Disclaimer: Everbody who makes a physical appearance is Lucas' but one of
the people talked about is mine.
"Leia!" Han embraced her enthusiastically, then frowned slightly running
hands over bare shoulders, down a bare back past her waist until they
finally encountered a chased metal g-string. "What are you wearing?"
"Practically nothing." she replied drily.
He grinned lasciviously. "Wish I could see that."
"I'm glad I can." Lando put in.
Han turned towards his voice, an arm still around Leia. "Watch it 'old
friend'." he warned.
"Lando's been a great help to us." Luke put in quietly, from somewhere
off to the left. "Without his recce work we wouldn't have had a chance of
getting you out."
"I know. Chewie explained things." to Lando. "So what happened? Vader
just march in and make you an offer you couldn't refuse?"
"Something like that." the former Baron Administator sighed. "He said he
needed you and the others as bait for Luke. Once he had what he wanted he'd
go. You were supposed to stay on Cloud City with me."
"You believed that?" Han asked incredulously.
"Like I had a choice?" Han couldn't see but sensed Lando's helpless
shrug. "I had my people to think of - and Vader has a reputation for keeping
his bargains."
From Leia, with a frown in her voice. "That's right, he's never broken
his word before."
"Aw come on!" Han said. Vader the epitome of evil? she had to be kidding.
But she wasn't
"No it's true! I know how he operates, Han, I've been fighting him for
years."
"He's always kept his word?" That was Luke, there was something strange
in his voice - an intensity, like the answer mattered a lot to him.
"Yes, always." Leia answered. "Frankly I couldn't believe my ears when he
told Lando he was altering the bargain. It just wasn't like him."
Wasn't like him? How well did she know Vader anyway?
"He must want me very badly." Luke said softly. Han registered the
strange new maturity in his voice. Sensed that Luke had changed, changed a
lot.
"Maybe because you're a Jedi?" Leia wondered.
"Maybe."
"Look, kid," Han turned towards the dark blur he knew was Luke. "you
can't go around calling yourself a Jedi Knight."
"I did kind of overstate." the kid admitted. "Actually I'm only a
Padawan."
The unfamiliar word went through Han with a kind of shock, calling up
strange echoes of things long forgotten. "What did you say?"
"A Padawan, it's the Jedi term for an apprentice or student."
"Whose student?" Han exploded irritably, "the old man's dead, Luke, and
one sabre lesson doesn't make you a Jedi or a Padawan or anything!"
"I found another Teacher." he could hear the smile in the kid's voice.
"And then a Padawan Master found me."
"The Jedi were all destroyed by the Empire." Han argued. "Whoever these
guys are they *can't* be the real thing!"
"Trust me, Han," that suprisingly was Lando, "they are. I've seen Jinn
fight, he's a Jedi all right."
"Jinn?" Like the word Padawan that name had resonances. Somewhere,
sometime he'd heard it before.
"That's his name, Dai-Men Jinn." Luke explained.
"Dai-Men Jinn." Han repeated, the syllables shivering over his nerves. An
image, a face tried to form before his inner eye disipated like smoke at the
sound of Leia's voice.
"Han?"
He looked down at her, snuggled into his side, he still couldn't quite
make out her face but the feel of her seemed to clear his head a little.
"Nothing, I just thought I'd heard the name somewhere before."
"Not likely." that was Luke. "He told me he hasn't gone by his real name
in years."
*You musn't call him Dai-Men anymore, that name is dangerous to us all*
a voice whispered in memory, faded before he could identify it. Han shook
his head hard in an effort to clear it. "Yeah, well, maybe that carbon
freeze's still playing tricks with my head."
"Master said hibernation was very disorienting." Luke soothed. "The
confusion, like your blindness, will pass."
"Soon, I hope." Han muttered, wrapping his arms around Leia's warm
solidity and deliberately shunting the disturbing, niggling not quite
memories to the back of his mind where they belonged. Focused determinedly
on the present. "What about my ship, how's the Falcon? You didn't let Lando
mess her up did you, Chewie?"
"Me mess her up! *You're* the one who made all the crazy modifications!"
Lando ranted, "No wonder my people had trouble fixing the hyperdrive - it's
a wonder they even *found* it!"
Han grinned. He was home.