#there are like three people in the world who ship this i think but please…..consider……..cmon…….

[piratingsoup]

what is their ship name

[skywalkersapprentice]

Day 6- Friend

Chewbacca has been around a rather long time. Han Solo was not his first human companion.

rating: g

pairings: none

word count: this one is 2263 words you guys i don’t have a clue how that happened

(read on ao3)

Han Solo was not the first human Chewbacca had developed a bond with.

Chewbacca had been around a rather long time, 234 years, to be exact. He wasn't old, not by his species' standards, nor was he young. He was just old enough to have been around the galaxy a few times.

The first human he'd taken under his wing, so to speak, had been a man, around the age of 30. Chewbacca himself had been in his thirties at the time, and the two of them had met when the man came to Kashyyyk to sell wood carvings. He met Chewbacca, befriended him, and then never left.

The man's name was Saylem Icarus and they were at very different points in their lives. Although they were the same age, Saylem was fully mature, an adult in human terms. Chewbacca was a teenager, still enjoying the carefree life to the fullest.

They were an odd pair, but their friendship was strong. When Saylem married a nice Pantoran girl, their children called Chewbacca 'uncle'. When Chewbacca was initiated into the Kashyyyk military boot camp, Saylem was at the ceremony. When one of Chewbacca's older brothers was killed in an accident, Saylem dropped everything to be by Chewbacca's side.

No matter how good of a pair they were, they couldn't escape the reality that Saylem was aging much faster than Chewbacca. When they were both fifty, Chewbacca was barely considered a legal adult, whereas Saylem was developing gray hair and creaky joints. When they were sixty, Chewbacca was in his prime and Saylem could no longer shape his carvings and was forced to retire.

Saylem Icarus died aged sixty five of a heart attack, and Chewie mourned his passing for years.

The next human was in her twenties when she and Chewbacca crossed paths. She was a Jedi, on a political mission to Kashyyyk, and Chewbacca found himself admiring her spirit. Her name was Kit Hanlon and she had the same black hair and dark eyes of Saylem Icarus. He eventually helped her save the Senator of Kashyyyk from an assassination plot and from then on, they shared a bond. He saw her from time to time over the years, and sometimes she would specifically request him for missions in the Mytaranor sector.

Kit Hanlon died at age fifty-eight, poisoned to death on an icy moon in the outer rim and Chewbacca, now one hundred and ten, decided then that humans were too fragile for him to continue to connect with.

Of course, that only lasted so long.

When Chewbacca was one hundred and twenty five, he met a street kid on Coruscant with a shock of black hair and incredibly good reflexes. In another life, Lorris Starkiller could have been a Jedi. Instead, he was born in the outer rim and his parents were killed in a transport crash on Alsaka. There had been eight survivors, and Lorris was one of them.

Chewie couldn't help it. He liked the kid. And so he decided to give him a job on his ship, and then began the cycle all over again.

Lorris was clever, witty and hardworking. He complained often, but he always completed the tasks Chewbacca threw at him and a mutual respect developed between the human and wookiee. By the time Lorris was twenty three years old, he was Chewie's second in command and the rest of his crew saw Lorris as one of them.

Unlike Saylem, Lorris never married. It didn't seem to interest him. He was content to remain Chewbacca's right hand man, and although he eventually got a ship of his own and occasionally took his own jobs, he always returned to Chewbacca's crew.

The clock ticked down in Chewbacca's mind this time. Somewhere in his head, he was always conscious of the fragility of man.

Lorris Starkiller and Chewbacca worked side by side for nearly twenty-five years. When Lorris was 42 years old, he took gravely ill with a sickness of the lungs. The doctors, for all their advanced technology, said there was nothing they could do, and so Chewbacca made his friend as comfortable as he could and stayed close.

Lorris died at age 43, when Chewbacca was one hundred and fifty one years old. He didn't take another companion after that.

Instead, Chewbacca went home. He found himself a wife and had a son, who he loved dearly. That, he thought, was all he needed to be happy. A simple family, one that he wasn't going to outlive, one that wouldn't be taken from him by simple human illnesses.

And for years, that was enough.

Then, the clone wars happened. The empire happened. Slavery happened, and suddenly, his family was gone and Chewbacca was looking at a life of slavery to the Trandoshans.

And then one day, 32 years after Lorris Starkiller's death, the compound that housed the prisoners exploded.

Chewbacca's memories after that were hazy.

A child, rushing through the smoke with a blaster and pure nerve, shouting “cmon, cmon! Get moving!”

Cold durasteel of a blaster being pressed to Chewbacca's skull before he could escape, a hissed “not so fast brute,” from the mouth of the Trandoshan warden.

Closing his eyes as he prepared for a slow and painful death, thankful, at least, that his fellow Wookiees would live that day.

A blaster shot echoing around him, but no pain.

The child had saved him, circling around through the smoke and confusion to get an angle on the warden.  And as per the customs of his people, Chewbacca owed him a life debt.

Neither he or Han Solo were very pleased about this.

Han Solo was thirteen years old, an orphan doing odd jobs for smugglers and drug lords. Chewbacca probably would have felt sorry for the child if he hadn't been such a smug, arrogant, reckless brat. He stuck by the kid out of duty, but every now and then, his mind would wander to Lorris. To Kit. To Saylem.

To be in their debt would not have been a bad life. Those were the best of humanity. Han Solo? He may have been a child, but already there was no room in his heart for love for anyone but himself.

Or so Chewbacca thought.

Eventually, with too many Imperial eyes on them in the mid-rim, Chewbacca and Han were forced to flee further out. There were more jobs in the outer rim, but it was also more dangerous, and the competition was stiffer. Chewbacca found there was only so much he could do to protect the boy.

