didn't reply; just looked away in silence.

Slowly, over the next few hours, interspersed by long, reticent lulls, Han coaxed what felt like the edited highlights out of Luke. The fight, the fall. The tractor beam, the medi-center. It all made sense, except on thing...why they were still alive at all--any of them. When he tried to push the kid on that one, he got stonewalled every time.

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Luke lay on his back, staring at the curve of the ceiling...not that it was a ceiling, per say. The cell was a half-dome, ceiling and walls merging into a single concave curve...why? He didn't exactly make it a habit to visit Imperial detention cells, but curves on any starship were a waste of space. So why here?

Beside him, Han moved in his sleep on the hard bench that the cables about Luke's ankles meant that he couldn't even reach. He glanced over, worried for him, but still grateful for his company and the distraction it offered. He knew he'd eventually have to tell Han more; that Han knew he was keeping something back, but was allowing it with good grace, for now.

But he couldn't speak the truth--not yet. Some things were still too hard to say out loud, to even begin to consider. He looked down at the bandaged stub which had been his hand; some wounds kept on bleeding.

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"I think my eyes are getting better," Han maintained from the unpadded bunk where he lay, waving his hand before eyes.

He'd been there two meals now, which definitely equated to two very long days, the way his stomach was growling.

Luke glanced up from where he generally sat on the floor, leaning back against the post in the centre of the cell. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Han glanced over, squinting. "... I want to say...three...?"

"I don't actually have my hand up," Luke said, deadpan.

"Oh, that's low," Han said dryly.

"You're not ready," Luke said easily, voice straining slightly as he shifted uncomfortably against the surgical scar he'd admitted he had on his back...maybe he wasn't ready either.

"Yeah, but if we go now..."

"If we go now, not only will I be dragging you along, whilst trying to fire a blaster one-handed and having to stop every time we hit steps to say, 'Down one...and another...', but when I finally give you a blaster because you've nagged me relentlessly about how much better you can see now, you'll probably shoot me in the back," Luke reasoned good-naturedly.

"Hey, there's nothin' wrong with my aim, junior."

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Luke repeated back.

"Man, you're worse than Chewie," Han grumbled.

Luke smiled tiredly. "We'll go when we get the chance. Whenever."

"That's all I wanted to hear," Han grinned.

Silence...

"And you aren't quite as bad as Chewie."

"Thanks."

"And you can fly better than him. But don't tell him that."

"Thanks."

"And you don't smell like a tauntaun when you're wet, which Chewie definitely does."

"Always nice to know."

"Except for that one time when I covered you in tauntaun innards."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Luke said, a smile sounding in his tired voice.

"Hey, you weren't complaining at the time, pal. I'm the one who had to spend the night in a very small snow-shelter with you."

"Revenge is sweet."

"Ah, it wasn't so bad. Try being stuck in a small freighter with a wet Wookiee."

Silence... The kid was awful quiet these days.

"See, I can see how many fingers I have up this close," Han said, waving his hand before him.

"I hope so, that's your own hand," Luke pointed out mildly.

"C'mon. I bet you five hundred credits I can tell you this time."

"You already owe me the Falcon twice over." The kid sighed, but he still rose, leaning against the thick post for support.

"Care to double it?"

"Do you have four Falcons ?" Luke asked dryly.

"Hey, there's only one Falcon . And we're taking her with us when we leave."

Luke leaned closer to hold his hand out, always seeming to stand awkwardly to Han when he stepped from the center of the room, his bandaged arm still clutched to his chest.

"How many?" he invited.

"Two!"

"Congratulations. You can see."

" Now can we leave?" Han asked impatiently, as if this had been the only obstruction.

"Absolutely. You open the door and we're out of here," Luke agreed, turning to head back to his spot.

"Are you..." Han leaned in, frowning, as Luke walked away. "Are you tied to that post?"

"A little bit," Luke allowed dryly.

"And you didn't think to mention that earlier?" Han said, rising and stepping forward to grab clumsily for the fine organic steel cables and lift them into his still-limited range of focus.

"All things considered, I thought it was the least of our problems. Would you quit pulling that? I'm attached to the other end!" Luke yanked back with his ankle as he slid down the pillar to sitting again.

"Wow, they really want you to stay put, don't they?" Undeterred, Han crouched down before Luke to study the cable. "This is military high-grade. Pretty hefty stuff--three of these'd lift the Falcon."

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Luke shifted uneasily as Han glanced up, that big-brother mix of concern and reproach in his tone, part patronizing, part kidding. He'd already used it to good effect to drag from Luke the fact that he'd had some kind of surgery on his spine. Luke would've kept quiet about it, but a medi-droid had been in to check the wound daily, and the fact that it had clearly been instructed not to say a word to either of them hadn't even slowed the run of questions that Han had launched.

Now he was tilting his head in that familiar way. "What'd you do?"

"Nothing."

"Really? Cos I can't help but notice that I remain cable-free and, if I say so myself, I did a hell of a lot to hack 'em off."