A/N: I don't own any of this. Disney and George gave us a wonderful sandbox to play in, and some really cool action figures. I promise to brush the toys off after, cover the sandbox and give them back with a heartfelt "Thank you".

A/N: Warning: Major character death(s).

Remember- Comments make baby Wookiees smile

Carrie Fisher passed away yesterday. She was an icon for MANY girls of my generation. Like her characters, she was smart, sassy and ready to give back twice as good as she got. This is for her.

Written as part of my many ghost Han fics that I have churning around in my brain. Many of the death/dying experiences here are based on conversations and interactions I had with my parents (especially my father, who was resuscitated three times) shortly before they passed away.

Timeline: Star Wars AU - sometime after The Force Awakens

What about you need?

It was an odd thing. Watching the world around you dissolve into a muted chaotic drone of noise and activity. You seem to float adrift within your own sinking vessel. The steady thrum of the body's engine in the background becoming erratic, unsteady. Eventually it sputters, combined with the wheeze of your breath, they are the fading background sounds of a life. Separate as you are from reality, suspended in that helpless, unmoving, unresponsive state, one is often quite aware. People cry out your name, begging a response, some bark orders, their voices harsh, professional. Others are panicked whispers and queries of concern. Is she alright? What happened? She just stopped breathing. Has anyone called for help?

Leia's breath had left her, and now her body's cells ached for the lost oxygen. Pain flooded her, sparking out from the center of her chest through misfiring, suffocated nerves. The darkness pressed in around her, muffling her senses, confounding her perception of time and place. The voices became distant, Get her on the stretcher! Continue compressions and respiratory support.

Despite the creeping numbness in her extremities, she felt herself being secured to a padded surface. Fingers fumbled at her face, chest and arms, attaching the artificial lifelines, tethering her to machines. Had she been mobile, she would have fought wildly against the slick hiss of pain that slid up her arm with the insertion of the intravenous needle. No panic assailed her now, only a grim resignation and realization of what had occurred. What was occurring.

I'm dying. She thought, resigned, somewhat perturbed at the banality of it.

There had been no warning, no time for last words or expressions of final feelings. No courageous statements came from her parched lips, and her eyes refused to open. She had been trapped for days in her failing form, only able to listen to the whir and blip of the medical equipment surrounding her.

For the last four decades, she'd imagined going down in the fire of battle, the final searing blast of a weapon the last thing she would experience. After all, she had fought so long and hard, it seemed inevitable. Dedicating her life to the cause, would mean sacrificing it as well. Her world had been shattered before her very eyes when she was nineteen. She had lost her home, her family and every friend she'd had in that tragedy. And so, she had devoted her entire being to the Rebellion against the Empire - the Empire that had taken her entire world in the laser blink of a madman's eye.

She had been raised a princess; pampered, shielded and educated on the serene paradise of her adopted world of Alderaan. Losing that, she then became the grim avenging warrior. She was the Ice Princess - hard, crystalline, pure, beautiful, and bitterly cold. Ice Princess, a name her own troops would respectfully whisper behind her as she passed, their voices tinged with awe. Remaining so, until she became so brittle she nearly shattered, willfully choosing to remain behind in a losing battle. She had been resolved to die a martyr, despite being barely into adulthood.

And then… He would come back for her.

The Corellian, the scoundrel, thief, rogue, pirate, smuggler – Han Solo. Oh, she would have so many names for him over the years. Dragging her forcefully out of the Empire's grasp. Hauling her through frozen corridors that swarmed with enemy troops, shielding her with his body from a collapsing roof, rising bruised and even more determined to get her to safety. Save her, he did too. The resultant unintended months-long journey as they fled to what they hoped was sanctuary aboard his limping, wounded ship, gave her time to thaw rather than shatter. And as the spring's warmth melts the snows covering the fertile soil, reviving the dormant life beneath from a long cold sleep, so he and that voyage would dissolve the encapsulating layer of ice that had crystalized around her broken heart. In time, she would find that he'd anchored himself there permanently, mending her wounds with his care and kisses. Soon she would find another family with him, and discover she had a long-lost brother in the young Jedi they had befriended. Of all things that she would gain - a twin brother! Together, the three would fight until the Empire and its evil architects fell with the brilliant destruction of their next weapon of terror.

Post-war, amidst her rich blossoming life of husband, newborn child, twin brother, and a newly discovered extended family and friends; she would fight on the fields of diplomacy for the rights of the Empire's billions of victims and for the restructuring of the remaining institutions. Eventually, she'd warned against another rising darkness, a specter rising from the ashes of the Empire. She gathered another army, many among them old allies from decades' past. She'd soon made another pledge; against the then-nameless evil that had corrupted her son. The son whose sins would shatter her world once again. Driving away Luke, her twin. The Jedi Master fleeing so far into the reaches of space that he became a myth. Her husband leaving to search for the scattered pieces of their lives. Han had discovered key sections, only to succumb to the pierce of the saber of their fallen son. What little she had left in that instant seemed to crumbled to dust. She was as broken as she had been after Alderaan, only moreso, as there was no gentle Jedi sibling to confide in, no comfort in the solid arms of her beloved rogue.

