I.
If Lando’s life split along the fault line of every upheaval, it’d be a jagged mess of scattered eras, some better and some worse, all of them interesting. But Lando prefers wholeness, keeps comprehensive control over the trajectories and arcs of his existence. There are no fractures. His continuity is not broken.
He does not, and never has, allowed one experience to overshadow every other failure, accomplishment, and staggering success in his life. He likes his failures. He likes his accomplishments. He especially likes his staggering successes. But he likes perspective, too. It’s what kept him alive through his years of swindling swindle-worthy people. It’s what got him Cloud City and saved it, too. He became a war hero—made a difference on a scale even he’d never dreamed about—because of it.
Him and perspective, it goes way back.
So when Luke kriffing Skywalker manages to crack the whole of his life into pieces… Two pieces, more precisely. Or rather, one whole piece—the past—and now, the shattered grit of his present. He doesn’t understand it at first.
“What do you mean he’s gone?” he asks, searching Leia’s face for signs of deception. His body remains stiff; there’s no point leaning forward. Across so many light years, nothing will clear up Leia’s image. Static distorts her appearance in even, predictable throbs. The lines of the holo shift in sympathy with his heart as it thuds, plodding, along, somehow still regular—a little behind the times, it seems, and sure this is a joke.
It’s only when the tiny blue representation of her will have flickered out that he’ll start to hate how he couldn’t glean anything from Leia that she hadn’t wanted him to know.
But that time isn’t now. And Leia’s still before him in miniature. “I mean he’s gone. He left. There’s no one—” She pauses and the scratch of interference covers for her and he hates that, too, certain his own… uncertainty is getting through unimpeded. “Ben destroyed his academy, Lando.”
“Did you talk to Luke?” Later, guilt will pull at the threads of Lando’s thoughts. He knows Ben. Cares about Ben. But he hadn’t asked about him. Will never ask about him, the precedent set in this moment. Now. All of his information will come secondhand, scraps of a whole he won’t want to know. And eventually it’ll become so much that Lando lets Ben become, in his mind, exactly what Ben wants everyone to think he’s become.
“Briefly.” Her gaze slips and that at least he can’t rationalize away with a weak comm signal. She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs, disgusted and sick and defeated, helpless. Lando’s gut freezes. Dread frosts his skin with ice. He’s never, never heard a sound like that come out of Leia’s mouth. Ever. “I don’t—Han is…”
“Stop,” Lando says, quiet. You’re not allowed to sound like this. Not you. “We’re going to fix this. Where did Luke go?”
Leia grimaces, a weighted expression of suppressed grief settling into place, one that finds footing and takes hold for a long, long time. “He didn’t tell me.”
“He didn’t—” Lando’s hands curl into fists in his lap, his office too small for the anger building inside of him. If he releases it, who knows what will happen to the cramped space. He takes a breath. Lets it go. That anger digs its claws into his heart, his lungs, everywhere it finds purchase. His voice, though, retains its placid smoothness. “And you can’t…”
“No.” Her stare grows so hard that duracrete would bend beneath. But Lando is made of sterner stuff and withstands the onslaught, grateful that he doesn’t have to confront it in person. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Okay.”
The mother of all awkward pauses fills the air, almost audible in its obviousness. It leaves Lando aware that something between him and Leia has damaged itself beyond repair. Their interactions haven’t been this chilly since Cloud City. And Lando, for once, finds himself lost for words. At perhaps the moment he most needs them.
“I have to go,” Leia says, curt, taking the conversation in both hands and strangling it. “I’ll—comm when I’ve found something.”
“Lei—”
Her image flickers out of existence and he knows before trying—though he tries anyway—that his signal will be blocked.
If his arm sweeps his comm off the edge of his desk in retaliation, if his eyes watch as it skitters across the ground and ricochets off the wall, if his nails dig into his thighs to keep from throwing something else, there’s no one around to note it and he can pretend none of those things happened.
Damn it, Luke. You couldn’t tell your own damned husband what you’re doing?
II.
Leia comms a week later. No news. Two weeks. Four. No news. Another month. They’ve got a lead. Scratch that: it was a false trail. She mentions the first Jedi Temple like it is the key. It is. And it isn’t. Things can never be simple. Another couple of months pass.
Nothing.
Nothing and nothing and nothing.
Six months go by and no sign of Luke. No messages.
No news.
A year. Then two.
Leia stops sending updates altogether by year three.
III.
Lando stares down at his comm, cupping the thing in his hand like it’s precious, like it’s not his most hated possession. He keys in Luke’s code by rote. Receives nothing in response. For a short time, a very short time, after Luke had disappeared, he’d gotten static, a sign that the comm was still functional. Now… now Lando suspects it had been abandoned somewhere, the battery run down. Maybe it’s still at Luke’s academy.
Lando hasn’t had the heart to investigate. Might never have it. He can’t go to Luke Skywalker’s last known location and be okay with that.
It had been one thing when Luke was busy training. Lando had known where he was then. Unanswered comms had been a fact of life. He could comm the man and nine times out of ten, he wouldn’t be available immediately. But he’d always returned the call with news about his charges or some new discovery he’d made about the Force. He’d asked about Lando’s day. He’d smiled and laughed and sometimes frowned at Lando’s stories of administrative shenanigans on Cloud City.
He’d told Lando he missed him. That he should visit.
And sometimes Lando had. Not often. Not often enough. But he had.
Now he has none of that. Now all he has instead is a phantom pain where his husband should be.
He keys in the code a second time, the comm creaking as Lando’s fingers close over its casing. He doesn’t always try twice. But some days he has to pretend he has some control over the situation. And on those days, he’ll give it another go.
He gives it a third try for symmetry, for luck, for the desperate part inside of him that thinks, not enough.
Lando’s comm remains silent, pinging hopelessly for a connection it’s not going to find.
The next day, he doesn’t comm at all.
IV.
“Why do you do it?” Lando asks, standing on the balcony of his apartment. It overlooks the prettiest view on Senate Row—his own private name for it—the lapping water of a pool recently built to imitate a lake, a miniscule tide lapping at the smooth-stoned rock beach beneath. He’d thought Luke might like it, having remembered while looking for property that Luke had once said he’d like to settle down near water. Though Luke had long since determined setting up a training academy was the more important dream, Lando had never given up on this one.
He turns, swirling his lowball glass, the perfect sphere of ice clinking against the inside of it. Leaning back against the balcony, his attention settles fully on Han. “Do you even know?”
Han sighs, disgusted, propping up the already open glass door with his shoulder. He’s got a drink, too, but the amber liquid almost licks at the rim. He’s doing a shit job of hiding the fact that he’s not drinking it. “Because it’s Luke,” he answers, unable to look Lando in the eye. “And because Leia can’t.”