They landed on Nal Hutta to refuel, only to catch the attention of notorious bounty hunter Rohan Longswinger. Somehow, he'd gotten word that they were carrying quite a cargo of weapons for a crime family on Dantonar and even Han's bluffing couldn't get them out of this one.

Chewie and Han had gotten very very good at running away, but Longswinger's ship was faster. He targeted their engines, leaving them dead in space, and sent out a boarding ramp.

Chewbacca ushered Han into the escape pod, intending to deal with Longswinger himself. But the bounty hunter was craftier than Chewbacca expected, and the Wookiee found himself entangled in a vibro-whip, staring down the barrel of a blaster. The more he thrashed, the tighter the whip wound itself around him.

“Tell me where you keep your shipments,” Longswinger demanded. Chewbacca told him, in no polite terms, to go to hell. He wracked his brains for another solution as the bounty hunter drew nearer with the blaster. There had to be a way out of this.

That way appeared in the form of a brown-haired blur dropping from the ventilation ducts above them and nailing the bounty hunter in the face with a stun blast. Chewbacca couldn't help the startled sound of surprise that fell from his mouth as Han straightened up and began untangling Chewbacca from the whip. He thought Han would have been halfway to the nearest moon by now.

“What are you doing here? I told you to get in the escape pod,” he growled.

“Yeah, yeah, but I couldn't just let that guy take our cargo, y'know?” Han said. “And,” he mumbled, looking away, “you were in trouble. Couldn't leave you behind.” He turned away and started to tie up Longswinger with his own vibro-whip. Chewbacca watched him with fresh eyes.

So. Han Solo had a heart after all.

That day was the start of a partnership that would last fifty years.

Han was different than his other human companions. He cared deeply about his friends, but had a hard time showing it. He could be terribly selfish one second and ready to save the entire galaxy the next. He felt loss and heartache to the core, but only someone who'd known him a while would know  he was suffering.

Chewbacca saved his life enough times over those fifty years to cancel the life-debt a hundred times over, but he didn't dream of leaving. Even after the war, when he was free to be with his wife and child again, he spent a few years on Kashyyyk before falling right back into his smuggling ways with his old friend.

And Han was getting older. Chewie could see the lines developing on his face, the grey sprinkling in his hair. This time, he refused to think about the clock counting down. He'd already had more time with Han than any of his previous companions. He wouldn't waste their finals years dreading saying goodbye one more time.

Chewbacca had always known he would never lose Han Solo to old age. But he never thought he'd lose him to his own flesh and blood.

Ben Solo ran his father through with a blood-red saber and watched coldly as he fell over the catwalk and Chewbacca's world halted.

He hardly remembered firing a shot at his friend's son. He distantly recognized that he was killing every stormtrooper in sight. All he could feel, however, was a deep, agonizing pain.

He hadn't been ready. With the others, he'd had time to recognize that they were losing their tether on life, but with Han, he thought he'd have more time. Han Solo had always acted invincible, and after a while, even Chewie had been taken in by the act.

The act was over, and Han was lying at the bottom of a hole. But Chewbacca found that thinking about that was too much to deal with, and so he let his rage take over and carry him through the rest of the mission.

Much later, after Finn was rushed to emergency care and the girl, Rey, had left him alone, Chewbacca sat in the Millennium Falcon and let himself grieve.

There was still so much to do. They had to find Luke. They had to destroy Kylo Ren, and restore order to the New Republic. But for now, all Chewbacca could think about was all that he had lost.

The last fifty years had been the most formative of his life.

Never again, he thought. I can't go through this ever again.

He wasn't built for this. Wookiees were long-lived creatures who bonded with family and friends for life. For him to bond with these humans only to lose them ten, twenty, fifty years later was breaking him.

When Kylo Ren was dead, it was time for him to return home.

“Chewbacca?”

It was the girl, the one Han liked so much. Chewie liked her too. She was young, a bit naive, but she had great heart and passion. She reminded Chewbacca of Luke.

He supposed there was a reason for that. Han had seen it too.

Rey stepped hesitantly into the Millennium Falcon. He didn't know what she saw on his face, but it made her stop in her tracks.

“I can go,” she started, but Chewbacca shook his head.

“No. Stay.”

Rey crept closer and sat beside him. They were silent for a while.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “General Organa said you knew him longer than anyone. After just a few days I was- I'm sorry.”

Chewbacca closed his eyes at the mention of Leia. He would go looking for her later. They would need each other in the coming weeks.

“They found the missing piece of the map to Luke,” Rey continued. Chewbacca looked up at that. “The General wants me to go to him. She says I have the best chance of finding him.”

“You need a ship for that,” Chewbacca commented.

“And preferably a copilot,” Rey said. “I know I have no right to ask this of you, not now, but-”

“Yes,” Chewbacca said. “When do we leave?”

He needed to take action, in whatever way he could. At the same time, he didn't have it in him right now to leave Han's ship. This, he could do.

There was a steely look in Rey's eyes now. “We leave tomorrow morning.”

They sat in silence a while longer, their shared grief a quiet bond, before Rey got up to leave. She looked back at Chewie one more time. “Thank you, Chewbacca,” she said softly, and in that moment Chewbacca could see the years panning out in front of him, new adventures, new missions, new loss, all over again.

Han Solo hadn't been the first human companion.

And he probably wouldn't be the last.

Maybe he wasn't built for this, but it was who he was anyway. Chewbacca nodded once to Rey, then leaned back and closed his eyes in the ship full of ghosts.