A/N: Don't own it. Disney does and George did. And I thank them both.

Sooo I've hesitated posting anything as of late even though it's been more or less finished? (severe confidence issues) Whaddya know… Aaaanyways, we all know it's more than a bit pointless and completely plotless in here, sooo, if you are still with me by the end of this. Sorry and thank you?

Warning: There is some mention of PTSD and mild violence.

Timeline: Star Wars rebellion era. pre-ESB Hoth

Grasping Perception

Chapter Eight

Vader.

An inky chill of unease slithered down Han's spine at Leia's tone. The very air in the valley hushed at the utterance. An unseen energy was building, threatening, almost buzzing with anticipation.

Han did not like it one bit. Desperate now, he lightly shook Leia's shoulder.

"No! Princess, it's me. The 'Flyboy?' Y'know, Han? C'mon, come back to us here, Sweetheart."

He was answered by a strangled whimper, a soft sob from the princess. Leia's entire form shook once.

Han became desperate. He almost rose to leave. To find assistance from damned near anyone else. This was so not his forte. Sympathy, emotions, history, memory, feelings? Hell, he wasn't a counsellor, or a psych' , or even a decent enough friend. Han was just some smuggling bum, caught up with these Rebel yahoos. What the hell was he even doing here with this–

"Nnnnn, Hhhhnnn." Leia's body jerked once, then settled on the ice, now just another hair closer to the edge he'd dragged her away from. Han's heart leapt into his throat. Blast. He couldn't leave her here. He had to get her conscious.

"Sweetheart, please. C'mon, you… Tell you what. I'll let you yell at me for this. At...argh… For me getting bitchy an' touchy. For the… the… whatever was what did this, that was in the booze! I dunno!" Han pawed at his face in frustration, muttering, "I am an idiot. Dammit."

Sighing, Han took a deep breath. One that came from the depths of his considerable ego, and brought the fresh, brisk air of humility. "Y'know, you're near right about me," Han admitted tiredly. " 'Bout what I do and why."

He bit his lip and waited. Then he muttered under his breath. For no other reasons than… what? Hoping Leia wouldn't hear, but also hoping she would? Either way, Han's mouth shot off before his brain could lock it down.

"Y'just ain't figured that it's for you."

Even that admission, could not rouse the princess. Han wished once more, that he hadn't forgotten his comm. He swept his hand across the princess's tear-streaked cheek, once more urging Leia to rouse.

"C'mon Sweetheart, wake up."

Instead, Leia murmured unintelligibly. She inhaled deeply, as if gathering strength. Unrolling some from her near-fetal position, the princess focused on some faraway point just past Han's shoulder. Leia's brown irises flickering to a bright amber tinged with - red? It had to be a trick of what faint light there was. Had to. Human eyes didn't just change colour like that.

Leia's lips compressed into a thin line. Then curled up menacingly on the left, into a white toothed snarl.

Alarm bells began to ring in Han's head. Uh oh.

"You can't take them," said Leia, her voice quavered, yet remained deadly cold with warning.

"Them?" Han wondered. Alderaan, it had to be Alderaan. It always was, in the end; about Alderaan.

The air around the princess tensioned. It became taut. Winding. Building. Gathering. The air nearly buzzed with power, ancient and primal, straining for release.

What the–?

Still fighting dizziness, Han shifted closer as Leia began to gasp raggedly. Her intermittent ramblings took on the air of pleading. Han swore he heard Luke and his own name amongst the mutterings. Luke's for sure, anyways. Han's own? Well, that might be wishful thinking.

"We're here, Princess." Han reminded her gently.

Wondering if she could hear him in her night terror, he bolstered her with a firm growl, "Tell that Sith piece of shit to go to hell."

Because, really, if anybody ever did or could tell that skull mask of Darth Vader to go to hell–it would be Princess Leia Organa.

Then, a heartbreaking, agonized moan, "Not him. Nooo."

Abruptly Leia's head snapped up, her eyes snapping wide open. In response, Han rose to his knees. The princess appeared feral and fey. Her lips were pulled back into a vicious sneer. She sat half on her hip, her arms pushing her up. The air became charged with an invisible energy as she focused on that distant entity.

That energy buzzing around the princess, built up to a hum that disappeared into a high pitched point. In its absence, the valley, the glacier, the atmosphere, and even the world fell silent. Mute, awaiting fate with a collective held breath.

Han's neck hairs began to stand on end. The smuggler instinct to flee, to run like hell – had to be bitten down. Resolutely, Han dug his nails into the crust of the ice, physically anchoring himself at Leia's side.

Voice a syllabant hiss, Leia ground out, "Kriff you, Vader." The words dripped; angry, bitter, viscous with hate. A curse filled with the righteous outrage of billions of snuffed lives. White-hot, blue acetylene lit anger. Blinding. Cutting. A destructive oath.

Han's vision began to blur, in what had to be a symptom of the concussion. Because, well...A distorted ripple of air haloed from the princess.. And that didn't just happen to—

And Han's admittedly barely-coherent, slightly rattle-brained thoughts were interrupted when a pulse of power drummed out from beneath them. A nearly deafening low register crack thrummed and branched out into the distance on the glacier. It reverberated and echoed around the icy plateau and its surrounding shadowed peaks.

Solo tensed, keenly aware of any further fracturing, all the while keeping Leia at margin of his vision.

Uncurling her small form, the young Alderaanian princess was shaking herself fully conscious. Leia's head hung low between her shoulders as she continued to brace her upper body on her arms, panting.

