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“Hoth, really, your Highness?”
The headache behind Leia’s forehead seemed to pulse with a bright light and she squinted as she peered up at the smuggler-cum-hero, lounging in her office.
Luke’s face fell and he looked from Han to Leia and back again. “Hoth? What’s wrong with Hoth?”
“It’s a hell hole, kid,” Han announced, his smirk sending another hot spark in between Leia’s eyes. “Or worse. It’s in an ice age, pretty much the only habitable parts of the rock are its equatorial zones and even they’re frigid. Maybe I see why you like it, sweetheart.”
She closed her eyes, imagined a far off place, a garden on Alderaan where she would play with – no. Not Alderaan, that wound was too fresh, and the stabbing in her head was replaced by the blade in her heart. No. Not Alderaan. “You suggested it, Han,” she said, each word a strain on her control.
He grinned down at her, that big, shit-eating grin, his legs spread far apart and his shoulders square. “I mentioned it. Never thought anyone was listening to me anyway.”
“I find that remark somewhat disingenuous. But yes. Hoth. And we’ll need the Falcon.”
At this, some of Han’s easiness left him, revealing the prickliness underneath. “You’re trying to commandeer my ship?”
“It was your suggestion, Captain Solo, and you are the expert in getting goods past the Empire. We would be very grateful and would, of course, compensate you monetarily.”
Solo gave her a mocking bow, collected his shadow, and left her to clutch at her temples in the darkness of her office.
“Hoth isn’t the worst choice.” Rieekan palmed a stim and swallowed it whole, dry, and without missing a beat.
“Does that mean it’s not the best choice?” Leia hesitated as two more Alderaanian refugees approached and bowed. She said a few quick words, her face an appropriate mask of grief, and paused long enough for the two pilots to walk on by. “We can’t stay here,” she hissed at Rieekan when they passed.
“Well Hoth isn’t the worst choice.” Rieekan pinched the bridge of his nose between black ringed eyes. She wondered if he had the headaches too. “Do you trust him?”
“Han?” she scoffed. “As far as I can throw him.”
Rieekan seemed surprised by this, or maybe it was the stim kicking in. He looked up and down the busy temple corridor. “I don’t know we have many other options,” he murmured.
Her dreams were formless, except for the expectation of pain, chasing along behind her on whirring motors. She ran through corridors, unseen, but the stench of sewage clinging to her.
She would wake with the smell in her hair.
In the mess, Luke, Chewie, Wedge, and a few other pilots were sitting eating their food with Han. She sat at a table with Rieekan and half a dozen other generals, survivors, others all talking about strategy and the Rebellion’s next move. Han’s table had erupted into laughter, seemingly at the smuggler’s expense, Chewie laughing loudest of all. Han was feigning outrage, shoving a hand through the long forelock that badly needed trimmed. Their table was undoubtedly not discussing strategy.
“We cannot go to Hoth. It’s a gravity well. And the asteroid field . . .”
“That is why we must. Hoth is rarely visited by smugglers because it is so unattractive a prospect.”
“The wrong choice does not make it the right choice, General Rieekan.”
Han was currying favour with his pack once more, waving his hands like he was conducting an orchestra, bringing their smiles and anticipation to a great crescendo, before giving them permission to laugh with his punchline, and again the sounds of laughter carried over to Leia.
“It appears to me that waiting is the greatest wrong choice,” she said, reaching for her wine. In the middle of a rebellion, about to run for their lives, and they were still serving her the best Alderannian wine with lunch. Where were they getting it from? Were they expecting her to appreciate it? “The true mistake is to wait for the Empire to come to us. I’m not sure about any of you, but I have no wish to be their guest again any time soon.”
She placed her wine down and excused herself, the whole party at their table rising to acknowledge her departure. Two aides followed her exit. By pushing Morrin to a decision, her words would force him to fold, and Rieekan’s choice of Hoth would be the most favoured option. They would fly out soon. She won her victory to the sound of Han’s laughter, echoing throughout the mess.
“They’re here!”
Leia’s first reaction was to freeze, her breath solidifying in her lungs, a mass as great as a planet settling on her chest. She could see the generals in their makeshift CIC, their faces masks of fear, each one staring at readouts with slack-jawed horror.