“Right.” A familiar resentment plucks at his consciousness, urgent, demanding his attention. Lando refuses its call.
“Why don’t you?” Han asks, finally taking a sip. A sip that becomes a slug that becomes a drained glass.
Lando’s had a lot of practice in the senate regarding ridiculous statements, so he doesn’t choke or cough or laugh. He doesn’t snort in derision and he doesn’t scoff. The man didn’t even want me to know he was going. Why the hell would I? “I’ve never been good at chasing after people,” he says.
“You did a pretty good job with me.”
“Ancient history,” Lando replies, shrugging. “Different circumstances.”
Han’s eyebrow climbs Han’s forehead, suspicious. “Luke could be in trouble.”
“And if it was twenty years ago and Luke was in the trapped-in-carbonite kind of trouble, I’d be out there right this minute searching. But he—” Lando swallows, reminds himself to breathe. “He knows how to handle himself and he obviously wants to handle this himself. If he doesn’t need me, I’m not going to disrespect that decision.”
Han tilts his head. “Really? You think that?”
“I know it.” Otherwise, he’d have commed. He’d have come to see me. He wouldn’t have pulled this on all of us.
“Bantha shit,” Han says, stepping onto the balcony. He wrests the glass from Lando’s hand, kneels to place it on the ground, out of easy reach, groaning at the exertion. Old age catching up to him. “This is Luke we’re talking about. This is—”
Han might cut himself off, but Lando hears what he doesn’t say all the same. This is my son’s actions we’re talking about. Fortunately, Lando doesn’t have to worry about anybody’s son in this, doesn’t have that particular guilt hanging around his neck, can’t be motivated by Ben’s decisions when he can’t even fathom Luke’s. Ben, if Lando is being perfectly honest, hardly factors into it at all. But he can see the weight Ben has left on Han’s shoulders and Lando can grieve that part of it at least. “How are you on credits?”
“Low,” Han admits, scuffing at the ground, turned around by the abrupt shift of conversational topics. If Lando hadn’t sprung the question on him, Han probably wouldn’t have answered that way. “It’s not so easy swindling swindlers out of their money these days.”
“You got a lead?”
“I always got a lead,” Han says, shrugging, palms open. “That’s the problem. I’ve got too many of them.”
“I might know a guy,” Lando replies, hesitant, hoping Han doesn’t get the wrong idea about his motivations here. This isn’t about finding Luke. Lando’s getting along just fine without him, so long as he knows the man’s not out there dead somewhere. “Kind of a dupe, but a good enough sort. Easy work for excellent wages. I’ll put him in touch with you.”
“You don’t have to—”
“You need Luke to get to Ben, don’t you?”
“I don’t—”
“Too bad.” Their shoulders bump as Lando pushes past him, tired of the breeze, the clean scent of water drifting toward him, the regular slap of the tide against the rocks. He’s tired of this and this place and people arguing with him. He wishes that just once he could comm Leia without a void engulfing the space between them, sucking up all the warmth of long years of acquaintance. He wishes Han could visit just to visit and not because it’s a convenient stop along the way to somewhere else, feeling all the while obligated to bring updates and smuggled liquor and a few days of broken monotony to Lando’s otherwise monotonous life.
It didn’t used to be this way. And Lando never would have expected it to be. Settling into an existence so full of holding patterns, his days shaped by senate schedules and nights shaped by nothing? That’s not Lando.
“How’s Leia doing?” he asks, voice raised to reach Han, not sure why he’s asked until after the words are out, until Han answers.
“I wouldn’t know,” Han calls back, bristly.
He’d wanted to hurt the man, just a little. If Lando’s gonna have marital problems… well, it’s a bitter comfort to know Lando’s not the only one. Unluckily for Lando, he only feels a bigger hole at the almost matter-of-fact response from Han.
It wasn’t ever supposed to be this way.
“Lando,” Han says, following him in finally, the door sliding shut behind them, automatic. “I’ll find him.”
That’s the problem, Han, old buddy. I’m not sure I care if you do. And I’m not sure what I’d do if you did.
“I know you will, Han,” he says, locking those thoughts behind layer upon layer of walls. “I know you’ll stop at nothing.
“Just don’t lose yourself in the process, huh?” He turns, forcing himself to smile. “And maybe don’t lose the Falcon either.”
Han grimaces. “Little bit late for that, friend. It got stolen out from under me a, ah, while ago.”
“Well,” Lando says, brushing down his shirt, mind blanking of any appropriate response. In times past, he’d have berated Han or laughed at him for his bad fortune, maybe yelled at him for not telling him sooner. Now… Now he can’t summon anything except a vague, cynical acceptance of the situation. “That’s one hell of a hand you’ve saddled yourself with.”
Crooking a haphazard smile at Lando, Han shrugs. “What can I say? I’m good at looking for things. And after I get Luke back, I’m going for her.” He grows quiet, contemplative. It’s not a good look for him. Makes him seem uneasy or unhappy and Lando has never wanted either of those things for his oldest friend.
Funny how it always seems to happen anyway when Lando’s around.
V.
Hosnian Prime has some of the laxest divorce statutes on record in the galaxy. People plan trips to the Hosnian system just to ensure an easy and painless divorce. A whole industry has sprung up around it—cheap lawyers, vacation packages, bars and nightclubs that cater to the newly single.
Lando maybe wishes he didn’t know that.
VI.
“Senator Calrissian?” a young woman asks, approaching him as he’s returning to his office from the senate chamber. His skin, overheated, feels flushed. Between the robes and the heat of hundreds of bodies, he never stands much of a chance. He slows his gait and takes a deep breath. Stares at the row of carefully groomed bushes that line the path.
At least it’s cool out here.
At least it’s over.
“Hello,” he replies, cordial, distantly friendly as she catches up. “And who might you be?”
“Korr Sella,” she replies, matching his pace. Looking at her, he sees a serious woman, hair pulled back into a neat chignon.
“Miss Sella, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says, smiling broadly, hoping deep down inside that whatever she wants, it won’t take long. He’s got a bag or two to pack, a ticket to book. He’s already lingered long enough.
“Likewise, sir,” she says, disrupting the not unhappy line of his thoughts.
“You look very much as though you’re not from these parts.” His eyes catch on an unfamiliar insignia on her chest, the severe cut of her blazer—no, uniform. “I’d say military if I had to make a guess. And not Republic military. Not Hosnian military.”
She tilts her head, a tacit admission. “Something like that.” Clasping her hands behind her back, she adds, serious, sober, “I’m with the Resistance.”
“The Resistance?” Well, that would explain it. “You’re going to be real popular around here.”
“I don’t doubt that.” She smiles and acknowledges the lie with the arch of one eyebrow.
Lando likes her immediately. And feels bad that the Senate is going to eat her alive. “So what did you do to General Organa to deserve this particular post?”
