#swtjl

Setting: Millenium Falcon, not long after the end of TLJ

She watched the cup intently; the water making ripples from the engine of the ship. Each time the water would almost reach a still the surface would break once more, never fully at peace. She couldn’t remember how long she had been sitting like this, but time didn’t matter to her. She watched the small tide repeat its path over and over again while it washed her mind empty. The water was approaching a calm when it happened.

That pressure shift, so subtle yet so familiar, was like an static shock that traveled from her eardrums over her entire body. Ever so faintly she could hear a whisper of breathing behind her and she hung on it. As the water in the cup started rippling once more she felt her heart in her chest move. It didn’t begin to race, but rather the beat was no longer her own. No, it wasn’t a beat at all, it was a pull, almost magnetic. She could feel it purposefully knocking at her ribcage trying to get her out of her chair, to turn her head, to do something. But she would not move, her resolve could not be broken.

Again time escaped her, and again it did not matter. Only the pull inside her. Only the faint breathing behind her, only the palpitations of the water. It was all so much. An unnamable pressure was growing behind her sternum. She tightened her throat and moisture rolled off her upper lip. The fight against her desire to turn around was all-consuming. She would not give away that she was aware he was there. If he knew he would speak. If she heard his voice she’d look at him. If she started she wouldn’t stop. Any second the dam was going to burst and she would be ruined. She braced for the maelstrom as a drowning gasp echoed through her chamber flooding all of her senses completely.

Then it was over, the storm inside her died. Sitting in the stillness she could have imagined it, she thought, knowing that was a lie. Two tears broke down her cheeks meeting under her chin like two hands clasped in prayer. She was alone again. Her eyes had never left the cup.  

***

The pain was everywhere. It ached in a way that couldn’t be fixed, couldn’t be helped. He knew this is what living would be like now. Even breathing hurt, as if his lungs were struggling to get comfortable. Absentmindedly he traced the scar down his face, the one place he was numb. He was a haunted man, wandering the ship looking for her, trying to outrun the last look she had given him. He was so out of his mind he didn’t see her at first.

She was just there, an effortless miracle like before. He watched her shoulders rise and fall with her breath and he noticed the air moved through his lungs easily. When he looked at her nothing could hurt, because she was his sun, there was no other way to put it.

She didn’t know he was there, she would never allow him to just look at her unguarded.

She was too far away, but he dared not get any closer. He couldn’t give himself away. He couldn’t let this moment end before it had to. Yet the distance pulled on him towards her, as if it weren’t natural for him to be apart from her. Her touch had done this, he closed his eyes and anger burned brightly behind his lids for a moment. But when he looked at her again his anger melted in his throat leaving an ache as if he had been crying.

He was running out of time, he could feel the pull towards her waning. This could be his only chance to see her. Panic filled him. He had to say something. No he couldn’t, there was nothing he could say. But he had to try, to say he was sorry, to try and explain to her again. He struggled to find the words to tell her everything, the words that would make her reach for him again, yet they would not come and the lump in his throat only grew bigger.

He let go, knowing it was hopeless. He felt dizzy with want and futility. Tears of frustration filled his vision and with the image of her gone a wave of loneliness hit him. The lump in his throat would not let him breathe or speak. Panic grasped at all corners of his mind when a sudden strangled sob broke through the silence.