She could hear the rasp of air in her throat, a tiny, horrified gasp, and in the eternity of uncertainty she cast her gaze around. Had anyone seen? Had anyone noticed her terror?
In the middle of the room, in a cluster of pilots, were Han and Luke. Han had the same gape of fear on his face, Luke’s was harder, more frightened, more determined . . . but Han wasn’t staring at the screens. He looked over at her.
Could he have heard her gasp from across the room?
“Then we’d better go!” Han shouted.
The breath the room had held seemed to expand and contract, and time was real again, the buzz and fear of the command room suddenly awakening. Pilots shouted for their orders, generals shouted to be heard.
“Get everyone off planet, we’ll rendezvous at Coyla,” Leia snapped, marching forward. She could see her orders spread like a ripple in a pool, leaders rallying their troops, the oft-drilled escape plans coming second nature. “And make sure we split civilian and armed forces,” she snarled at Rieekan, who had once made the suggestion they keep their civilians around as . . . he hadn’t finished the sentence.
A hand latched around her upper arm and tugged her backwards. She span, fangs bared like a cat with her tail pulled, and hissed “Let me go!” at Han’s grey and drawn face.
“Rieekan!” Han shouted, and nodded towards Leia as if this had all been prearranged. She’d speak with both of them. On Coyla. They would all make Coyla.
She could see the old General pushing through the rebels towards them. He had Han’s expression, grey, frightened. She was not so naïve that she thought brave men didn’t get frightened, but she’d need to teach both how to hide it better. Their fear rippled through the rebels, their faces reflecting one another’s like a mask.
She felt her own freeze in dispassion. A hint of anger perhaps, a dash of pride, but no fear. Show no fear. “Have we launched our defences?”
“X-Wings are preparing,” Rieekan confirmed. “Go with Solo, go on the Falcon.”
“I should stay-”
Han’s grip on her arm tightened painfully and he drew her closer, whispering into the crown of her head “if you get captured, what will happen to your Rebellion? We go now.”
Rieekan was nodding, and she found her feet following Han’s, not quite wresting her arm out of his grasp. In the wide stone corridors of their refuge, they marched together towards the hangar. “Luke,” she managed as they rounded the corner of the temple where arched windows looked down onto a squadron of battered X-Wings. “We have to get Luke.”
“Princess . . .” Han half groaned.
“Luke,” she insisted, wresting her arm from his grasp and stopping to search the small figures moving between the squadron below. Which one was Luke? Her eyes were drawn to the middle, to a sandy haired figure leaning over a small astromech. It was him, her heart told her. Luke was there.
“He’s a pilot, Princess, a fighter,” Han was saying, leaning in closer. “You call him over here and you’re going to undermine in front of all these pilots, and he’s had a hard time with them.” In exasperation, Han flung his hands in the air. “He might have gone already!”
“He’s there.” Leia pointed.
“Of course he is.” Han went quiet and she glanced over at him. The smuggler was ready to run, balanced on the balls of his feet. This was too close to the Empire for him, and only that nugget of gold in his heart kept him here. The smuggler needed an excuse, she thought. Something to pin that hope on, to pardon its existence. He looked at her, his lips petted above the scar on his chin. “Listen, your Worshipfulness, if you want to drag that boy out of here to be your own personal guard then feel free, but he won’t forgive you. Leave the running to me, I ain’t trying to impress anyone.”
“Luke is every bit as important to this rebellion as I am,” she said, looking away sharply. She folded her arms tightly over her chest, staring down at the figure clambering into his X-wing.
“Well if you believe that, Princess, you’re even more misguided than I thought.” He lunged for her arm again, tugging her bodily down the hallway. “Come on. Chewie could have left already.”
They made it onto the Falcon as the last X-wing tore into the air, and she followed Han to the cockpit, where Chewie was already barking at them. She thought she heard the tone he used to indicate her, but couldn’t say for sure. “Yeah, well we’re leaving now,” Han said in retort, launching himself into the pilot’s chair so hard it shook.
“Don’t know how I ended up in this bucket rather than one of the nice big, safe carriers,” Leia muttered.