Leia was raising her head as if to speak, when suddenly the ground beneath her dropped a half meter, and the slab tilted at a sharp angle toward the main body of the glacier.

The princess jerked into full consciousness and screamed. Han reacted, exploding into action.

Han's body was moving before his concussed brain registered it. The treads of his boots ground into the wind swept drifts as he instinctively flung himself at Leia. The crumbling section Leia was on leaned heavily against the main ice face. Livid cracks and terrible groans emitted from the body of ice. The slab fractured like a wedge, the tip of its point caught in the crevasse it created, like a cork plugged in the stem of a bottle. The immense weight of the slab was crushing the down point, creating an eruption of finely pulverized ice. It swayed, as if undecided whether to collapse under its own weight, or careen off along the glacier's front face, to tip them into a crushing heap of frozen rubble off to the side.

Han hit the edge of the main glacier's stable section in a skid. His bare hand shot out to clutch Leia's. The loosened slab yawed and creaked, and Leia struggled to stay with it– scrambling to get onto the main body of ice.

"C'mon your Worship, take it!" Han yelled, jiggling his outstretched hand.

A plume of the icy dust roared up from the edge, as the wedge Leia was on began to disintegrate under its own weight. Tens of meters below, hundreds of tonnes of compressed ice exploded into shards at its narrow tip. The entire ice field tremored as the piece shore and snapped away from the glacier's face.

Then a bass groaning and the slab finally tilted, taking the princess with it.

Leia lunged for Han's hand. Her bare palm slapped onto his wrist. Immediately, Han's fingers clamped around her, and they both yelped at the crush of their combined grip.

The loosened slab ground across the ice face, tearing off vertical sheets of ice the size of a starfighter's wingspan on its way down. Leia's feet skipped along the top, until finally her full weight dangled from Solo's arm. Below, the calved piece roared on in an avalanche to its end at the base of the ice wall below.

Leia was wild-eyed with fear. Unnecessarily, Solo bellowed, "Hang o—"

And the section Han was crouched on began an agonizing process of fracturing. Bits of snow spraying up in a fine puffs as the cracks webbed around him.

They both yelled incoherently as half of the section under Han dropped away, sprawling the smuggler on his stomach, one arm and one leg dangling where there was solid surface but a second before. Then inexorably, the last bit slid away, twisting, cracking and groaning; intent on taking Han and the princess with it.

With the reactions of a born gunfighter, Solo pushed the fingers of his free hand into the metal holes near his shoulder. Han ripped the small, emergency ice pitons out of the fasteners hidden under his parka's shoulder epaulettes. As he rotated, sliding toward the brink on his stomach, Solo raised his arm up and slammed the pointed end of the piton into the horizontal ice surface with a harsh grunt. A lance of intense pain shot through his forearm at the impact. The serrated teeth of the steel skipped, gripped, caught, and Han's shoulder was nearly wrenched out of its socket. His eyes clenched shut and the Corellian bared his teeth, as the biting cold metal of the ice pick dug into the knuckle joints of his fingers. Solo howled in effort and agony, straining to hold most of his own weight and the princess's through that narrow, tenuous anchor of flesh and durasteel.

Definitely, not the way this day was supposed to go.

Leia twisted in his grip. Not elegantly, like the heroine in the holodramas. But fumbling and gasping, struggling to survive. Like an angry gorg on a hook.

"Han?!"

"Gotchya Sweetheart. Just hang on!"

Mentally preparing himself, Han cautiously turned his head to the left, where a princess dangled from his arm. Han could feel the sharp edge of the ice field's precipice edge digging into his ribs, groin and cheek. He could see droplets of his own blood in the snow right by his eye. It was all in laser-focus now. Luck, instinct and training, were all gambling to be arbiters for his fate.

And Luck seemed to have it in for him tonight.

Han cursed that particular brand of luck, before addressing Leia, nearly screaming to be heard above the dying roar of the calving ice face below.

"Don't move! Hang on!" Han barked at the princess. He craned his head further, analyzing the ledge around him, looking for rough areas or ridges that could be gripped. Leia continued to sway in his grip. She hung just a metre or two from the freshly exposed concave glacial ice. It was out of reach for her, and with her small stature–it might as well be a parsec.

The princess shrieked incoherently at him, and as Han's fingers tightened, he could feel her slender bones under his fingers. Leia's nails dug red furrows into his forearm. He could hear her voice, just over the ledge, small, and clear.

"Don't let go. Don't let go," chanted the princess.

Han touched his forehead to the ice, calculating. He could dig the side of his boot into the ice and haul her up over the edge, relying primarily on the shallow grip of the ice piton in his other hand. Splayed out on the slippery surface on his front, Han searched for further purchase, finally finding a rough patch of ice with his right foot.

Head still ringing from earlier, Han lowered it to the ice's surface one last time, gathering his wits and his breath before addressing Leia.

"Listen," Han croaked. He cleared his throat, "Listen. I can't move without losing my grip. Your-"

"Seriously?!" Leia hollered up at him, interrupting. "Only you would get us into something like this!" and Leia launched into a biased and rather colorful description of her association with him. She took to mixing in a bit of criticism of his genealogy for good measure. If Han wasn't so disorientated, he'd retaliate in kind. All he could do now, was to soldier his way past the residual fog in his head and get them out of this.

He'd sort her insults out later. She had some sincerely good material in there that deserved a reply.

And get warm. Bloody kriff, but he was cold.

I hate this planet.

There was a crisp crunch, and two fist-sized chunks of ice broke beneath Han in answer, narrowly missing the princess on their way down.