“Nothing, sir.” Her voice is light, yet prideful. “I’ve been with her since before she left the Senate.”
“So she trusts you.”
“Implicitly.”
“Punishing you for being good at your job, huh?”
“No,” she replies, unruffled by Lando’s interrogation of her. “I chose this assignment.”
This time, Lando arches an eyebrow. “Your commitment to the cause is commendable,” he says, maintaining a purposefully even tone. No reason to get snide with her. Or dubious. “But I wonder what it has to do with me.”
“I’m here to—” Her eyes search the path and the courtyard just beyond. Most of the other senators are currently in committee and subcommittee hearings, taking petitions from their systems’ governors, or otherwise engaging in the business of running the galaxy. The courtyard is empty, save for a handful of busy, bustling aides rushing here and there across the bricks. “The First Order is gathering its strength.”
“Inevitable,” he declares, though he knows no such thing. The First Order isn’t really his purview. He hadn’t joined the Galactic Senate until after… after they’d made their presence known and felt, a whole slew of worlds seceding as a result. Not long after, but still. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“We have received intelligence that there are First Order sympathizers still working within the government—active sympathizers. And saboteurs.” She looks around again and it takes all of Lando’s composure to tell her to stop. If she’d quit with the furtive manners, no one would have any reason to pay them any mind. “General Organa was hoping you could help us flush them out.”
“I’m afraid you’re a few months too late, Miss Sella.” Regret tinges his response. But he couldn’t have known. And even if he had… even if Leia had told him… he’s not sure he could’ve done this for her. He’s done. Completely. After three years and change. He’s not sure any one job has ever exhausted him as thoroughly as this one. “I’ve resigned my seat.” Even saying it brings relief to him and that, more than anything, tells him he’s done the right thing despite now being unable to do the right thing by Leia. “Bespin’s junior senator has taken my place. As of today, in fact.”
“Are you—” Her eyebrows furrow and lines of displeasure and surprise form around her mouth. “General Organa didn’t mention that.”
“She didn’t know,” he says, twirling his hand in the air as though it doesn’t matter. At one time, she might have known everything. “We haven’t spoken in quite some time.”
“Oh.”
Pity for this young woman threatens to overwhelm him. She’s just trying to do her job. And here both Leia and Lando have thrown her for a loop. Just because… “I’m deeply sorry for this misunderstanding. For whatever that’s worth to you.” Not much, most like. He peers down at her. They’re right outside the only building left standing between Lando and whatever the rest of his life brings. Hiding a wince—another delay, how could he have expected a smooth transition to private citizenship—he says, “I can speak with Senator Ipslehen before I go. I trust her. She’ll help you.”
“That’s…” Korr Sella sighs and scratches at her temple. Her hands settle again at the small of her back. If she’s disappointed or angry, he can’t tell. After a single moment of confusion, she manages to project certainty and acceptance. “That’s all I can ask of you, Senator. Thank you.”
She could have asked for more—and probably should have. It’s what Leia would do. He might even have assisted her further if she had pressed. But he’s ready to be as far from the Hosnian system as he can reasonably take himself. It’s a bone-deep exhaustion, one that can’t be fixed. One that not even furtive adventure can dissolve.
As it is, he informs Ipslehen, sets up an opportunity for them to meet, and collects his things, informing his protocol droid to offer Sella the use of his apartment while she’s here. He has no use for it and doesn’t have the heart to sell it. He catches his morning flight out, takes the long way back to Bespin. Enjoys himself a little. Or tries to. Visits some of his old haunts—the ones on the up and up at least. Back in the day, he could build a day’s entertainment out of a handful of credits and a little imagination, could converse his way into any interesting situation.
It’s not as easy to do as he remembers it being. Nor as fulfilling.
And it only gets harder the closer to home he gets.
VII.
“When I heard you were coming back to Bespin,” Han says, casual, his boots ringing out in slow measured steps against the floor, “I thought for sure you’d go back into administration.” His attention drifts across the garden, hands reaching up to caress the long, vine-like appendages of his crop of sunberries. They hang from troughs racked aloft—a little taller than both Lando and Han, hundreds of them, the bright yellow fruit, small and abundant, cascading down the green ropes of foliage almost to the floor. “I didn’t think you’d pick up vinting.”
“You make it sound so respectable,” Lando replies, plucking one berry out of a hundred from a vine. He inspects it closely, rolls it between his fingers, sniffs at it. Perfect all the way around. Popping it into his mouth, he savors the bright, almost bubbly flavor, sweet and sour all at once. They’re nearly ready to be harvested. “I much prefer to think of it as homebrew myself.”
“Uh huh,” Han replies, taking Lando’s lead with none of Lando’s style or care. He chews on a handful of the berries and nods in approval even though he knows nothing about sunberries or sunberry wine. “Most homebrew doesn’t fetch a credit more than the cost of production in my experience.”
Lando glances at the sky, slightly pinked by the forcefield shielding his plants from the never ending winds that swirl and eddy around Cloud City. Few people are allowed access to the highest level platforms of the colony—even rarer, access to the outside of the structure—but Baron Administrator Keelin had owed him a favor. And Lando had found a small patch of that coveted real estate a reasonable price to exact for parity.
The sun is warm under the protection of the dome-shaped field. No harsh gusts can turn the air sharp and cold. Lando likes it. It’s pleasant and, as far as hobbies go, passes the time. It’s not what he’d expected to have at this point in his life, but he’ll take it. If he can’t have what he really wants… this, this is enough.
“Most homebrewers aren’t me,” Lando replies, belated.
“Well, that’s the truth.” The admission doesn’t seem to pain Han as much as it might have in the past. “These are good, by the way.”
Lando gestures expansively, feeling generous. No matter what else might change, Han remains himself and more importantly remains himself around Lando. “Knock yourself out.”
A dry thanks and the loss of a huge handful of berries is Han’s only reply.
“So.” Lando’s throat sticks on the word. He rounds the edge of the rack and coughs into his sleeve, eyes focused on the sunberries. He doesn’t peek at Han through the draping sheets of vine. “I enjoy social calls as much as the next person, but my suspicious nature tells me that this isn’t a social call.”
“Lando, would you relax? This is as close to a social call as we’re ever gonna get. Trust me. No ulterior motive here.”
Huffing a sharp, understanding laugh, Lando shakes his head. “Who are you trying to shake this time?”
“Dunno.” Han shrugs again, tilts his head against his shoulder as it rolls. “Might not be anybody.”
“You’re getting soft in your old age, old friend.”
“Hey, I’m not the only one.” Han eyes him up and down, tallying up all the ways that Han’s not alone in getting old. Frankly, Lando can’t argue that. A younger version of him wouldn’t have settled for this life. Not that he’s had a bad time of it, no. He can’t go that far. Life’s been far better to him than he expected. Maybe not so extravagant as he’d dreamed as a young man, but good. Worthwhile. Respectable. He can claim few regrets. Not all people can say the same.