“Well if you wanted to get blown up in style you shoulda gone with your general,” Han said, hands moving like lightning across the dash. He spared her a mocking glance. “Here I thought you wanted to live, Princess.”
“Living remains to be seen,” she said, her knuckles white as she gripped the back of Chewie’s chair.
“There he is,” Han said softly, the Falcon spiralling through a cloud of X-Wings.
Leia leaned forward, staring out at the flashes of grey hulls on the inky black of space. “Where?” she whispered.
“There,” Han nodded.
It occurred to Leia they didn’t need to even speak Luke’s name to hear it. “How do you know?”
Chewie growled something, not an intonation she’d heard before.
“No one flies like the kid. Not even me.” He glanced over his shoulder, dark eyes meeting hers with a half smile, “Don’t tell him I said that.”
“You’ll have diplomatic immunity,” she promised.
“Or we all die before you get the chance to tell.” Han pushed the Falcon into a dive as the TIE fighters screamed towards them. Chewie growled and Han muttered, “I see ‘em, I see ‘em,” and on the comms came the chatter of fleeing rebellion.
Leia’s hand, still gripping the back of the chair, ached. She couldn’t force her muscles to release the leather and chrome. As the stars and ships zipped past them, Leia willed her fingers to move. One by one, each finger relaxed against the chair. No sign of her racing heart, no whisper of the dryness on her lips, no fear that crept upon her spine and froze her in place.
When Han looked round to see her face, triumphant as they jump to lightspeed, she was sitting calmly in her chair.
Even in the Falcon, it was no short hop to Coyla. Leia curled up on a bench in the crew quarters, studying the Falcon’s extensive star charts. Han passed the chamber several times, carrying various wrenches, announcing loudly to Chewie he’d be making food – oh and Leia was welcome to eat too, if she was hungry. He’d be a good courtier, much as he would have hated to hear it. He had a knack for putting people at ease.
Putting her at ease, really. He made plenty of her generals edgy and plenty of her actual courtiers thought he was a brute and a scoundrel.
The smuggler cooked a mean stir fry. “Learned this on Naboo,” he announced, slamming the bowl down at her elbow. “From a beautiful woman. She used to cook it naked, though.”
“I’m grateful you spared me,” Leia said without thinking, and she enjoyed the rise of his eyebrows. “I visited Naboo once as a child,” she said. “The food truly was beautiful.” She pulled the bowl closer and the warm scent of spices wafted over her.
Han grinned. He flopped down onto the bench, fishing out a pair of chopsticks from their envelope and gathering a healthy portion of vegetables between the tips. “What were you doing there?” he asked, stuffing the food in his mouth and chewing while he waited for her answer.
She unsheathed her sticks and dug around for a smaller portion. Han liked his scoundrel’s persona, but he could hold his own in most discussions, though their opinion was frequently divided on the literary greats. He could talk strategy with any general, and even appeared to be able to cook a meal, but sometimes he truly showed himself to be a smuggler and not one of the Rebellion’s officers. Who else would ask what an Organa was doing on Naboo? “My father had many friends there. We were visiting a family he’d known.”
Han seemed to think about this, eating his food in big gulps, but taking a long time to chew each mouthful. Leia found herself paying more attention to the way he ate than her own meal, which she ate mechanically. He didn’t like conversations that had the possibility to circle back to Alderaan. He was always careful to avoid them. Where others spoke of her father’s kindness, her mother’s wisdom, and Alderaan’s tremendous loss, Han was just silent.
“I didn’t enjoy it,” she heard herself say, as she stared at the colourful twists of vegetables in their bowl. “My father was . . . irritated, the family were sad, and I had no one of my own age to play with. We only stayed a night or so. I remember my father arguing about another family he’d once known, about how he didn’t want to see them. It wasn’t like him.”
Han said nothing, only gave her the impression that he was listening.
“He was usually happy to meet anyone, I’m not sure there was anyone he didn’t like, really.”
Han grinned. “Do you get your charm from your mother then?” he asked, the rakish smirk stealing all the sharpness from his comments.
“Oh she was plenty charming,” she couldn’t help herself from chuckling at the memory.
Han listened to her stories with patience and gentle needling. She didn’t speak for long, long enough for both their bowls to empty, but she stopped as her throat grew tight and her eyes itched.