So, she drifted, somewhere between a distant consciousness and the beckoning void. Time fell away. At times, she would wander into the vast churning current of the Force, nearly losing herself to its undertow. She railed against it, commanded her deteriorating body to try and rise up and fight again amongst the land of the living. The latter clearly wasn't working.

She was in one her semi-aware states when she focused on the gritty rasp of a choked sob from beside her. She concentrated on seeing; if not with her dying eyes, then with the aid of the Force.

Her lost boy sat on a medics' stool next to his mother's bedside, clasping her pale wrinkled fingers in his large palms. Her fingertips brushed the chill steel edges of the manacles that restrained the boy's wrists. His palms were warm against her cooling flesh, his thumbs traced circles on her papery skin. His restraints were purely for appearances and handling protocols for prisoners. The boy could have easily shrugged them off with a twitch of the Force.

Tears streaked down the boy's face. He'd hunted and persecuted his parents and their cause, even vowed to take her life once, but that urge evaporated with the announcement, apparently. He'd appeared silently one night as a seasonal storm raged outside, padding softly into the medcenter, black robes dripping a trail of greyish water onto the pristine floors. Saying nothing, he'd stalked by the two guards at the door, distracting their attention with a flick of his hand. Then he settled upon one of the small rolling stools meant for personnel, his large lanky frame overwhelming it. He remained hunched, occasionally murmuring an apology, promising that he'd do anything, anything to fix what he had wrought. Anything to bring her back, just so she could forgive him.

His tears and pleading were constantly with her throughout the first two nights.

In the first morning, a droid entered, quickly followed by a grim-faced security detail. Ben had not resisted, merely sat as they clamped the manacles on his wrists. As strong hands hauled on his biceps to bring him in, he remained, unmoving. The security detail could not dislodge him, he was as if rooted to the floor. The Force held him there, but he chose not to bring it to bear upon these simpletons he had called enemy days before.

He turned his head slowly to one guard who failed to budge him as the man prepared to use a stun baton.

"Please," the fallen Knight's dark brown eyes were swollen and red rimmed, glistening with tears, he whispered, "She's my mother. Let me have this, and after you can have me."

The guard deliberately lowered the baton, uncertainty creeping into his features. He shot a questioning look to his companion. They withdrew and mulled it over in the hall beyond, deciding on a quick call to Command for further instructions. After all, fallen Jedi Knights were entirely out their league.

"Mother, please forgive me. Forgive me for Breha, for Father. Please, please. Come back. Mother, I'm so so sorry. Mother –" Her boy's voice a chant. A sibilant prayer for her ears only.

"Oh Ben," she tried to soothe him. The Force extended her thought into its current, flowing out from her to curl around the boy in its eddy. A few days before she would not have extended her compassion to him. But now, as her reality and her future became indistinct, the pressures of the living world became less immediate, less desperate. She wished for one word or breath to comfort her errant child, as forgive him she could not, but love him she could still.

Her hand spasmed in his grip and her eyelids fluttered as she fought to regain consciousness. Through her innate connection to the Force she could sense the hurried approach of a cluster of beings. They were anxious and sad, but determined.

The boy's clutch on her hand tightened at the sound of the voices in the hall beyond, rushed, desperate.

A rush of cool air, the shuffling and squeak of wet, booted feet heralded the noisesome arrival of the presences. A warm, withered and callused hand clasped hers before the breeze had abated.

"Leia…" a resigned, heavily gritted voice reached her ears. There was a gasping choke as her name was repeated, pleading for a response.

"Oh Luke," she unsuccessfully attempted speech again. The Jedi Master's Force aura wrapped around his twin's. Leia could feel the regret pouring off him, like the rain that tumbled off the roof to overfill the eavestroughs outside her window. She noted her brother's worn appearance through her eyes in the Force: the straggly grey beard, the rheumy eyes, and the thick shock of white hair. Had her twin truly aged so much? He was entwining her life Force in the iron bands of his own tremendous power. Even so, she lithely slipped away from in-between. Her body seemed lighter, her pains diminishing, her breaths no longer bore the sharp sting that emanated from the center of her chest. Maybe she could do this…

"I love you , Luke" Leia soothed her brother through the Force.

"Stay. Stay, please."

"W-, We tried to get here as fast as we could." Rey sobbed as she entered, trailing behind Luke. Chewbacca the Wookie followed her into the crowded room, the tall furry alien's soulful blue eyes flicking from one grieving being to the next. Rey was clutching desperately at her friends' arms.

Chewie's howl was long and mournful. His huge furry paws rubbed Luke' shoulders, consoling the weeping Jedi Master.

Finn's mouth was open, taking air in great heaves, his hands alternately moving to cup his face, brace his neck, run his hand through his hair, and grip at his elbows in rapid intervals. He paced short steps, glancing over to take in the scene unfolding before him, wisely keeping back to allow those closest to Leia access.