“Well, my softness is willing to make up a room for you,” Lando replies, silently glad for the company. His apartment is large and well-appointed, but you can’t buy the warmth of friendship to fill it with. You can’t buy good company. You really are going soft, he thinks.
Han smiles crookedly, bows with mocking courtesy and speaks with exaggerated fawning, his voice graveled and ill-suited to the task. “There’s the Lando I know and love.”
Lando doesn’t ask about Luke. And Han says nothing in return, an answer in and of itself, one that doesn’t manage to scratch through the thick muscled wall of his heart.
VIII.
Han’s gone.
No signature. No holo. No way to know it’s true except that its signal’s been bounced around galactic space so much there’s only one place it could’ve come from—or, rather, one person—Lando doesn’t actually know Leia’s location, doesn’t know where out there her Resistance base might even be.
Han’s gone.
Something as big as that, he should feel. But the cavernous places inside his heart are already so wide and deep that slotting Han in—he’s gone and not just gone even if she couldn’t say dead, he’s dead—is easier than he’d expected.
That, in and of itself, is its own kind of pain, almost more excruciating than a prevalence of emotion would have been. Numbness… that’s just not Lando’s thing. Hiding behind a mask is one thing; hiding behind a mask from yourself is another thing entirely. Hiding from yourself gets you killed or caught or worse. And that’s all this numbness feels like to Lando: a mask. And one he can’t get out of. That’s just as bad as hiding. Maybe even worse since he’s not even trying to fool himself into thinking nothing’s wrong. No, he believes it. He just can’t feel his way through it.
(He wants to feel it. Han deserves that much.)
IX.
Of course Han’s gone. What else can a person expect from a galaxy as cruel and capricious as this one? What’s one washed-up smuggler compared to something like the Hosnian Massacre?
Compared to the loss of the Hosnian system—it shouldn’t even register.
X.
Lando expects a good harvest, a very good harvest in fact, since the whole of his attention is focused on those damned berries. Finicky things, they are. And grateful for his care. And as a result, he almost has more than he knows what to do with. The storage facility where he keeps the barrels of fermenting sunberry juice seems smaller every day.
Compared to his other problems, that one is a joy to solve, a clean transaction between businesspersons to mutual benefit.
Whistling, a pair of vibroshears in his hand, he inspects his vines for signs of exhaustion. Graying leaves, too-small berries. As he comes across them, he flicks the shears to life, cuts the offending section away. T-435 rolls along beside him, a basket in her pincers, and catches the vines as he flicks them toward her.
“The vines seem to be doing well this year,” she says in a controlled drone. Most people would make the mistake of assuming her to be a drone, too. But she’s got as much personality as any droid Lando’s ever acquainted himself with.
“That’s—” He pauses, the wind a constant, hard-breathing huff against the force field. Still, inside, it’s quiet enough that if he listens… “Sorry, Tee. I thought I heard something.” Which is foolish, really. Who would come up here? The only people with access now are the sort of people who can afford the final result. And they’ve never shown an interest before.
Chances are there’s no one—
“Hello, Lando,” a voice says, a familiar voice, a beloved voice if Lando were willing to be truthful. Even if a moment before he might have said he’d never wanted to hear it again.
“Luke.” Another snipped vine falls into his hand, limp, no longer a dead weight dragging down the rest of the plant. The scent of burnt vegetable matter stings at his nose. Luke’s voice had come from somewhere behind him and Lando’s grateful for that. It’s the least Luke could do—gives Lando a few options at least. Should Lando turn and look? Or shun him?
He works on another vine. Takes a step. Listens for an answering shift from Luke. One that doesn’t come. “This is all very anticlimactic,” Lando says, conversational. Almost friendly, if not for the chilly undertone. “All things considered, I’d have…”
And there’s a step from Luke, a bright pinpoint of noise, easily located when you’re straining to hear it.
“…you know, I don’t actually know whether I expected less of you,” Lando admits. “Or more.”
A quiet answer. “That’s fair.”
“Is it?” It doesn’t feel fair now that he can hear the sour note of sorrow in Luke’s voice. It somehow opens up a bigger gulf in Lando than Luke’s absence had.
“Yes,” Luke replies, steady, so sure of it that Lando wants to call bullshit on him just to be contrary.
He’d given up wondering what their reunion would look like a long time ago, but never in his imaginings had it ended up like this. He hopes, maybe, that Luke feels the same, that Luke is as surprised as he is. But how could he be? He’d orchestrated this moment. Taking a deep breath, ignoring the shakiness of it, he turns, motioning T-435 back.
His heart thuds in his chest and his stomach knots up and he feels sick in a way he hasn’t since before his first real swindle and Luke—Luke… “You look better than I thought you would,” he says, struck despite himself by the line of Luke’s tunic, the offset scarf settled across one shoulder and around his neck, everything a variation of dark gray, his favored shade over the years. “That color always did suit you.”
Luke’s eyebrow arches, somehow highlighting the handful of new wrinkles that Luke had robbed him of seeing develop naturally.
“Not so sure about the beard though,” Lando adds, more than a little spiteful.
Rueful, Luke answers, “Leia wasn’t either.”
Lando inclines his head in acknowledgment. In this, he’s not at all surprised that Leia would agree with him. “Not that this isn’t—” He turns his head, coughs delicately into his fist. “—nice, but what are you doing here?”
Luke takes another step forward, one that Lando immediately negates by stepping aside. But Luke doesn’t complain, hardly does so much as sigh. His forward progress halts and he raises his hand slightly, a gesture of understanding. Lando doesn’t anticipate he’ll take another step. “I owed you an explanation,” Luke says, calmer than Lando remembers—not that Luke hadn’t always been calm. But. It’s different now. Tempered. Or beaten. Lando’s not sure which. “And an apology.”
An inconvenient lump forms in Lando’s throat. He swallows it back as best he can. “What makes you think I want either of those things?”
“Do you not?”
“No.” Lando gestures T-435 forward, drops his shears into the bucket she still carries and quietly tells her to head back to the apartment. Or take the rest of the day for herself. Whatever she wants to do. “I know you’re sorry. And I know you did what you did because it was important to you. What else can you possibly say that I need to hear?”
“Well.” Luke’s hands twist like he’s unsure what to do with them or where to put them. Lando’s not much given to pettiness on the whole, but he can’t help but feel a vicious stab of satisfaction at that. “I could tell you that I—that we—could use you out there. The Resistance is…”
The Resistance is a ragtag fleet of starships held together by Leia’s will and a whole lot of gumption on everyone else’s part. It’s not where Lando ever thought he’d find himself again, choosing, for a time, the Senate as his staging ground instead. Rebellions are a young person’s game. And Lando hadn’t been willing to give up on the Republic they’d all worked so hard to rebuild. Call it sentimentality or call it foolishness. Dealer’s choice.