“I could use a hand with a Falcon’s hyperdrive,” Han said, taking the bowls and dumping them in the wash-up. He left her alone with her thoughts, and after she had pressed the heels of her palms against her cheeks, she found him and Chewie working in companionable silence and she joined them. She may not have contributed much to the effort, but it felt good to have nothing demanded of her for a few hours.
They didn’t stay on Coyla long, redistributing the key nodes of the Rebellion across the system, with only a few aware that Hoth was to be their next base. Rogue Squadron was sent out on a classified mission, one that even she only knew the bare bones of. Without Luke the world seemed a little greyer. As for Captain Solo, he and his ship were put to work running guns between the systems. It was good work for him, helped him retain his belief in his own independence while inextricably tying him closer to the Rebellion with every new friendship he formed.
Without Luke the world was grey, without Han it was simply boring. The generals might have disagreed with her on tactics, and rarely a fellow Republican might have raised the topic of politics with her, but no one else would pick the opposite side of an argument, from opera to religion and everything in between just for the fun of it.
She missed him.
She missed Chewbacca too, and of course she missed Luke, so after coming to the realisation she didn’t allow herself to be bothered by it. Han was a great help to the Rebellion and a natural leader, and he was a passable diversion of time. That was no small compliment to him.
So she found herself tracking the Falcon’s movements, waiting with a tight chest when it was due back to her base. With all they’d been through, it was only natural that Han should stroll down the gangway, look for her among the crowd, and grin. And then that evening it would be dinner in the mess, while he gave her his true report of the mission, the one with coded intel from his smuggler connections, the information that truly mattered. He was valuable, and he could be a friend. It was only natural that she should look forward to those hours.
Moving their temporary base from Coyla to Leguin, her transport was caught by an Imperial patrol. Leia gripped her pistol and fought her way through the Stormtroopers. She knew she would not go back to an Imperial cellblock. No matter what it took. Her crew made their escape, not without casualties, and only on an Imperial Transport they had to lose on Jakku. She purchased another transport with very little but her negotiation skills and no small amount of batting her eyelashes. When they rendezvoused with the Rebellion it was her stepping off the gangway and finding her gaze going straight to Han. Beside him, Luke and Chewie, the droids not far away in the forest clearing, and she thought she could see Han’s chest rise and fall, the relief of a man who had been holding down his fear far too long.
He needed to learn discretion.
She needed to draw some boundaries.
At least there was plenty of work to keep her busy, getting back up to speed with the Rebellion, finalising plans for their last transfer to Hoth, redistributing the supplies Rogue Squadron had stolen, and of course, awarding her surviving crew medals. Han and Luke stood in the crowd with their own medals pinned to their chests, Chewie too, roaring with the applause. Leia found herself back in her quarters, alone, with no food or drink, while the others celebrated. She stripped the gown from her body and left it pooled on the floor, putting her work pants and tunic back on. She was halfway through unbraiding her hair when there was a chap on the door. She hesitated long enough to grab her blaster before palming the controls.
Han, Luke and Chewie were standing there, Han all but draped against the doorframe, a bottle of something amber in hand, and he grinned when he saw her gun. “Always appreciate a warm welcome, Princess,” he said.
“We thought you might be hungry,” Luke added, revealing some plates piled with the cafeteria’s best.
It would have been the perfect time to tell them she had work to do, to thank them for the food but send them on their way. Instead she holstered her blaster, stood aside, and invited them in with a flourish. “Room service sure has changed in the last few years,” she drawled at Han, and couldn’t help herself smiling while he executed an elaborate bow. They sat on the floor, drank brandy from mugs and beakers, and picked over the food that sat between them. They talked about what had happened since they’d seen each other last, their close calls and their near misses. She told them, staring into her mug, about standing in the Lambda Transport on the surface of Jakku, arguing with a trader and having no clue what she’d do if he wouldn’t give her a fair price.
Han and Luke glanced at each other, and Han nodded to the younger man, prompting Luke to hop to his feet. “That reminds us,” he said, reaching for her hands and tugging her to her feet. “As decorated heroes ourselves . . .”
