Let's Find Out Who Found Leia...

CHAPTER II

“Gods, Leia. It is you!”

She felt a hand against her shoulder and her eyes strained in the sunlight to see who this person was that had finally come to help her.

The dark hair was what she noticed first, followed by the concerned, hazel eyes looking back at her. She was almost ready to throw her arms around his neck, but her vision traveled lower and saw the unmistakable orange flight suit of a Rogue Squadron pilot. “Wedge?” She croaked out through her dry throat.

“I’m here, Leia. I’m here. We’ve been scouring the galaxy looking for you. Can you stand?”

Leia took a moment to shake the fog out of her head, finding the wave of nausea subsiding quickly. Reaching an arm up to grasp Wedge’s shoulder for support, she allowed the pilot to help hoist her off the ground.

Having been in too much shock from the sight of a friendly face, she had almost forgotten to ask. “Wedge, what about everyone else? Where’s Han? Luke, Chewie?”

“We’ll get to that, Leia. Right now we have to get you out of here. Come on, we have to rendezvous with the medical frigate.”

Leia wanted to protest, to get answers before they went any further, but she found herself unable to form words as they slowly made their way to the B-wing ready to take her to freedom.

How long it took to dock with the medical frigate, she didn’t know. She'd been grounded for what felt like months and the near-empty belly left her having to shut her eyes tightly in order to keep from spewing what little contents of her stomach remained all over the ship from her spot in the gunner’s chair.

With her eyes shut she felt the motion ceasing and the hum of the engines shutting down. “All right, Leia. Let’s get you some help,” she heard Wedge say before he reached back and undid her restraints. Opening the cockpit hatch she heard him yell a little too loudly, “I need a medic!” The echo rang through her ears and caused her to wince, but before she knew it, she was being gently lifted out of the ship and taken away.

Her eyes darted at the unfamiliar faces around her. She vaguely recognized one or two of them from the med ward for the Rebellion, but knew none of them by name. What she needed more than anything was to see someone she loved, someone who she knew would wrap her in a tight embrace and make everything better. But no one like that materialized in front of her eyes.

“Where-“ she croaked out before she felt an oxygen mask being placed over her mouth.

“Shhh, Princess. Don’t try to talk now. We’re going to take care of you.”

Unable to argue, she leaned her head back against the stretcher, trying to focus on the good fortune of being free for the moment, even if she still hadn’t seen anyone who she really wanted to see.

She opened her eyes sometime later, having no recollection of how she got to where she was currently. She appeared to be in a private room in a comfortable bed. She had forgotten what it was like to sleep on one of those. Blankets were pulled up to her waist and her body was draped in a standard-issue gown. She noted several IV’s attached to her arms, pumping in fluids of various types.

Aside from the vast amount of medical equipment, the room was empty. She felt a wave of sadness, wanting nothing more than to have someone there to hold her hand and talk to her. It had been so long since she’d talked to anyone…

“Hey,” she heard from the doorway.

Looking up, she saw Wedge standing with a half-smile on his face, for once dressed in normal, civilian clothes instead of his Rogue Squadron orange.

While he wasn’t first on the list of people she’d wanted to see right now, any familiar face was better than none. And at that moment, she owed him her life. Holding her hand out, wanting more of the novel feeling of a friendly touch, she said, “Wedge.”

Taking her invitation, he moved forward and took her hand in his. “How are you feeling?” He asked.

“Honestly? I have no idea,” she said. “I can’t feel much of anything.”

“Well, I’m just glad we got to you when we did.”

“Wedge, thank you. I don’t know what…” she trailed off, and Wedge looked down at his feet, obviously uncomfortable with accepting gratitude.

“It’s okay, Leia. It’s over now.”

She smiled back at him and was just about ready to open her mouth to ask one of the dozens of questions swirling around in her brain before she saw a doctor enter the room.

“I see we’re awake,” the tall, salt and pepper-haired man said.

Wedge looked at the doctor and back to Leia. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he said.