But maybe Leia had been right to leave. Lando’s not exactly floating on a colony of high ideals here. Licking your wounds can only get you so far in that regard.
“…short on leadership.”
Lando hadn’t even realized Luke was still talking. When his brain finally catches up, he snorts. From everything he knows about it, the Resistance is even worse off than the Rebellion had been. Always low on weapons and personnel and support. They don’t even have a capital ship to their name. Meanwhile, the Rebellion had had all of those things to some degree. Polls still say all these years later that sixty-eight percent of Republic citizens blame the Resistance for the attack on the Hosnian system. The Rebellion never had a problem with poll numbers.
“Tell me,” he says, mind turning in another direction altogether, “did Han ever find the Falcon?”
The non-sequitur puzzles Luke, his eyebrows furrowing even as his eyes shadowed with regret. Lando hadn’t even been thinking about that, but—Luke probably hadn’t been around to see Han’s demise either. He hadn’t intended to use Han as a weapon, too. He’d only been curious.
“Never—”
“He found it,” Luke says quickly, understanding that this is important to Lando even if he—and Lando—aren’t entirely sure why. “Chewie’s taking care of her now.”
“He and Leia…?”
“Yeah.” His lip twitches with suppressed warmth. “Yes, they did.”
Call this an act of faith.
“Okay, Luke.” He fiddles with his sleeve, flicking a stray shred of vegetation onto the ground. “If Leia’s Resistance needs a washed-up old scoundrel, she’s got it.”
“That’s—” Luke’s mouth opens and closes. His eyes search Lando’s face, back and forth and back again, seeing whatever it is reclusive Jedi see in people. Not much, Lando hopes. “I’m relieved to hear that.”
I just bet you are, Lando thinks, uncharitable perhaps. Or too charitably fond. Lando can’t decide. Either way, the future looks like it’ll be spelling trouble for him once again. Exhilaration courses through him, unbidden, but welcome despite that fact. He misses being a part of something bigger. And he’d missed Luke. So damn much it squeezes his chest, a band of pressure that doesn’t subsist for a long, long while. Even so, if they never recover what they once had, it might still be okay.
That band’s not so life-threatening. Might even be it’ll relax its hold again given enough time.
XI.
Lando supposes he’s seen shoddier places in his life—he’s visited a lot of shady corners of the galaxy, but even he’s gotta admit: as far as bases go? It doesn’t do the hard work of confidence building, that’s for sure.
Eyebrow arched, he scans the duracrete runways and landing zones, the crudely disguised hangers and the domes of grass and dirt that utterly fails to conceal the secret underground facility.
“Just what kind of operation are you running here?” he mutters, leaning toward the viewport next to the exit ramp as Luke completes landing procedures up in the cockpit. Every time Lando sneaks a glance, he sees Luke move with an ease and a clarity of purpose that Lando’s never witnessed in him before. An ache settles in Lando’s chest and spreads outward with each throb of his blood throughout his body when he realizes.
This is another deprivation he’s suffered. He might have liked to witness Luke’s growth had the option not been taken from him.
“A cheap one,” Luke calls, turning to look at him, a hint of his old self in his eyes.
“Jedi hearing,” he replies, heat blooming in his cheeks. “I’d forgotten.”
Abashed, Luke pushes at his hair, a painfully youthful gesture that merely serves to give Lando emotional whiplash. Frowning, he says, “Sorry.”
“You’ve gotten better at it.”
“Yeah,” Luke says, distant. “Yeah, I guess I have.”
A million questions pop into Lando’s mind, each sharper than the last, but before he can so much as open his mouth, their transport touches down. Lando’s hand splays against the wall and, knowing how rougher landings than this go, sways with the motion, easily regaining his balance. The seal on the hatch breaks and he waits as the ramp peels itself away from the rest of the ship, descending slowly until it forms a ramp. Luke step ups beside him—not nearly as close nor as far away as he would like—but present anyway, something Lando hadn’t been sure he’d experience ever again.
If six years and half a galaxy—maybe more, Lando still hasn’t asked where Luke’s been—didn’t stand between them, Lando would have taken Luke’s hand in his, squeezing it before guiding him out. As it is, he gestures Luke forward and trails behind him, the metallic clang of his footsteps drowned out by the sound of the flight crew descending upon the ship, a swarm of orange-clad figures competently scanning, sealing, and searching—for bugs and other nasties, Lando presumes, of the First Order and natural variety both.
Lando’s heart lightens somewhat to see it, a relaxation of body and mind that gives him a degree of hope he hadn’t let himself feel before. Leia might not have much, but she has the most important ingredient already. Everything else comes down to credits.
And Lando knows a thing or two about credits and their procurement therein.
XII.
“Leia,” Lando says, not wary exactly, but uncertain. She looks at him with something approaching amusement, a wry acceptance of a situation that never should have existed to begin with. The years they’ve been apart become nothing, no barrier at all. I get it and I’m sorry and it’s good to see you pass between them. Luke and Leia might have the Force. They might be able to communicate mind-to-mind directly. But Lando has intuition and long acquaintance and, in this case, that’s enough.
She nods. “Lando.”
Neither of them misses the way Luke locks his hands behind his back, so careful to avoid fidgeting that he makes himself all the more obvious in its absence. The Force cannot help him understand this putting aside of neglectful disconnect in favor of renewed friendship, but maybe one day both he and Lando will figure it out. Because Lando can’t guess why it’s so easy with her either.
“Good looking command center you’ve got here,” Lando says, gesturing at the pristine glass panels against which various sensors are projecting copious amounts of information, then the comm units and accoutrements that make a military force viable, the people hard at work and conspicuously paying Lando little mind. His gaze flicks to the ancient rock walls holding the place up, vines creeping high across them. “The rest could use a little work.”
“We can’t all live in the clouds,” she replies, a glint of mischief in her expression despite the frown on her mouth.
“Ah,” he says, never one to let a perfectly good last word go unsaid, “but that’s no reason not to try.”
XIII.
“General Calrissian,” Poe asks, catching him in the hallway outside Luke’s quarters. At least he thinks it’s Luke’s quarters. Clasping him on the arm in greeting, Poe smiles. He’s probably the friendliest man Lando’s ever met who doesn’t also have an agenda and that’s saying a lot considering the man he’d married. Could stop with calling Lando by his title, though. “There anything I can do for you?”
Lando casts a surreptitious glance at the door, and though he thinks he’s been sneaky, when he looks at Poe, he sees a divot between his eyebrows and a thoughtful tilt to his mouth. After a brief moment, during which Lando contemplates offering an excuse, Poe opens his mouth. “You’re a little late if you’re looking for Master Skywalker.”
