Finding What Was Lost

Summary: Lando needs to take care of his lover
Warning(s): AU; spoilers for the Star Wars Sequel trilogy; references to canon character death
Pairing: Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker

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It hadn’t ever been unusual for them to spend long months apart.

As Lando piloted his way towards the base, answering the call that had been put out, he thought back to the last time he’d seen Luke Skywalker. After the destruction of the Jedi Academy, he and Luke had left together. Had gone into exile together.

But they hadn’t been able to stay together. Lando had received a message from an old contact, a smuggler who hadn’t turned his life around. And he’d owed the other man, so had left Luke. His life partner had indicated he would be fine. That Lando didn’t need to worry about him.

As Lando leaned over the controls and checked the map, he reflected that he couldn’t be sure Luke hadn’t lied to him. Had the other man known what was coming for him? Known where his path would end up? If he had, he would have known that Lando would have stopped him.

And he wouldn’t have ended up in a coma, close to death when Lando reached their home and found his lover, collapsed on the clifftop, barely hanging on to life.

Lando had done his best to keep Luke alive, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t wake the Jedi. He could get nutrients into the other man, enough to keep his body alive, but if he couldn’t wake his lover, he knew that eventually, Luke’s body would waste away. He’d lose him.

Lando had strapped Luke’s unconscious body into the copilot’s seat. Only the faint rise and fall of his lover’s chest made it clear the other man was even still alive. On any other occasion, with Luke conscious and not in any immediate danger of losing his life, Lando would have enjoyed being able to travel together. After all, it had been a long time…really too long…since they’d had any kind of adventure. Since they’d had any reason to travel together.

Not like the early days, when it felt like they were constantly on the run. Constantly looking over their shoulders. They’d experienced peace at first; and then the Jedi Academy had been destroyed and Luke had chosen to exile himself as punishment. And Lando had chosen to go with him, despite Luke’s refusal. Despite Luke insisting that he should be alone; that Lando should go back to his life of exploration and ignore their history.

As he piloted the ship towards the coordinates, Lando tried not to fall into despair. Tried not to worry that Luke would never wake up. He fed his lover with ground up rations and trickled water into Luke’s mouth, rubbing his throat to encourage unconscious swallowing. But still, by the time he was bringing the ship in for a landing on the planet, it was obvious that Luke’s body was growing weaker.

And he had no idea where the Force was in all of this.

And by the time he landed and managed to get Luke off the ship…he’d found that Leia was dead. And the rebels were disheartened, with the loss of their General and knowing that their allies were all scattered around the galaxy.

He knew they didn’t hold out much hope of their call being answered.

Despite the hopelessness that permeated the rebels and the losses they’d suffered, there was still a team of medics and Luke had quickly been taken to the medical area. Lando stuck to his lover’s side, holding Luke’s hand and speaking to him.

But he couldn’t stay by his life partner. No matter how much he might want to.

There were other wounded rebels that surrounded them, almost too many for the amount of beds they had. Certainly, there weren’t enough medics to treat the amount of wounded. And all they could do for Luke was make him comfortable and do what they could to encourage him to take in nutrients.

Lando sat next to Luke’s mat, holding onto the other man’s cold hand. Luke was pale and his body twitched every so often. Under his eyelid, his eyes twitched and every so often, his breath would hitch.

“What are you seeing?” Lando whispered, gripping Luke’s hand tighter. He couldn’t be heard by his lover, unless Luke was somehow still aware of what was going on around him in spite of everything. And maybe he could feel everything around him; it wasn’t as if Lando was familiar with all the workings of the Force. But it was hard to believe Luke might know how worried he was, might know that his sister had lost her life, and make a conscious choice not to come back to them.

One of the medics paused by Luke’s bedside and Lando looked up into her pointed face, with sparkling blue eyes. She looked over Luke’s unconscious body and then addressed Lando. “There’s no physical reason for him to be trapped in a coma. All of the scans show that he’s completely healthy.” She blinked eyelids which had no eyelashes on them.

“Yeah. That’s about what I expected,” Lando muttered. He squeezed Luke’s hand, hoping that, somewhere, his lover would be able to feel it. Then, he released Luke’s hand and stood up. “I have to go,” he told his unconscious lover. “The rebellion needs me. I need to find all of the allies I can. Bring them to the fight with the Emperor.” He paused; but, of course, there was no response. No stirring.

Maybe Luke was fighting his own battle. Fighting to come back to them. But Lando couldn’t stand around and wait for his life partner to win his battle. They had to defeat the Emperor.

Again.

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Lando looked around at everyone hugging and celebrating the win; the defeat of the Emperor. They’d won the war. It had come at a great cost, but they’d won it finally. And some people were crying, some people were laughing…others looked like they were in shock; as if they couldn’t quite believe it was all over.

Lando made his way through the crowd of people hugging and celebrating, making his way to the med bay.

“Lando.”