His hand released hers and he disappeared through the doorway and Leia turned back to the doctor who was checking her vital signs on the readout screens.

“Everything seems to be going okay up here. How do you feel, young lady?”

“I don’t feel much of anything,” she said, repeating what she’d just told Wedge.

“Well, that’s not unusual. We’ve got a lot of medications coursing through you right now.”

“Am I going to be okay?” She asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Well, when they brought you in you were malnourished and extremely dehydrated. At some point you contracted some sort of intestinal bacteria, likely from tainted food. But I believe we’ve cleared that out of your system. Right now we need to get your fluids back in balance and get some calories into you. You’re quite a bit underweight at the moment. I’m glad to say that physically you don’t seem to have sustained any damage during your captivity. You will make a full recovery.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked up at the doctor again and asked, “Do you know where Han Solo or Luke Skywalker are?”

His brow furrowed in thought and after a moment he looked down at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. I haven’t been stationed here long, just volunteered recently when the Empire ran an ambush on my home planet and forced us out. I will let you know if I hear of them.”

She heaved a frustrated sigh and sat back against the pillows, and he noted that her heart rate went up. “Try and get some rest. It is the quickest way to get you out of here, and I know that nobody likes being here.”

Leia nodded weakly while the doctor smiled at her one more time and walked out of the room. She tried to sit up, but the wave of dizziness that accosted her told her that she was far from being able to hold her head up on her own, let alone walk around demanding answers. But somebody soon was going to have to tell her what was going on and how long she’d been out of it.

---------------------------------------------

There it is, chapter 2! Now, don't be mad at me. Push sent me the opening chapter and told me that in my continuation, whoever had come to rescue her could NOT be Han, Luke or Chewie. So, as Han would say, it's not my fault!

You Asked For it...Not Really but We Gave it to You!

CHAPTER I

Princess Leia Organa slammed her eyes shut as the light came pouring into her cell. The clang of the metal tray against the duracrete floor had no affect on her anymore. She felt the wetness on her shins before the stench of sour blue milk assaulted her nostrils. Glancing at the putrid heap in the corner and back at the food just brought to her, she slung the tray and its contents over towards it – saving her body the trouble.

“Suit yourself,” the voice growled at her as she heard the heavy door slam shut, dousing the penetrating light and enveloping her in darkness once again.

Her head fell back against the wall and she clutched her stomach. She felt the familiar wrench and crawled her way to the corner as her body lurched and she spat and coughed. Resting back on her haunches she sat there for a little while, waiting to ensure that the urge had passed. Spinning back around towards the door she crawled until her palms felt the sticky, cool sensation of the blue milk. Resting her head against the floor, she began to sip.

Turning over on her back, she let the milk dribble down her cheek and into her hair. She strained to see the ceiling but only the darkness presented itself. Were her eyes even open? She spread her body against the floor, arms out, legs separated and concentrated on her breathing. In and out. In through her nose and out through her mouth and then vice versa. What a marvelous thing the body was. Why did hers continue to function? For how much longer and to what end?

She awoke, spread eagle on her back on the floor. How long had she slept? What was time anymore? Days, weeks, months had surely passed her by already. Why didn’t they just kill her? Was she worth anything to anyone anymore? How long ago had it been since the bottom fell out? Somewhere over Coruscant. Their victory had been reversed. The Empire had made a final stand. Endor was just another Yavin, a temporary win against an enemy that would never die.

Where were Han and Luke and Chewie? How many servings of rotten blue milk ago had she given up on them? Given up on turning her face up to the wretched, blinding light and hearing the words, “I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m here to rescue you.”? What kind of galaxy raged on beyond that heavy door that had prevented them from finding her? She had lost the desire to find that out.

The scraping, dragging sound of her cell door opening grated on her thoughts. As the flood of light washed over her she thought, my eyes are closed.

“Get up!” the raspy booming voice yelled at her.

Make me.