“Master Skywalker?” Oh, I bet Luke’s not a big fan of that.
“Ah,” Poe says, scratching at the back of his neck. “Yes, sir.”
And no wonder. It’s awkward as hell. “Thanks for the information, Commander Dameron,” Lando says, observing the way Poe’s shoulders straighten, just a bit, with pride. Hating the formality anyway. But some folks thrive on structure. And organizations certainly do. Lando’s learned how to avoid upsetting delicate balances.
In more ways than one.
“I can show you where he is if you’d like.”
“No,” Lando says, too quick to be anything approaching casual. “No, that’s fine. I’ll find him later.” I wasn’t trying to find him at all, he thinks, but the funny, sinking feeling in his gut proves the opposite. “Thank you.”
“You sure? It’s not a problem.” Poe hooks his thumb over his shoulder, either to demonstrate the correct direction or just to indicate his willingness to help.
“I’m sure.”
“Well, if you ever are looking for him, he and Rey head out into the forested area to the south of the base,” he answers. “Go out that exit and head down the path and you’ll find them by the sound of Rey yelling. Or just follow the smell of ozone. That’ll work, too.”
Lando can’t help but huff a laugh. It’s far easier to imagine than he might have thought. He doesn’t know Rey well, but he can see how she’d get frustrated with a man like Luke. “Good to know.”
Poe nods and smiles again. “They, uh, usually get back around 13:30. And may or may not end up in medical. Just for reference.”
“Also very good to know.” Lando’s hand claps Poe’s arm. “But don’t let me keep you, all right? I’m sure the commander of the Resistance’s air forces has a great deal more to do than get an old man caught up on the local goings on.”
Poe looks like he wants to say something else, but Lando shakes his head and urges him forward with a light shove. And, wonder of wonders, he does just as Lando asks, offering an informal salute and a well-wish for the day.
XIV.
“Commander Dameron told me you were looking for me. Do we…? I think we should talk.”
“Luke, what else is there to talk about? You left. You’re back. You’re…” Lando sighs, smooths his hand over his hair, searches for the exit. Too bad it’s his quarters and he’d invited Luke in and offered him a drink to top it off. Too bad this conversation is six years too late. He should have argued more strenuously against Poe’s assumption. ”…doing what you were meant to do. I get it. We went over this already. And I wasn’t looking for you.”
A pause. A shift of fabric. An exhale. Luke lets it go.
XV.
“Are you any happier now than when you left?”
An inhale. The tap of a nail against glass. A swallow. “No.”
XVI.
“It’s not exactly legal—” Lando says, preparing himself for the onslaught Leia is no doubt readying herself to unleash. He can see it in the hard glint in her eye, the way her hands settle on her waist. She stalks around her desk and swipes the pad out of his hands. “—but everything we’re doing here is definitely not legal. Let’s not split hairs here.”
“We’re fighting to protect people. That’s not splitting hairs.”
Lando lifts his hands, wishing he’d thought to stand before Leia had all but crowded him into his chair. She stares down at him and he, he merely tilts his chin up. “And you can’t protect people without a fully funded military force. You think the First Order scruples over this sort of thing? They probably do worse.”
“This is fraud.”
“Leia… It’s this or smuggling and extortion and occupying resource-rich territories. You can set up mostly legitimate businesses that turn a hefty profit or you can be the bad guy. The senate’s never going to—”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Lando lifts his hands, concessionary. “I know you know that. I’m just not sure you know you know that.”
“We’ve gotten by so far.”
“By a miracle. Where are your capital ships? You’ve got a starfighter corps that’s held together with prayers and good people. You barely have a ground force worthy of the name. You’re going to need those things.”
She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Lando, I—”
Her door trills and C-3PO waddles inside as it slides open. “General Organa,” he says, as polite and pleased as always, “General Calrissian, it is very good to see you.”
“Threepio,” Lando replies, nodding in acknowledgment.
“I apologize for the interruption, but…”
“Thank you, Threepio,” Luke says, stepping up beside him. His eyes settle on Lando, sending a thrill surging up Lando’s spine. Comfortable and familiar, it reminds Lando of the way Luke used to run his hands up and down Lando’s back, slow and repetitive, a touch of the Force behind it. Lando shouldn’t be thinking about that right now. “My sister was expecting me.”
“Oh! Of course, sir,” C-3PO replies, body whirring slightly as he twists. Twisting again, he addresses Leia. “I did not realize your appointment with General Calrissian had run long. I’m sure Master Luke and I could wait…”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lando says, climbing to his feet. He retrieves the pad from Leia, the plastic casing cool against his palm. A sudden shock almost as bracing as seeing Luke so unexpectedly. “Leia, I’ve taken enough of your time. Luke, a pleasure, as always.”
“I’ll think about your proposal,” Leia answers.
He waves her off as he strides toward the door. She’ll do what she’s going to do regardless of his suggestions. Either way, he knows he’s beating a hasty, obvious retreat here, but he can’t think of any way to stay and not make a fool of himself. And that just won’t do. “Take your time.”
He feels Luke’s eyes on the back of his neck as he hits the hallway, then long after the door has closed, C-3PO tottering toward the command center. Breathing deeply, he stands there for a long while, thoughts racing.
C-3PO stops, twists around, totters back, his metal feet clacking with rhythmic loudness. His joints whirr and creak as he approaches. And it takes everything in Lando’s power to stop from batting his raised arm aside as he reaches Lando’s side.
“Are you all right, General?”
“Yeah, Threepio. Thanks. I’m fine.”
“My apologies for asking, but have you and Master Luke—you were married, were you not?”
“We are.” The words are out of his mouth before he realizes it, revealing more than he’d care to.
“Oh. How strange. Forgive me, I had assumed otherwise all this time. You have not… reunited though?” C-3PO hums, a short, prim burst of noise that sounds old coming from a droid, almost human, but not quite. “I know many hundreds of formal methods of reconciliation should you like assistance in this matter. Some of them are quite—”
“No, thank you, Threepio.” Lando’s voice echoes against the wall, too loud, too harsh, startling C-3PO into standing straighter. “I’m sorry. That was…”
“I completely understand, sir,” he replies, and Lando can’t tell if he does or not. Whether he understands the whole of it or not or if etiquette merely requires him to answer so. Lando hopes it’s the former because he steps forward and tilts his body toward Lando, concern evident even though nothing at all has changed about him. And something about the droid faking that makes Lando’s stomach turn. Then again, perhaps it doesn’t matter. If it walks like a polite, interested droid and talks like a polite, interested droid… “If I may be so bold, you do seem unhappy. Might there be something else I can do for you?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” Lando smiles, the act fraudulent, and curls his palm over C-3PO’s cold, metal forearm. The gesture seems to surprise the droid, his body jerking slightly under the touch, but he finally nods and steps back. He takes a few steps before Lando calls out to him. “Hey, Threepio?”