“You know, the greatest heroes of the Rebellion really,” Han added,
“We thought we should honour you as well.” All of them were on their feet now. Han, Luke and Chewie kept exchanging coy grins, giving her the distinct impression they’d rehearsed this. Luke tugged her into the middle of the room and then slowly revealed their hand-made medal. On a sash of wires, they’d hung a broken gasket that had been shined up to a dull pewter, and Luke cleared his throat before hanging it around her neck and then bestowing a kiss on her cheek.
Leia’s chest ached and her throat seized up. It was all she could do not to burst into tears, to howl out her heartbreak.
So she raised her eyebrow at Han, a silent jibe, will you let Luke get away with that? He responded by bowing down and kissing her other cheek, his lips soft, his hand gently grasping her elbow. “Your lucky day,” he murmured in her ear, and it took all her steel not to shiver.
Chewie howled and she eagerly moved into his embrace too, the laughter giving her a moment to catch her breath and his thick fur giving her something to hide the shine of tears on her cheeks.
Rieekan, Han and Luke all insisted she fly on the Falcon to Hoth. She put up enough of a fight to let them think they were winning something, but had no true desire to win the argument. They left before they said they would, with even Rieekan not knowing the date, and they took a circuitous route to Hoth. She didn’t truly believe that they had a mole in their ranks, but their new base couldn’t be risked by her faith. With Luke, Chewie and the droids on the Falcon, they donned the cover of a small freighter crew and even picked up a cargo on the Batellia Run.
Cargo meant going slow, the Falcon seemed to slumber behind the freight, and Leia often found herself sitting in the out-poking cockpit, watching the stars slip past the bulk of their cargo, her mind stilled by the tedium. Sometimes she’d sit with Luke, sometimes with Chewie, but most often it was Han who took the pilot’s seat and the pair would sit in silence.
Silence, that was perhaps only heard by them. Anyone else in the cockpit would hear their snapping at one another, debating the virtues of favourite childhood stories, of operas, of Corellian freighters versus the YV-Series, of the delicate ethics of smuggling. Their conversations detailed everything but the real questions between them that laid heavy upon their tongues.
“I don’t see the difference between smuggling and rebelling, Princess, the Empire frowns on both. In fact, I’m pretty sure if I offered them the choice they’d take your head over mine.”
She scoffed, turned her head away to stare at the stars as if to collect herself, and then shifted her whole body, cradled up in the chair so she could face him headlong. The battle was begun. “If you take your moral guidance from the Empire I think I understand why you think circumventing economic policy is no big deal.” Are you going to submit to them?
Han rolled his eyes. “Look, Your Worship, the Empire’s done more for my career than the Republic ever did so I’m not complaining.” He gestured broadly with one tan gloved hand. I’ve got a good thing going here.
“Sure. And if we were to stop off at Tatooine exactly how much would I get for your head?”
“I think I’d still get more for yours, Princess.”
“And of course, when you get old and slow, you’re going to be just as happy sneaking into ports under the radar, running through back alleys and trusting to your blaster to negotiate?” The future is important.
“Hey, I’m always going to be faster on the draw, Your Highness, you can count on that.” He shifted his weight in his seat, facing her a little straighter, crooking one of his long legs up on the console to do so. His knee was very nearly brushing her calf. In the Falcon’s bucket seats, it was awkward to look at one another, but somehow easier to do it here than anywhere else. Han’s voice dropped. “What about your old age, Princess? Do you think you’ll be leading Rebellions when you’re sixty?”
“Hopefully I’ll be leading a government,” she said, searching for the thread of their debate.
“This Rebellion’s going to get you killed,” Han said, and she stared at him, drowning in the twist of concern written on his face. “It’s going to get Luke killed.”
“That’s not our choice,” she hissed, balling her fist against her thigh. “That’s Luke’s choice. It’s my choice. And it’s your choice. We all need to decide what kind of person we are. Do you smuggle for low-lifes and scoundrels, or do you risk everything to make this galaxy a better place?”
For a moment, Leia was sure this was the conversation she’d been having with Han since the moment she’d met him. Please, I see you, I know you are better than this, I know what you could do with that charisma, that will. What I wouldn’t give for half your magnetism, you’re the only person I’ve ever met who can capture my attention . . .