“Get up, you heaping piece of rotten stench,” the voice spat out as Leia felt her head knock around to one side, spinning her body around like a compass in a Maw.

Rolling over to her side, she balled herself up, knees to her chest, hands over her head.

“You’re getting out, ya damn wench! Now get up!”

The jolt to her back knocked the wind out of her and brought back up whatever blue milk she had previously forced down. Pushing herself up to her knees, her hair hanging wet and heavy to the ground beneath her she coughed and spat and croaked out, “Wha..?” Her vocal cords burned at the unfamiliar burden of sound and Leia didn’t even recognize the unfamiliar voice that echoed through the cell block.

“Get up! And Get out! That’s what’s what!” the voice yelled as she felt a tightening around her arm and her feet dangling on the floor. Her ankles rolled over and her knees wobbled like her bones had been replaced with jelly.

The dull pain of her knees scraping against the duracrete battled with the stinging in her eyes as she was dragged out of her cell. Grey, drab walls with dusty lighting moved slowly overhead like a faulty holomovie, fading in and out with each heavy blink of her eyes. As her body turned over and her heels dragged behind her on the floor she filled her lungs with the unfamiliar treat of air not laced with mildew and the stench of human waste.

Dropping her down like a rag doll, Leia heard a faint beeping and then the hiss of a door sliding open. There was a blinding light and a stinging warmth that assaulted her body. The feel of what could only be real daylight pricked at the tiny recesses of her mind. Without a word and without prompt, she rolled over on her knees and quickly crawled towards the warm sensation.

Finding her burst of energy quickly exhausted, Leia fell down on her stomach as she heard the door hiss shut behind her. Breathing heavily, she inhaled dust and dirt, the welcome filth that felt like freedom clogging her lungs and causing her to sputter and cough. She felt a hand on her shoulder, not heavy or crushing; it turned her over and onto her back.

Her eyes glued shut, begging for tears that her body could not produce, Leia could still see the sunshine through her eyelids, hot and bright – it felt like salvation.

“Leia?”

She coughed and turned her head, as she felt the owner of that voice crouch down beside her. Gently pushing the hair out of her face, Leia’s chest lurched at the tender, welcome touch.

“Leia,” she croaked out with her own unused voice. Confirming the question not only for the stranger, but for herself as well.

...to be continued...

Something New and Exclusive, Only on Our Blog!

This is a picture of the coolest surfboard I have ever seen:

But now, I must tell you about something new and fun we are going to try here on HLFFW blog. See, we can't help but notice that our readership is down a bit and there isn't a lot of response. So, what we are going to do is start posting a story here, and only here for all of you to enjoy.

But what makes this story so unique? Well, several months ago, during this brief period of time where neither one of us was otherwise engaged in writing our own, epic tales, we decided that we'd start writing a story together. But instead of collaborating to write each piece collectively, Push wrote the first chapter, I wrote the second, and we just kept on going back and forth like that. It was a very fun exercise and often one of us would leave the other in kind of a tough spot as far as trying to figure out what needed to come next.

We typically kept the chapters around 1000 words, although there were no set guidelines there. And the other trick was that when you sent the latest chapter to the next person, you had to tell them something that had to happen within their next chapter. Sometimes this made things easier, sometimes it made things harder, but it was still a lot of fun.

I will say it is an interesting exercise to be writing a story in which you don't really know what the end result is going to be. And it involves quite a few plot twists and complicated aspects that I'm not entirely sure we can completely tie together, but hopefully it will at least make for an interesting read and get some conversation going here. So, after months of our story sitting on our hard drives, tomorrow Push will be posting the first chapter. Our general plan is to post on Tuesdays and Fridays so we can leave room for other posts in between. We don't want the blog to turn into only being about this story, just part of it.

So, look forward to a new, exciting Han and Leia story unlike anything we've ever written before!

Been There....Done That....

"Damn women...always go for the Wookiee..."