He turns, prompt. “Yes, sir?”
“Thank you,” Lando says, earnest. Relief laps at him, soothing in a small, almost comfortable way. It’s nice to have said something, to have acknowledged it to someone and having it acknowledged in return. “I mean that.”
C-3PO inclines his upper body in acknowledgment. A pleased note sounds in his voice. “You are most welcome, sir.”
Keep cool, he tells himself once C-3PO goes, firm and unrelenting, the words banging against his skull until they lose all meaning. It takes a whole hell of a lot longer to reach that cool he’s telling himself to be than he ever intends to admit.
XVII.
Within the confines of his quarters, Lando opens the only bottle of sunberry wine he’d brought along. Pours a generous portion into one of the pair of glasses he’d though to pack. Bubbles prick and pop across the surface of the pinkish-gold liquid and when he lifts it, he silently offers a toast—to Han, to family, to all the things left unsaid and undone.
When he sips, sweetness flowing over his taste buds in sparkling bursts, he regrets cracking the seal at all.
Luke would’ve loved it.
(Lando had known that.)
Sunberry wine loses the better part of its flavor profile after an hour’s exposure to air, goes flat and lifeless and worthless unless you’re looking for a sad, unpleasant buzz and don’t care where it comes from.
(Lando had known that, too.)
The rest—most of it—ends up in the ‘fresher sink, swirling against the brushed metal surface and down a drain leading to who knows which part of the base. The glasses, in the trash receptacle along with the bottle.
Best place for it really.
He doesn’t know what he’d been thinking to begin with.
You weren’t, he tells himself. That’s your problem here. You haven’t been thinking. Not for a long time.
XVIII.
The mess hadn’t appealed to Lando at first; he’d long been used to dining halls and private rooms and meals at home, away from the press of other bodies, raucous, animated people enjoying themselves en masse. He’d kept away for a long time, sequestering himself in his quarters, his meals quiet and joyless.
Most of the time, he regrets doing that.
“Do you mind if I sit?” Luke asks, smiling at him from across the table. It’s not a smile Lando recognizes, too slight and distant to be one of the smiles he remembers from Before. Too many shadows lurk behind it. Too much history that remains unknown to Lando—and might never be known. That smile says they’ve grown apart, he and Luke have, and Lando doesn’t like it one bit, doesn’t want to sit across from it.
“Of course,” he says, half-rising from his seat to take Luke’s tray from him, old manners rearing their ugly head. And staying put. Apparently he can’t begrudge Luke a decent eating companion.
Laughter bursts from the far corner of the room, raised voices cheering as hearty handshakes and backslaps center on a pair of women Lando doesn’t recognize. Flight crew from the look of their uniforms, but maybe pilots, too. They nudge one another, their grins blinding even amidst every other blinding smile at that table.
You’d think the Resistance had just destroyed the First Order once and for all from the ruckus.
“They’re getting married,” Luke offers, offhand, as he spears a slice of felif pepper on his fork. His attention never strays from his tray, not until Lando looks at him and he finds Luke’s eyes searching his own. What for, Lando can only guess.
Lando swallows. “Good for them.” He taps his ear. “Doing that Jedi hearing thing again.”
“Not hardly.” Luke winces, his hand fluttering around his temple. “No, Rey’s been battering at my mental defenses all day. Makes it harder to block people out.”
“Does it now?”
“Only extreme emotions,” Luke replies. “Your secrets and everyone else’s are all safe.”
Feigning affront, Lando lifts his chin, experiencing the same rush of affection he used to feel so much that he’d learned to take for granted. “I’ve never kept a secret in my life.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” Luke’s lip twitches, but he nods, sober. “I’ll pretend I believe you.”
“I can live with that.”
An almost companionable silence settles between them, the din of their surroundings rushing in to fill the spaces left behind. Luke doesn’t seem to notice or mind, his attention drifting back to his meal, but Lando—Lando isn’t fond of quiet.
There’s been too much quiet in his life lately.
“Do you—” Lando’s throat seizes and sweat prickles along his hairline. He so rarely faces moments of speechlessness and self-doubt. He’s not very good at it and the urge to fidget, to shake his head and turn back overwhelms him. “Do you ever miss it?”
Luke’s fork stills, his hand stopping halfway through the journey to his mouth. His features freeze. For a moment, Lando doesn’t think he’s going to answer or he’s going to misconstrue or twist it around into something else. Gently, he places the fork onto his plate, pushes the whole tray aside so he can fold his hands together and lean forward. “I miss you every day.”
The admission neither destroys the galaxy nor fixes it, and there’s no one around to clap them on the back or congratulate them for it. It might change nothing, but the world slips on its axis anyway—or seems to. For Lando.
Luke’s attention shifts just as another round of joyous shrieks echo from that far table, the two women now pushing at their friends and comrades, anyone within reach for whatever has just occurred. Lando’s eyes catch on a flash of bright paper and he presumes a risqué gift, as good an explanation as any. A smile, sad and tremulous, crosses Luke’s face meanwhile. “Of course I miss it, Lando.”
Lando had known, of course, hadn’t thought Luke so cold as to have—stopped caring. He knows Luke too well to believe that. But he’d somehow imagined it’s been easier on Luke, who has the Force and his Jedi training and his self-imposed isolation to help him. Were he a more spiteful man, he’d enjoy knowing Luke has suffered, too. Instead, a heavy shroud of guilt settles on his shoulders, threatening to crush him.
No, he’s not a spiteful man. More than that, he wishes he could undo Luke’s misery for him. But the words just won’t come—you don’t have to anymore, if you don’t want to. They lodge in his throat, their hard edges catching in soft flesh. If Luke asks, maybe…
But Luke doesn’t ask, doesn’t hold Lando to the obligation they’d made to each other so long ago, doesn’t demand anything from Lando. He shows no curiosity about Lando’s question, and for that Lando can’t decide if he’s grateful or not.
He chooses, in that moment, to believe he is. There’s so little he’s been grateful for in the last six years that he can count it on both hands with fingers to spare. Best to seize what portion of it he can when it does come along, knowing how rare it is.
And then, he throws it out the window.
“Tell me what happened,” he says, phrased like a demand, but spoken like a plea. What’s the point of gratefulness if it doesn’t get you through the things you’re too afraid to face?
XIX.
The lack strikes Lando most of all, Luke’s quarters devoid of everything save an underfurnished bed and a pad and a portable lamp to read it by. Luke’s cloak hangs next to the door, swaying once in the air disturbed by their entry.
Shrugging carelessly, Luke raps his knuckles against the nearest wall. The sound echoes back, hollow and cold. “I’ve grown to prefer the outdoors,” he says.
