PART III

Luke had been sure that he had to leave-get as far away from Leia and Han as humanly possible before he was completely consumed in their flame. But then something strange happened: nothing. Nothing happened for a while. Luke woke up one morning feeling finally free of this thing and thinking, maybe everything will just blow over. It had been a week and he hadn't been tormented by his Force connection to Leia and Han. He hadn't had an inkling of Force sense from them together, although he'd felt them both individually as usual. That indicated to him that he'd become blessedly immune to the pull of their sphere.

He walked, therefore, into the mess for lunch with Solo with a faint swagger. It had been hard, but by the sheer force of his will he'd beaten this, and he sat down opposite his friend confident in his emotional autonomy. And when he saw, and sensed, Solo's agitation, he only thought, how can I help my friend Han? He looks like he needs a talk with a good friend.

Aloud, he only said, "what's up? You look like you're ready to jump out of your skin."

"Have you been around Flight Command today? Is that supplies transport still supposed to get here?"

"I think so. They still have a hangar cleared for it. Why? Have you been missing your Balderian Crunchies that bad?"

"No-there's a medical shipment in there too." Han looked around them before continuing, "I'm overdue on my contra shot."

After a hopefully imperceptible blank moment, Luke came up with an "oh. Oh."

"Yeah. Leia's been refusing me for a week. That is one woman who does not want to get pregnant."

While Luke let that sink in, Wedge appeared, sat down next to him, and got a quick recap from Han. "Rough luck, man."

"I know! After months when she can't keep her hands off me, now she's avoiding me like a plague. She won't even be alone with me; I guess she's worried she'll be tempted or something. I guess this is just as hard for her as it is for me. Maybe harder!"

A week. She'd been avoiding him for a week. So this respite wasn't due to his self control, but to a dumb accident (to Han letting his godsdamn birth control slip, of all things). And tonight they were planning to end the drought…

He needed to get off this ship, as soon as possible. Maybe there was an outgoing mission he could hop onto.

As he gathered himself to head over to Mission Control to see what was available, he became aware of the conversation once more. "...And I've been...you know...but you know it's not the same! There's nothing like that feeling, like you're sinking into hot-"

Wedge winced. "Alright, Solo, I don't need to hear any more details. This isn't the way I want to think about our Princess."

"Oh come on. Don't tell me all you guys don't have your little fantasies about-"

"Shut up! You're disgusting. Remember who you're talking about!" Luke stormed off, red in the face and embarrassed, while his friends looked on with chagrin.

Luke drank by himself, and he drank to get drunk. The man who had taught him to drink would be disappointed, he knew, but the same man was responsible for this liquor binge in the first place. Fucking Han. Swinging his dick all over the place all the time. Who wanted to see that? Leia, apparently. Stars, what a mess. This was turning him into a monster. He'd risked everything to bring Han back, knowing that he'd become Leia's lover, but facing that reality now, he actually caught himself remembering how simple it was back when Han was out of the picture.

He couldn't go on like this. He'd found a transport headed for the far rim that was taking an escort of fighters. It was the work of five minutes to pull some strings and switch places with one of the assigned pilots, and he was leaving with them in the morning. Now he just needed to get through the night. That's where the liquor came in: he planned to drink himself into oblivion. He wasn't even aware of putting the bottle down before he keeled over sideways on his bunk…

He dreamed that someone was chasing him, but then he heard laughter. He would've said it was Leia, but he'd never heard these shrieking giggles from her before. Now he surely heard her voice, though, calling, "stop it! Don't you dare!" And he would have been worried for her, but her words were laced with a giddy excitement. As if she wanted to get caught, but the more she dodged and ran, the more fun it would be. Luke was beginning to have a feeling about what "it" was. Leave it to him to get stinking drunk, only to dream about Leia. Well, some dim part of his consciousness reasoned, at least it was only a dream.