Do you ever feel like everything that's anything that could happen to Han and Leia has already been written and written well?  It's almost like when they remake a movie that was perfectly awesome to begin with (like Arthur - IMO), it almost seems doomed to failure from the start - always to be compared to the original or to someone who had done it better.

This is definitely how I feel about trip to Bespin stories.  I have read so many spectacular stories for that trip that I feel:  1) that I could never do any better and 2) that there isn't anything new to add to it.  But then I read someone else who has braved that time period and they add something new to it that I had never seen or thought of before and I think, hmmm - it is possible (just maybe not for me!)

And then that is what I think is so great about writing.  How we all bring our own unique perspective, personality and voice to our stories and that is why I always encourage anyone who even has an inkling to write something down, to just do it.  I know it's difficult to look at a string of words that you have laced together and not find fault in them, or think that they aren't worth another person's time to read.  But, believe me, in the majority of the cases that just isn't true.  If you have something to say, chances are there are people who will enjoy listening to you.

I guess my favorite time period for Han and Leia is the time between ANH and ESB.  It's a good chunk of about three years where their relationship blossomed from strangers to two people who obviously have strong feelings for each other that are fighting in the middle of a busy corridor.  I guess the possibilities of what could've happened between them during those three years are just about endless.

After then, of course, you have post-ROTJ where the world really just opens up for you because you are not restrained by the confines of the movies any longer - at least not like you are when writing during or in between the movies and trying to keep your story 'canon'.  But just that open-ended possibility can be intimidating/daunting as well.  I mean, they could live anywhere, do anything, and meet/mingle with anybody.  Which brings us to the the EU story line.  This might curtail your freedoms, but it also gives you some characters and story lines to work with that can make it a little easier.

I sometimes wonder how other writers decide what they are going to work on.  For me it is usually the story that comes to me first and I am not intentionally trying to write in a certain timeframe.  Except, I guess, for my post-ROTJ storyline where I am diligently trying to come up with 'what happened next?'.  How does it happen for you guys?  Do you let the story guide you?  Or do you start with the timeline and brainstorm ideas? 

Ten Small Things that Would've Changed the Original Trilogy Drastically...

Well, to build off of what Zyra started with her "Top Ten" listing.  Here's another one.  How many little things could have gone differently that would have changed the entire trilogy?  Here are some ideas:

#10 - Uncle Owen had no need for a protocol droid and just thought Threepio was annoying.
OWEN:  "Etiquette and protocol?  What do I look like?  The Princess of Alderaan?"

#9 - Instead of "scheduling" Leia to be terminated, they just freakin' went down there and shot her right away! 
STORM TROOPER TK421:  "I'm a Storm Trooper and I'm here to execute you."

#8 - The stormtrooper utility belt didn't conveniently have that grappling hook thing so Luke and Leia could swing to the other side of the chasm. 
LEIA: "Quick, we've got to get across. Find the control that extends the bridge." 
LUKE: "Oh, I think I just blasted it." 
LEIA:  "What the f@#?!"  And then she punches him and shoves him over the edge...

#7 - Luke's lightsaber training on the Falcon went really, horribly wrong. 
HAN: "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
Luke sees red, slashes furiously at Han, chopping him into little pieces.
LUKE: "You believe in the Force now, smartass?"
BEN: "Oh, yes.  You are definitely your father's son..."

#6 - That guy in the Star Destroyer shot the escape pod that had R2 and 3PO in it.
CHIEF PILOT: "There goes another one."
CAPTAIN: "Shoot the sh#$ out of it.  I'm not getting force-choked over something so simple."

#5 - The Death Star didn't bother orbiting around Yavin to get to its moon, it blew it up and then Yavin IV right after that.
DEATH STAR INTERCOM VOICE: "We are approaching the planet Yavin. The Rebel base is on a moon on the far side. We are preparing to orbit the planet."
VADER:  "Orbit the f#$#ing planet?  What the f$#@?  Just destroy the planet and destroy the moon!"
DEATH STAR INTERCOM VOICE: "Yes, sir!"