The familiar voice had Lando turning without thought.

Luke was stood there, staring at him. The two walked slowly towards each other, stopping only a few feet apart.

Lando’s eyes swept over Luke and then he smiled, reaching out and wrapping his arms around his life partner. “How long have you been awake for?” he whispered.

Luke’s own arms came up and wrapped around Lando, holding on tightly as he replied, “I woke up when the Emperor was destroyed. When I felt Ben sacrifice himself for Rey’s sake.”

“What happened?” Lando asked, pulling back enough to look into Luke’s eyes. “When I came back home, you were in a coma. I had no idea what happened to you. None of the medics had any answers.” He breathed in deeply before admitting, in a low voice, “I thought I was going to lose you.”

“I expended too much energy using the Force,” Luke admitted. “I lost my way for a while. But as soon as I woke up, I knew I had to find you. Of course, I knew you’d joined the battle against the First Order.” His flesh hand touched Lando’s face; he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss against Lando’s lips. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there with you at that final battle.”

“You did what you could.” Lando grasped Luke’s face, pulling him in for a deeper, more lingering kiss. “We’ve lost so much,” he said sadly.

“I know. Han and Leia,” Luke whispered. “Ben, too. Though I expect there are few who will grieve his loss.”

“I know you do,” Lando said. “I’ll grieve his loss along with you.”

Luke let his head gently drop against Lando’s shoulder and took a deep, almost shaky breath as he clutched at Lando with both his flesh and mechanical hand. “Thank you for understanding me,” he whispered.

The two of them held onto each other. Luke’s body felt thin; far too thin. Lando kissed his head and then said, “I think we need to get you fed.”

Luke snorted softly. “I can always trust you to take care of me.” He straightened up, slowly, and wiped at his eyes. Looked around at the others as they began to disperse; some to grieve and others to heal from emotional and physical wounds.

Lando let Luke step back, but he reached out and took hold of his lover’s flesh hand. Gripped on tight and looked into Luke’s eyes. “I think there are some people who’ll need us to stick around. Once things have quietened down, we can help those who need it.” His eyes moved towards Rey, Finn, Poe…who stood close together, taking comfort from each other.

When Lando turned back to his life partner, it was to find Luke studying him closely. “You think I should rebuild the Jedi Academy.”

“Learn from the mistakes of the past,” Lando replied. “We can rebuild it here. Where there’s now hope and relief, even if it is paired with grief.” He smiled, looking into Luke’s eyes. “But we don’t have to decide anything yet.”

“You’re right,” Luke agreed. “You want me to eat something. And everyone should work on repairing and healing before we can work on building something new.” He hesitated before saying, “But I don’t feel the need to exile myself again.”

“Good.” Lando squeezed his hand and then began leading Luke inside the building and to the mess hall. “But even if that’s what you needed to do, I wouldn’t leave your side. I just think it’s important that we stay here and help guide the youngsters.” He chuckled softly. “They’re so much like we all were, Luke. Don’t you think?”

Luke didn’t respond until they’d collected bowls of stew and sat down in the mess hall. Then, he began eating with great appetite, clearing about half of the bowl before answering Lando’s question. “You’re right. There are a lot of parallels between them and us.”

Lando nodded to the bowl. “You need anymore? You can have mine.” He pushed his bowl towards Luke.

“Far hungrier than I ever remember being,” Luke admitted, finishing his own bowl and then turning his attention to Lando’s.

There were other people in the mess hall. Not many, as a fair few were still outside, coming to terms with the end of the war. But there were enough to create a cacophony of noise.

Luke finished the second bowl and then sat back slightly. He looked at Lando and spoke in a quiet voice. “I know you took care of me while I was unconscious. I could feel you there, even if I couldn’t speak to you. Thank you for that.”

“You didn’t seriously think I’d leave you alone, did you?” Lando shook his head. “I know we’ve spent more time apart than I would have liked, but I never would have abandoned you when you needed me.” He paused. “And I hope we don’t need to separate again any time soon.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Luke reached across the table and grasped hold of Lando’s hand.

Lando squeezed his hand tight in return, then leaned across the table and brushed a kiss against Luke’s lips. He pulled back with a warm, affectionate smile and then glanced at the two empty bowls, raising his eyebrows. “You need anymore food? I can go and grab you another bowl or two if you’d like.”

Luke chuckled softly. He picked up his cup and drained the water, then said, “I don’t need anymore food right now. I’m sure I will later. But for right now, I’m full.”

“Good.” Lando stroked his fingers almost absently over Luke’s palm, then asked, “So what do you think about talking to these youngsters to see if they’d be interested in attending our new Jedi Academy?”

“I suppose there’s no time like the present.” Luke stood up and walked round the end of the table, all without letting go of Lando’s hand.

“That’s the spirit.” Lando grinned at his life partner and the two of them walked out of the mess hall…and into the future they planned to share together.

The End