- ghosts of the past.

ix

"Dad!" Thalia abandoned her spot by Leia and ran to Han, throwing her arms around his shoulders.

Han stumbled back slightly, but regained his balance and hugged her back, looking over her shoulder at Leia. "Hey, Thals." He said quietly.

"Goodness! Han Solo!" A droid's voice interrupted the moment, and Thalia pulled back, turning her head to look at C-3po. "It is I, C-3po! You probably don't recognize me because of the red arm," C-3po held up his shiny red arm, "look who it is!" He turned to Leia, who gave him a look, then turned back to Han and Thalia. "Excuse me Princ-General, sorry." He then ventured to BB-8 to follow him, and walked away, leaving Han, Leia, and Thalia in the cloudy area.

"You changed your hair." Han finally noted to Leia, after the two droids were away from them.

"Same jacket." She said back, nodding towards him.

"Oh...new jacket," he corrected as Chewie came up behind him. "Thals has the old one."

Chewie bypassed Han, going straight to Leia and hugging her, saying something unintelligible while doing so, then walked into the transport ship.

"I saw him." Han said after a moment, and both Leia and Thalia's face's fell. "Leia, I saw our son. He was here."

Thalia backed away from her parents as they looked at each other, unable to deal with the amount of tension between the two. She squeezed Han's wrist briefly, then headed towards where Ezran was standing.

"Ezran!" She called, picking up her pace to a light jog as she got closer. Ezran turned and a small smile crossed his face.

"Hey," he said as she reached him and he pulled her into an awkward hug, only to let go a moment later. "Sorry, that was weird," he muttered, looking at the ground.

"How's the Falcon?" She asked, diverting the subject quickly. "Did you crash that too?"

"How do you always manage to know when I don't have a spectacular landing?" He lifted his head back up to make eye contact with her.

She rolled her eyes, grinning, "your crew came back complaining about it."

"Typical." He muttered. "The Falcon's fine, I wouldn't be one to deprive you of the joy of having your ship back again." He pointed to where the Falcon was landed across the lake and away from any damage that the castle had taken. "Mostly unscathed."

"You do care sometimes," she smiled up at him.

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "'Told myself I'd get it back to you at some point. I say get a head start on Han, you might get to fly it." As Thalia turned to head to the Falcon, Ezran called her name and she turned back again, "race you back to base." He said with a grin that she returned before they both ran to their respective ships.