#4 -  Remember that huge fleet of stormtroopers Han found himself face to face with while they were trying to escape the Death Star?  They blasted him to pieces.
HAN: (to Luke and Leia) "Get back to the ship!"
LUKE: "Where are you going? Come back!"
Han has already rounded a corner and gets shot to death.
LEIA: "He certainly had courage."
LUKE: "What good did it do us?  He got himself killed!  And now I have to fly that piece of crap ship of his!  Come on!"

#3 - Greedo shot first...and didn't miss.
HAN: "Over my dead body."
GREEDO: "That's the idea. I've been looking forward to killing you for a long time."
Greedo shoots and Han falls face first on the table...

#2 - Leia got her head blown off when she tried to fire at the stormtroopers after blowing a hole in the garbage chute. 
HAN: "What the hell are you doing?"
LEIA: "Somebody has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, flyboy!"
Leia attempts to cross the corridor and gets blown to bits.
HAN: "Damn.  There goes my reward." 

#1 - Han was busy with a hooker when Luke and Obi Wan went to the Cantina.  
CHEWIE:  (banging on the door)  "Come out here!  I got us a real sweet deal!  These guys are desperate.  They could really save your neck!"
HAN:  "I'm a little busy, furball.  Come back later."

Ten Inappropriate Times for Han and Leia to Consummate Their Relationship Throughout the Trilogy

(Note:  Added Links to Story Submissions that go with these Ideas)

All right, I feel as though I've been boring you to death with my latest posts, so let's just do something fun here. I'm going to list the top ten inappropriate times and places during the movies that Han and Leia could've consummated their relationship. Contemplating when Han and Leia first did it is a favorite past time of fellow fanfic fans. I finally mustered up the courage just this week to write and post my own version of their first time. But it got me to thinking of points in the movies where it would've been an incredibly bad idea for them to go at it. So, here it is. Presented in chronological order.

1. Inside the garbage masher. Just imagine: The walls are closing in on them, and these might be their last few moments to live. Leia turns to Han, "I've never been with a man before. Does that cod piece come off easily?" Han moves quickly as the walls continue to close in, Luke is screaming frantically at Threepio. Suddenly the walls stop moving, everyone cheers and Luke turns around to celebrate with his new friends. "What are you guys doing?" Han: "It's not what it looks like..."  (Link:  Submission by Lady Peter)

2. In the cockpit on the way back to Yavin. They argue over Han getting well paid and Leia decides to ask, "What kind of payment did you have in mind, Captain?" Han pulls her into his lap... and a few minutes later, once again, Luke enters. "Oh, come on!"  (Link:  Submission by TooOldForThis)

3. Behind the stage after Leia awards them their medals. Does this count as during the movie? I say yes. Leia pulls Han aside and they are chatting. She takes his medal in hand and says, "It's pretty big." Han smirks and replies, "I'll show you something else that's pretty big..." and off they go. Fortunately for Luke, he does not stumble upon them this time.

4. In the corridors on Hoth just after Han announces he's leaving.  Leia follows Han out the door and their argument ensues. He gets tired of fighting, grabs her by the wrist, pulls her back to her quarters, shuts the door and pins her to the door and kisses her. "You want something to remember me by, Princess?" She kisses him even harder...  (Link - Submission by AmaraZ)

5. Immediately after their first kiss. "I'm a nice man." "No you're not, you're-" You know what happens there, but what if instead, while he's kissing her, he immediately reaches down to undo his pants and she quickly unzips her snowsuit... "Sir! I've isolated the reverse power coupling!" "Damn it, Threepio, we're busy!"

6. In the Bespin apartment. "Then you're as good as gone, aren't you?" He stands up and starts to take off his belt. "Yeah, so we better make this one count!"

7. Inside their cell on Bespin. "You certainly have a way with people." She helps him lie back down. "You know, Han, there's a good chance we might all be dead very soon." "Well, then, we better get this in while we can..." and he pulls her on top of him.