Poe's face was stoic, tears streaming down the ace-pilot's cheeks. His eyes never left the General's limp form. He'd grown up in Leia's sphere of influence. She'd befriended his parents Kes and Shara before he'd been born. Years later, Leia became a maternal influence and mentor to him after his own mother was taken in battle. He had often been babysat by the Princess and her husband Han, raised as a boyhood friend alongside their son Ben.

Rey sobbed like a small child, having lost a family all over again. Finn's face contorted into a grimace. Poe's attention was fixed on the Princess turned General. The trio hugged one another tightly, never wanting to let go.

The warm embrace shared by the three unlikely young friends reminded Leia of that long time ago, when she – a princess – had bonded in an unlikely friendship with a sweet, sunshine-haired farmboy and an irascible smuggler in the fires of a rebellion. They too, had grown close.

She wondered at their love, and what great events this new generation would gift the galaxy.

A blip, then the low pulsating squeal of an alarm. Something in the room had shifted…changed.

Ben raised his head suddenly, looking around him as if he had just been tapped on the shoulder. The boy swiped at his red runny nose, using the wrappings that served as his sleeves to rub the gunk from his eyes. His leg bounced nervously, as he clenched his mother's hand.

Luke and Rey lunged forward, hugging Leia. Their arms and embraces piling overtop one another. Leia's failing heart felt as though it would burst with love. She could only observe and silently wish them the best.

"Ship is fired up and leaving soon, your Worship. It's my last charter for a quite a bit," intoned a smooth voice of spiced Corellian whiskey.

Oh… Damn. She was unaware how fully she could see when she finally realized he was there. A little hazy, maybe. She could perceive the outline of the medical clutter stacked behind him through the apparition. But he was there - finally, and that was all that mattered now. He perched on the edge of a supply cabinet, long legs swinging lazily off the edge like a disobedient child. Brown disheveled hair fell into glittering hazel orbs of green and gold. He peeked out at her with a mischievous grin that had no doubt seduced a hundred beings across a hundred worlds, before he'd given his heart and soul only to her. Eyes down, he fiddled with his blaster's scope, studiously ignoring the drama in front of him.

A blaster in the afterlife? …Really, Han?

Oh, Stars and Hells, and of course, he was young too. Fit, firm and gorgeous. Clad in dark blue military bloodstripes, the yellow second-class broken stripe on one trouser seam, and the crimson first-class award on the right. And to cap it off, around the broad expanse of his shoulders was the dark jacket the Empire had taken from him three decades earlier on Bespin. He'd appeared as he did in her dreams, the seductive handsome rogue who's heart she'd commanded. He was here for her. Wasn't he? Or was he holding back, compelling her to make her decision on her own. Oh, sure he was. Look at that lazy chow-eating grin. Damn him again.

"-annnn," Was that awful noise coming from her?

Her breath gurgled and rasped in her ears. Distantly, there were murmurs and gasps from the assemblage around her bedside. Luke was calling her name. Becoming louder and more aggrieved with each repetition. Leia hear me, please! He prodded at her through their connection in the Force. The source of his voice fading into the muddled hum of the background.

She felt the need to rise, moving to the foot end of the medcenter bed. Her short legs dangling off the end. Behind her back, there was the shrill notes of keening, nearly in tune with the alarms of the machines that had sustained the Princess for the last few days. They were becoming so very distant. Besides, He had cocked his head up from his fidgeting, deigning to take notice of her.

"Hey there, Hotshot." She greeted him with a copy of his crooked grin. Shyly raising her luminous brown eyes to meet his, she peeked through an errant strand of dark chestnut hair that escaped her braid. She felt limber, loose, light and free. Was she young too? She turned over her hands to stare at the smooth unwrinkled skin on the backs. She twirled a deep brown lock around her finger. As her hand slid over the slim contours of her pre-child bearing hips, the tiniest of laughs bubbled from her lips.

Han was more substantial now. His form no longer appeared diffused or translucent. He smirked in return. Pushing himself off the cabinet, he landed before her bed in a half crouch. A flutter of flimsi documents tumbled to the floor behind him. As he straightened, his face became troubled, concern briefly weathering him into the grey-haired, hardened, aging rogue.

Chewbacca took in the mysterious spilled flimsi stack with a wary measure of curiosity, grunting a query.

"I thought you had decided to stay." Han's arms crossed, he glared down at her defiantly, echoing her words of thirty-five years past back at her.

"I guess I changed my mind." Leia quirked an eyebrow at Han, gamely playing along. Oh, she had missed this. The teasing, the sparring, the push and pull of their passion. Her slender form rose and advanced on him, and she wrapped one arm around his waist, reaching with the other to snake through his thick silver hair, her affectionate stroke returning it to the light brown of their youth.

"They need you." Han remarked, observing the overwhelming grief that gripped the living cluster around Leia's lifeless body on the bed.

"They need? Well, what about I need?" Leia stood on her toes and Han obliged by ducking his head down to meet her lips. She returned his embrace with fervor. When they broke apart gasping, a wide ironic smile was on her face. She ran her fingers along the stubble of his chin, tracing the scar there. How he could still taste of whiskey and kaffe? " No… I need you."

-end-