Title: Refractions in Rain Author: Ellie Droplets shimmered against the dark glass, the inversion of champagne's bubbles. They caught the points of light visible in the night, fragmenting and refracting them through the dark room. Mesmerized by the sound of the droplets spattering against the glass, Leia was oblivious to the mottled pattern of light this cast across her white robes. She was lost in other rainstorms, her eyes focused at a point far into the darkness of the normally sparkling Coruscant night. The reverie was interrupted only when a pair of warm arms wrapping around her from behind. She took one of the hands in her own, pulling them tighter around her waist. "Where were you?" The whisper rumbled against her ear, and seemed little more than a breath over the noise of thunder. She started for only a second before responding; she wasn't surprised he could read her so well. "When I was a girl, the Organas had a palace by the sea. We used to spend summers there. Everyday, I had lessons in the mornings, then spent the afternoons playing on the beach and in the water. It was so different than the life we had at court; so relaxing, peaceful. It was really family time. Sometimes my fa-Bail used to come down and swim with me." Han kept silent, his only encouragement a gentle kiss to the top of her head. "But what I loved even more than the afternoons on the beach were the storms we would sometimes get, especially at night. This reminded me of it. I used to go sit by the windows and listen to the rain pour down, blending with the sound of the surf. I think those were the most peaceful moments in my life." Both were quiet for a long moment, staring out through the glass. "When was the last time you were there?" "It was..." she paused, unsure herself whether she was calculating or trying to suppress the regret. "It was about a year and a half before the Death Star. When it...was destroyed the first thing I saw in my mind was one of the stained glass windows that shattered during a bad storm one summer. It was in my room, and all these bits of colored glass scattered across my floor. I could see Alderaan exploding, and for split second, it was that window, just shattering everywhere." One hand reached up and traced constellations between the droplets on the window in front of her. Slowly, Han's fingers traced up her arm to wrap the hand in his own. "Everything so terrible wrapped up in such a small thing." "I just couldn't deal with the whole terrible thing. Not in that moment, or that place." "You can now, you know." He squeezed his arm around her waist a fraction tighter. "I am, piece by piece. This was a piece." She turned in his arms, wrapping herself in the comfort of him. In the rain-refracted light, he could see tears glimmering in her eyes.