8. Immediately after he is released from carbonite. "Someone who loves you." "Leia!" She pulls away from the kiss. "We better hurry, we don't have much time..." and she reaches to undo his pants.

9. On the Imperial shuttle on the way to Endor. They are on their way, the course set, a few hours to kill. "This mission could be pretty dangerous," Leia says. "We might not come back." Han turns and takes her hand. "Well, if we might not come back, I don't want to have to say I never had a princess before. Care to join the hypherspace club, Leia?" He pulls her into his lap and she smiles. "What's the hyperspace club?" "I'll show ya. Luke, Chewie, why don't you go back to the crew area and give us a little time to ourselves..."

10. Right after Leia tells Han that Luke is her brother. "He's my brother." They kiss and Han absorbs the information. He no longer has to fight for her affection and can have her all to himself. He kisses her again, deeper this time, and then lays her down on the forest floor and begins pulling at her clothing... poor Wicket comes over to say hi a few minutes later. He has never been the same.

So there are some interesting options there, huh? Should we hold out hope that one of these scenes might have been filmed but not in the movies and maybe they'll put it on the blu ray? Hmmm.... probably not. If anyone has any other inappropriate ideas, feel free to contribute!

They Don't All Have to Be Amazing

This post is inspired by something that Push and I were talking about earlier. Now, of course we should all strive to write the best possible stories we can write. At the very least make sure that everything is spelled correctly, the format is easy to read and your grammar and punctuation are correct. Also desirable is writing people in character and having a funny, sad or interesting story to tell, no matter how epic or how short.

If you look at any writer's body of work, chances are not everything they write is going to be amazing. That's not to say that the lesser pieces have to be terrible, but if we all resigned ourselves to only writing amazing, incredible stories then most of us probably wouldn't spend a whole lot of time writing. I'd love for every idea I come up with to be one of those attention-grabbing, unique, epic pieces that people just can't get enough of. But that's probably not all that likely to happen. Sure, it might happen once or twice, but nobody can churn out that kind of thing one after another.

So the trick is to get over it and just keep writing. Accept things for what they are and if you have an idea you think might be fun to write, but maybe you know before you even write it that it's not going to be some incredibly compelling story, go ahead and write it anyway. And share it if you want to. That's not to say you must share every little thing you write, but maybe you don't have to be so hung up on what people will think and hope that they understand just as you do that it is what it is.

I'm still trying to come up with some amazing story idea but it hasn't happened yet. Come on, guys, I have one story that is 1700 words of Leia coming home to find Han in the tub. That's pretty much it. You think I wrote that one night because I thought it would be award-winning literature? Um, no. I wrote it because I was bored, I had a silly, fun idea that I thought maybe some people might enjoy a silly, fun read and hopefully it did not damage my reputation too much. I love writing, I felt like writing, that was what came to me, so I wrote it.

I think this kind of thing can be especially crippling if you have just finished something that you actually considered to be pretty high quality. You can't think of anything right away that might top it, so you don't write anything. My best advice is just to get over it and not take it too seriously. I've felt the same thing myself in the past and realized there's no real reason to dwell on it. Sure, we get reviews and stuff, but there are not major literary critics out there to tell everyone that we're past our peak. It's all in good fun and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

There are Oscar-winning writers out there who wrote incredible movies and sometimes wrote some less memorable ones. It's okay. It happens. It's just like how sometimes I want to watch The Shawshank Redemption but then other times I'm more in the mood to watch Old School. Do you think I'm deluded enough to think that Old School is a better movie? No, but they can't all be Shawshank and that doesn't mean we can't totally enjoy laughing at Will Ferrell being Frank the Tank.

So again, do the best you can do with your writing, but don't let that internal critic stop you before you even start. Don't be afraid to write something just because you don't think it will be 'good enough.' Otherwise you'll be out of practice when you do come up with a good idea or you'll wind up giving up entirely. And sometimes the bad ideas can lead to the good ideas, so don't stop writing!