Saga Frozen (Han Solo introspective) (author's thanks)

Title: Frozen
Author: Divapilot
Time Frame: Post ESB, pre RotJ
Characters: Han Solo
Genre: Introspection
Summary: When you have nothing else to do, you think about where it all went wrong.


Written for the http://boards.theforce.net/threads/movie-quote-challenge-index-updated-02-14.50020866/]Movie[/url] Quote challenge.

“It’s when you start to become really afraid of Death that you learn to appreciate life.” – Léon (1994)


***



The first thing that hits you is the shock wave. Carbonite is cold; I mean really, really cold. The kind of cold that you think you’re prepared for but then it socks you like a punch in the gut. Your head whips back, your limbs instinctively go into a defensive position, and you try not to gag as that liquidy air slams into your lungs. Then you feel it crawling all over you, petrifying you.

You’d panic if you weren’t paralyzed already. But then, being locked into a paralytic state while kept artificially alive is a living death.

And the weirdest thing about being frozen in carbonite is that it isn’t really being frozen at all. You hear everything, you sense everything. Not all at once, mind you – thankfully there’s some months of solid oblivion – but then you come crawling up from the ether and discover that yup, you’re still hanging on someone’s wall. And you can hear the muffled sounds of the room, although you can’t see anything. Music, laughter, screams, more music. Eventually I realized where I had heard that combination of sounds. Just another day at Jabba’s palace.

People tend to forget you’re alive. I believe I was decorated a couple of times. I know someone was hanging something off my hands for a while. The ironic thing is that whatever Jabba paid for me as a wall ornament was probably way more than what I actually owed him. So I guess I’m worth more to him semi-dead than alive.

Time is hard to judge. I have no idea how long I’ve been locked in this case.

So, with all this time, I start to think. Me, I’m not a big thinking kind of guy. I find that when you stop to think, that’s when you get in trouble. I find it’s easier to shoot first and then pay for the clean-up later. But man, the thoughts that come sliding in. What if I never get out of here? What if the power supply runs out and I just slowly suffocate? What if I get out decades from now, and everyone I cared about is dead?

The only thing that works is my brain. I think I hallucinated a few times. I’ve had entire conversations with people, danced with a girl I met in a bar once, even visited my parents. One time I completely rewired the Falcon’s navcomputer in my mind. Then I come back to the routine of music, laughter, screams, and realize I’m still decorating Jabba’s wall.

But despite it all, one thought, one image keeps coming through, like a homing beacon.

Leia.

I see her, clear as day, giving me that side look. Shooting off her mouth with some wise-cracking comeback. Driving me up a wall with her insistence on putting others before herself. Making me rethink everything I had assumed was a given in life.

I don’t know what possessed me to kiss her on Hoth, while the base was literally falling apart around us. I guess when there’s a high probability of death in the next hour or so you decide to throw caution to the wind and kiss the girl, devil take the consequences. You know, shoot first and pay for the clean-up later. Don’t think it through.

Chewie said I was an idiot, that anyone could see that Leia was attracted to me. You’re about as thick as they come if you don’t follow up, he said. But I wouldn’t say it. Always thought there’d be a time for that later.

I remember the way she felt in my arms, so soft and strong at the same time. I remember how I had to bend down to kiss her, and how she reached up to put her arms around me. Not even Chewie knows how that one kiss in the corridor on Hoth had led to another, and another. Then the sound of her quiet footsteps as she came to my bunk onboard ship. And before I knew it, there I was, in love with her.

That’s when I get really worried that I’ll be trapped here forever. Because then I can never say what I need to say. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell her on Bespin. She knows. But she should have heard me say it.

And now I may never get another chance.

Does she ever think of me? How much time has gone by? Has she gotten over it and moved on? Was she killed in some battle, or maybe even passed away from old age?

Music, laughter, screams, music.

I hear them and I don’t know if they’re in my brain or in the room. I can hear the scream that stifled in my throat as the carbonite cold-seared my lungs. I hear the laughter of the Ugnaughts who sloppily dropped me onto the chamber floor.

And I hear the music of her voice through it all.

I could be here for years. Maybe I have been already.

Death is really pretty irrelevant in my situation. I’m not even sure how long it would take for anyone to know I’ve stopped living. Maybe I can’t die. Maybe the same mechanics that keeps me alive in carbonite would prevent it. The thing that scares me most is that I might have wasted the best thing that ever came my way.

But if I ever got the chance to break out of this personal prison, the first thing I would do is find Leia. I was wrong to hide my feelings from her, to pretend that it didn’t matter to me, brush off her admission with a smart-mouth remark.

I would do it differently. I would let her see that I really do care, and that I would give my life to save hers in a heartbeat. I don’t know why I waited so long to say those words. What kept me from being honest with her? What if I never get the chance again to tell her how much I love her?

And the great irony here, the big fat joke that the galaxy’s played on this old smuggler, is that it took being locked in carbonite to realize how truly frozen I had been.