And Han seemed to be speaking back, run with me, be my rebel, and I would treat you as a Princess, as an Empress, of the Empire of the Falcon, and we would be happy. But that was not what Han would say, not even in the privacy of his own mind, and that was not what this conversation was about.
Still when he leaned forward, she was convinced for a moment he was going to kiss her, hard and bruising on her lips, fighting to convince her of his argument, while she would kiss him back, just as hungry, just as desperate to show him that if he joined her Rebellion they could do so much good together.
Han licked his lips, shook his head, and got to his feet. “You know for someone who hates scoundrels so much, you sure do like hanging around in my cockpit,” he snapped, marching down the Falcon’s corridor.
The frozen ice world of Hoth, the gravity well, was the perfect hiding spot. The Rebellion wrapped up warm and hunkered down, made their walls of ice. Leia built her own. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Han might have been building too, laying the groundwork for his flight, keeping the distance between them. He would leave, and break Luke’s heart, and she would miss out on the one of the greatest generals the Rebellion might hope to have.
But there was no way to keep him.
So she kept her face impassive, her words cool. While Han bashed at the walls between them, she sat silently in the prison of circumstance.
It was going just as poorly as one might think when the Empire found them, and they were running again. Between Han and Luke’s evening sojourn onto the ice, the flight from the Destroyer, and the interlude in the asteroid thicket she barely had time to think, never mind feel.
But for the kiss.
She sat in the Falcon’s mess, feet up, and hands cradling a warm mug of coffeine. Her mind was still on the power coupling, on Han’s body leaning closer to hers, and the kiss. His lips were dry and chapped, the evidence of weeks on Hoth. His hands were sticky with oil, and rough against her own callused palms.
Damn him, but sometimes he was right. A good kiss had restored something inside her, made her mask of confidence sit a little more securely on her face. And it had been a good kiss, it had been an eclipse of a kiss, so much so she hadn’t understood why he’d stopped until he acknowledged Threepio standing beside him.
She unfolded slowly, drifting towards the power couplings where the sounds of Han working echoed softly around the Falcon. She was not an easy ship to hide on, for all her size, but Threepio and Chewie didn’t appear to want to leave the cockpit. Too frightened? Too sensible? She leaned against the bulkhead, watching Han as he bowed his head over a conduit, a bowl of noodles sitting half eaten by his knee. He was cleaning a diverter, working studiously on the old and worn metal. He was so engrossed in his task that he hadn’t yet heard her. She could walk away right now, hide until they reached this Lando Calrissian. Cower.
“We need to talk,” she said, and Han dropped the diverter in fright, swearing as it landed on his knee.
“Leia!” He nearly knocked the noodle cup over as he scrambled to his feet, and Leia watched him with raised eyebrows as he collected himself. “What are you doing here?” He made it sound like he was asking what she was doing with the Rebellion, kissing smugglers in dark corners, and placing her hope in dead religions.
“What happened in the corridor,” she began.
“Leia,” he hung his head, hunching his shoulders. He could never exactly make himself small, but he was trying his damned best. “I won’t mention it to anyone, not Luke, no one.”
“Good.” She nodded, glancing over her shoulder. Still no sign of the rest of their crew. “Obviously, emotions were high. We’d just lost a base, and we may have died.”
Han was watching her, a coldness settling in his dark eyes. “Sure,” he said, his voice clipped. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it not the truth.”
“Do you ever listen to yourself?”
“It was something we needed to get out of our systems. I think if we hadn’t been interrupted, we would have worked that out.”
“Like hell, Leia, you -” his anger gave way to alarm as she stepped forward, but he caught the gist of her intention as she clasped her hands behind his neck and pressed a kiss to his lips. With very little in the way of conversation, dirty hands for some reason unmentioned, they stumbled to Han’s cabin. His bunk was messy, the sheets tugged aside. The last time he would have slept in the recess would have been Hoth, and she suppressed a shiver of pain as she thought of all those good people lost. Han held her tighter, unwilling to relinquish any part of her even to facilitate the removal of clothes. He clutched at her waist, rubbed his thumb along her neck, brushed his knuckles against her hair, and always hungrily searching her lips.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” she managed in a gasp for breath as he was forced to break to help tug her shirt over her head.