He felt Leia's back hit a wall, and the word "cornered" came to him in chorus. She struggled and Luke felt strong arms snaking around her, which she fought off with mixed success (Luke knew she could fight better than this, though). She faked left, then darted right to escape, but felt Han's hands, sure and large, around her waist. Now he knew why she played at fighting: for just this, Han's hands catching her and pulling her to him, his lips at her neck, while he pulled up her shirt and his palm found the bare skin of her stomach. Luke's gut went soft and quivery right along with Leia's, and the lucid part of his mind began to wonder if this really was just a dream. Funny, though: he couldn't seem to muster any of the horror he'd been feeling before. All of the pain he'd been feeling in recent weeks hadn't come from this connection with Leia and Han, but from his attempts to pull away from it. What would happen if he just gave in?

It wasn't like Luke was a virgin (at least, he was fairly sure he wasn't), but it had never felt anything like this. It was astonishing, this rhythmic embrace and release, something he hadn't even known the human body could do. This intense, searing heat-this was what living flesh felt like around you, and this was Leia. This was Leia pulling him into her, surrounding him with her heat and motion. She was soft as velvet one moment, then gripping him like a fist the next. The thought should have filled him with revulsion, shouldn't it? Even now, this deep in, some part of him searched for a sense of wrongness, but it wouldn't come.

He saw her eyes looking up, wide with a kind of wonder, although she must have felt Han inside her a hundred times by now. With only that thought, Luke's nimble mind darted from Han's feelings to Leia's, travelling with the thrust of his hips against hers. Instantly he felt the thumping of her heart, the arousal that made her breath come short, and that, that sensation that had no corollary in his own experience, pleasure in places he knew nothing about. He could only qualify it with the words that came floating from her mind: full, good, yes, more, in a litany that repeated until Luke wasn't sure if he (or Leia) was thinking it, saying it, or hearing it.

Luke felt nipples rasping against chest hair, or was it peaked nipples he felt against his chest? He was with neither Han nor Leia anymore: the distinction felt meaningless. He was the space between them, the junction of them. This was the source of the glowing sphere, he realized. The push and pull, the friction and slide between Leia and Han was what created the energy that been tempting Luke to dive into it. And he felt the ache in the chest that each of them felt, the heart's desperate attempt to leap from its own body into the other's. He wouldn't have called this pain love before this moment, but that's what it was.

He felt Leia's tears on her cheeks and on Han's neck, and while they might have confused him a day ago, it made perfect sense now: how could someone feel this pleasure, the fulfilment of this aching need, without shedding tears as she did, or straining and grunting with every thrust to reach the deepest part of the other, as Han did? This was lust, this was love, and as his friends reached climax and everything started glowing white-gold, Luke thought, of course-of course. This was everything. How could he have seen this from the outside without inevitably being drawn in completely? This was what made the planets spin, in whatever form it took-it was the Force of existence itself.

Luke came back to himself slowly. On his lips was the name that Leia repeated as she stroked from sweaty hair to shoulder to back. The horror which had taken a convenient break during this encounter returned with interest at hearing his own voice crooning, "Han...Han." He rushed to the 'fresher and splashed cold water over his face, and anywhere else that seemed to need it. It looked like he'd have a mess to clean up in his bunk.

The sick feeling in his stomach was beginning to overwhelm him when he heard distant laughter that he hadn't heard in much too long. But he could have done without it right now. "Ben?"

"Welcome to the life of a Jedi, my boy. I've been where you are, believe me. You've got a few more things to learn about the ways of the Force…" Luke slowly padded back to his bunk with Obi-Wan's chuckling echoing in his ears. Maybe, perhaps, with the voice of experience behind him, he could make this right. The question, though, was this: who had Ben ever experienced this with?

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

So look, people: this story is just for fun. Not just in a legal, cover-my-ass-with-Lucasfilm kind of way. It's really just me fooling around. I've got my own Star Wars headcanon, and this is not a part of it. It's just a scenario I kept playing with in my head, and finally I figured maybe some of you might have fun with it-and get simultaneously turned on and squicked out-as well. So don't take it too seriously, and don't flame me if this is some sort of sacriledge in your eyes! And as always, Happy Reading. If this didn't float your boat, there's a ton of other stories out there that will.