 

Wonderful use of the quote, and great bit of introspection. The tone is perfectly Han-ish. LOL

 

Oh, this was wonderful! You really delve deep into Han's character here, and the result is really moving. I never really though about if Han could see and hear things while frozen in carbonite, but the half-awareness makes sense, and the little things, like not knowing how long he's been there, that he may never get a chance to say what he didn't to Leia on Bespin, that maybe he can't die...all really wonderful introspection.

I found this paragraph really affecting

 

As a great aficionado of the state of Han's mind while frozen in carbonite, I absolutely love this fic. It's so perfect and gets right to the heart of what his thoughts would be while stuck. It really takes a literal case of slowing down to get a stubborn guy like him to realize things can be different because he can be different. "Introspective", indeed.

Oh, and this line:

Hello, that's really, really freaking creepy. Like horror movie creepy. Wow.

 

Love the first half of this so, so, so much. Nothing wrong with the second half, but the first is the kind of stuff I love to read and recently, there's been quite a lot of it on the board, which is like Christmas or something to me.

+1

Also, this:

 

I am out of practise, commenting on fanfic.

Very good piece. Definitely inside the mind of Han Solo, and I find myself wondering if the New Republic hero should raise some awareness of what being in carbonite is like...

 

But if I ever got the chance to break out of this personal prison, the first thing I would do is find Leia. I was wrong to hide my feelings from her, to pretend that it didn’t matter to me, brush off her admission with a smart-mouth remark.

His hibernation helped him to mature and find his soft side.

 

Yeah, I often wondered if he was self aware and thinking. I'm glad he and Leia got their chance to admit their love, but I did enjoy the turnaround of their famous quote in Jedi.

 

Oh this is a wonderful little ficlet and I enjoyed every word of it! Using the carbonite freeze to make Han evolve from "shoot first, pay for the clean-up later" to the more compassionate, thoughtful man we see in ROTJ was a great idea for a plot device, and you got his voice perfectly -- with just the right dose of scoundrel cynicism so that we don't forget it's Han we're listening to, but also the pain, the worry, the humiliation... I loved it all!

 

I like the way that you've really captured Han's thoughts during this whole ordeal: an entire year of being trapped while still mentally aware. I liked his thoughts on his relationship with Leia and wondering if she had moved on because he'd lost track of the time.

 

Hello - I was doing some fic housekeeping and realized I had never written author's thanks. My apologies for being so late with these.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply! I was thinking of people who are in that “locked-in” syndrome. What a hell on earth, to be aware and cognizant but unable to interact with your surroundings. This also takes place where there is definitely romance going on with Han and Leia but they hadn’t gotten to the commitment part yet. How heartbreaking to think Han got that close but didn’t reach it before he got slammed into carbonite. It makes his ordeal even more horrific.

Thanks! It seems that this is the year for me to write Han.

Thank you! Han is deeper than most people realize. Sure, the Jedi get all the attention with their flashy light swords and their hokey religion, but Han’s character changes so much over the three original movies. He develops into a person who is willing to stand up for someone else, who becomes gentle and kind. A lot of that comes from Leia, I think. And hanging on a wall in Jabba’s Palace gives him a lot of time to process this.

Ooh, thank you! I like it when I hit just the right “creepy” note. But that’s really Han’s situation here. He is locked between living and dead, animate and inanimate. It’s easy to forget that he is a living man inside that wall decoration. You’re right, it took him literally slowing down – frozen in carbonite – to reconsider what really matters to him. Or in this case, what things he misses most.

Thank you! I tried to imagine how horrifying it must have been, especially since you know that they aren’t sure if this is even going to work. It makes me appreciate how brave Han was.

Thank you very much! Han has literally nothing else to do here but think. And to be deprived of his senses other than muffled sound and occasional touch, he would undoubtedly lose track of time. I’d think it would be enough to drive you mad. Yeah, I’d hope that they didn’t put people into carbonite much, although I seem to recall that’s what they did to Jysella and Valin Horne when they were suffering from Force psychosis. Not cool, Daala, to put mentally unstable people into carbonite…

Yes, exactly! He had to literally slow down to discover what it was he wanted in life. Being frozen made him evaluate what he missed and what he wished he had done differently. Thank you for your reply.

Thank you! I think Han was an ok smuggler, but there is more to life than outrunning the authorities. Sometimes you need to stop running and recognize what matters to you.

Thank you so much! I think Han develops in an interesting way throughout the trilogy. At first he’s all bluster and cynicism but at the end he becomes a more humble, thoughtful man. I’d imagine that being immobilized with nothing to do but reflect on what led him to this place and what he is missing while he is literally hanging around probably accounts for his more protective, thoughtful attitude toward Leia and Luke in ROTJ.

Thank you! I think that is the saddest part of his ordeal, not knowing what has happened to the people he loves and realizing there is nothing he can do about it. Being so shut off, he has to have lost track of time How could he not wonder if he had been forgotten?

 

Wonderful insight into Han's thoughts and feelings while trapped in his personal prison.

 

That was a great one shot Han does get his chance

well done