Han blinked a few times, his generous mouth curving into a soft smile as he leaned in closer, “Yes, Leia, I’m sure,” he said in a low voice.
She pressed her fingertips against his chest, the lightest pressure to keep him back. “Just to get it out our system,” she said firmly.
Han slipped one palm beneath her camisole at her waist, his skin flush with hers. The heat of him made her swallow, her breathing little more than a pant. “If you say so, Leia,” he said, a hum of confidence ringing through him, and any time she wasted arguing was time he wasn’t kissing her.
So Leia nodded, said “I do say so,” just to save a little face, and climbed into the bunk, kneeling on the crumpled sheets and peeling her camisole off slowly, keeping her eyes on the Captain. He watched her with raw hunger, his tongue brushing his bottom lip as he stepped towards her, ducking his head to climb into the recessed bunk.
They undressed efficiently, like they fought, pulling at one another’s clothes and discarding each garment the moment they were free, until Leia was tucked up beneath him, his one threadbare pillow pushed beneath her hips to try and even out the good two heads of difference in height between them. She gave herself permission to explore every inch of him, dancing her fingertips over ropy muscles and the odd blaster scar. His left lower ribs were ticklish, and he flinched a little as she kissed the scar on his chin, but she appreciated the curve of his arms as he held himself above her, and the heat of his calves against her knees as he folded himself up inside the too-small-for-the-purpose cabin. She wanted to laugh. Any decent scoundrel would have made his cabin bed a little bigger.
For his part, Han was hesitant, at least until an exploratory kiss against her collarbone drew a moan out. Emboldened, he explored further, still soft and gentle, like she was fragile.
The great, wide galaxy seemed to contract to the three walls of the bunk, not even as great as the span of her arms. Her breathing shallowed and Han took it as an invitation to kiss her again, rocking his hips a little harder. Damn him, but he chose that moment to whisper into her ear, “I love you.” And just as suddenly the cabin was galaxy sized, her sense spiralling out past beyond the Falcon, to the Empire’s fleet and the fleeing rebels. She pictured, as clear as day, what their daughter would look like. Maybe a girl and a boy, dark haired and brandy eyed charmers, clutching lightsabres as Luke grinned at her. Or only a boy, laughing with Han in the Falcon. Or if she lost him, she could see herself, fighting against the darkness growing inside her, dying in some blaze of glory for the rebellion. Or she saw them standing together on a beautiful green planet, the politics and the galaxy all left behind them.
As she exhaled, shakily, her mild delusions of ecstasy faded, and she was back in the tiny bunk, Han all heat around her. He brushed his thumb against her cheek, wiping away her tears, his brows furrowed in concern. She looped her arm over his shoulders and tugged him closer still, “Do that again,” she commanded, her voice rasping, and he grinned broadly.
She got dressed sitting on the edge of the bed, Han sprawled out behind her, still naked. He did not seem inclined to rejoin her outside of the cabin, and his hand occasionally brushed the base of her spine. Repinning her hair, she allowed herself a sidelong glance at him. His bottom lip was petted, like he was a sulking child. If she thanked him, or reminded him this was supposed to settle the matter, he’d only argue or, worse . . .
“I meant it,” Han said.
Leia let her shoulders slump. “Han . . .”
His fingers dropped away from her back and when she looked around he was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his hands clasped beneath the back of his head. His face was tense. She wanted to lean forward and kiss him, to smooth away his hurt. But it would be dishonest.
She rose to her feet and made her exit, her bootsteps echoing dully off the Falcon’s bulkheads. She walked the length of the corridor, and found herself staring into the golden reflection of Threepio’s head. She looked ruffled, flushed, and there was a smile on the distorted version of herself that stared back at her.
It’s okay, she told herself. It will take weeks to get to Bespin. You’ll be back in control. It’s just . . . getting it out your system.
Her reflection shimmered and shifted as Threepio turned to face her. She barely heard his inquiry, conscious of the steps behind her, and the heat of Han brushing past her shoulder. He was ticklish on his left ribs.
It would take them weeks to reach Bespin.