“You ever consider getting a plant?” Lando asks, scanning the room for any sign of Luke in these surroundings. But no, there’s nothing here that suggests Luke lives here and would be happy. It’s like looking at a blank canvas. Worse, even. Because he knows there should be something here and that there would be under different circumstances. “Might spruce the place up a bit.”
“Funny thing about plants.” The backs of his fingers scratch at his jaw and he hums contemplatively. “I’m not very good at keeping them alive.”
I could help you with that, he thinks. The only thing that stops him from speaking is the austerity, the severity of this room. It puts the brakes on everything he might say, deeply uncomfortable as the place is. This is where Luke sleeps. This is where he dreams and lays awake at night and where he readies himself for his day.
The abject loneliness of it puts Lando in a stranglehold.
Then, Luke tells him everything and his calm, measured recitation of the facts wrestles what’s left of his breath away from him.
XX.
Lando says nothing. There’s nothing, really, he can say. But where words don’t suffice, actions do.
XXI.
Luke’s hair is coarser under his hand than he remembers, the gray even more pronounced. It needs a trim, but as Lando cradles the back of his neck, his fingers sliding up into it, Lando can see the appeal. It’s a wonder to realize they still fit together, softer in the middle though Lando may have grown—and Luke the opposite.
Luke’s arms only hang at his side for the length of a breath before he wraps them around Lando’s waist, a warm band of heat far more comforting than Lando might have expected. “This doesn’t change anything,” Luke says, quiet, against Lando’s ear. “It doesn’t undo…”
“That doesn’t matter to me right now.” Lando shakes his head, his mouth coming dangerously close to the spot on Luke’s neck that Lando had always liked to kiss. His eyes close and he tries not to imagine Ben—Ben doing those things, destroying everything Luke had built, sacrificing his family for what? Power? Revenge? His fingers press harder into Luke’s skin, a silent demand that Luke stay where he is. Right now. Always.
Instead of complying, Luke pulls away. His gaze is steady despite the wringer he’s put himself through. Lando can’t help but admire that. “Then what does matter? What’s going to matter when you’ve had time to think about this?” Fragility shows through in his next words, fragility and frustration. “I can’t just—”
XXII.
In some traditions, bonded individuals exchange tokens to symbolize their union. Luke hadn’t wanted that, believing words and togetherness to be enough, and instead of insisting on a grand gesture, Lando had acquiesced.
Lando really, really wishes he hadn’t.
A grand gesture right about now would be useful.
XXIII.
“I’m sorry,” Luke says, encompassing so much more than that with those two words. I wish I hadn’t… I’d take it back if I could. I should have told you. Lando can hear all that and more, the distance between them shrinking to something more bearable.
“I know,” Lando answers, hoping Luke hears all the things he doesn’t say, too. I would have been there for you. You didn’t have to be alone…
Lando’s hand drifts up to cup Luke’s face, his thumb brushing across his chin. Luke’s eyes close briefly and he tilts his head into the touch. Emboldened, Lando guides Luke by that point of contact until his head tips at just the right angle that Lando can bend toward him. Stilling mere inches away from Luke, he waits. “There’s something I should tell you,” he says, aware of the fluttering beat of Luke’s heart against his fingers.
“So tell me,” Luke replies. If nervousness threads through his words, there’s a mirrored sensation in the pit of Lando’s stomach. In this, at least, they’re on the same screen. Lando figures the least he can do is get them together on a few more. They need as many as they can get.
“Threepio was under the impression that we’d gotten a divorce.” Both of his hands settle on Luke’s shoulders. “I thought maybe he’d gotten that particular detail from somewhere else.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re not divorced.”
“You never…?” Luke’s eyebrows furrow and he stares up at Lando, confused. Then, like the crowning dawn of morning on Bespin, Luke’s eyes brighten, something akin to hope settling in them. “I thought—”
“Whatever you thought,” he says, perhaps unreasonably protective of his decision, “you thought wrong.”
“I had no idea.” Wonder and doubt flicker in his eyes and then cycle through a thousand different emotions Lando can’t parse, subdued as they are. Lando only has a second or two of warning before Luke pushes him toward the door, their feet nearly tangling in the process. If Lando were a crasser man, he’d applaud Luke for his initiative.
Lando’s back hits the wall just as a rush of heat flares inside of him. “I wasn’t exactly forthcoming with that information, it’s true.” He hasn’t done this in a long time and he can’t help but feel a little bit shy as Luke’s hands tug at his shirt, as Luke insinuates himself in Lando’s space. “But I… needed some time.”
Luke stills, his fingers tantalizing against his spine. At least until they try to snake away. “Do you need more?”
“More what?” Lando asks, catching Luke by the wrists before he can remove his hands from Lando’s body. He lifts one, pressing his lips against the knuckles, making a note of the scrape-shaped scars that follow each ridge and valley. They are scars there he’s never seen before.
“Time.” Luke turns his head, his cheeks flushing a shade of red that Lando had altogether forgotten his skin capable of reproducing.
Tugging him forward, Lando shakes his head and leans in. Luke’s beard rasps at Lando’s skin, unfamiliar but welcome because it’s Luke and Lando might have thought about this more than he’d ever let on. Just this. Luke’s lips are just as chapped as always, yet still somehow soft underneath that despite Luke’s negligence. He’s just as earnest as he’d always been and after only a moment’s awkwardness, they relearn the shape of each other’s mouth, find the one rhythm that Lando has missed most of all.
“I’ve taken enough time, wouldn’t you say?” he asks as he breaks the kiss, breathless, but what he really means is, I’m sorry, too.
Wide-eyed, Luke bites the inside of his mouth, an indent dimpling his cheek. “Lando…”
“I’m not asking that we go back to the way things were before,” Lando says. He refuses to let concern tinge his words, keeps them light instead, because he’s not young enough anymore to believe that everything can be solved with earnest admissions and kisses and proclamations of love. “We don’t have to pretend.”
“But why would you not…?”
“Your memory must be going,” Lando says. “I learned a long time ago to take my promises seriously.”
“Yes, I must’ve just forgotten.” Luke smiles tightly, fond, somehow, despite that. “How silly of me.”
“Hey, you said it,” Lando replies, unable to hold back a smile of his own. But where Luke’s is guarded, Lando’s is… decidedly not. Goofy might be the more appropriate descriptor if Lando were inclined to admit he could look anything other than dashing and suave. “So what do you say? Are we giving it a shot?”
Luke swallows, the clicking sound of it audible even to Lando. “Yeah, Lando. We’re giving it a shot.”
After that, it’s not quite so hard to give in. In fact, it’s the easiest thing he’s done in years.
XXIV.
Fusing his life together again will take more than one strike of lightning against the sand.
But if anyone knows a thing about reinvention under pressure, it’s Lando. He’s not worried he’ll succeed.