Work Text:
Leia stood over Han’s still weak and sickly form. She held a lukewarm bowl of soup; it was the best they could do for now, but she mentally reminded herself to get him something warmer when they got back to the base.
“How are you?” She asked quietly, whispering as best she could. Every loud noise in the last few hours had Han flinching and covering his ears as if he were a child at a firework show, but the sight made Leia’s heart ache.
“Better,” Han answered hoarsely, taking the spoonful of soup she offered him. “I guess anything’s better than Tatooine though, especially home.”
Han pat the wall next to him, and she smiled.
“What about you? I mean, how are you?” He asked, looking into the soup bowl she still held in a way that made Leia feel as if he was purposefully avoiding her eyes.
“Good. Great, even. I have you back, Han, our mission was successful.” Leia stuck another spoonful in his mouth, and he did his best not to choke on it. “How couldn’t I feel great.”
“Leia…” Han looked up at her now, his eyes sad. She knew she shouldn’t be frustrated with him, not now of all times, but he was making it difficult. “You know what I mean.”
“Why do you feel it necessary to talk about?” Leia asked, placing the bowl on the bedside table a little too hard, the sound echoing through the small room. Han flinched, and her annoyance towards him easily faded away into concern.
“I’m sorry,” She said, her voice soft again, moving almost instinctively to sooth him by brushing her fingers through his hair. Though Leia could count the times they’d had such intimate moments on her hands, it’d felt natural and easy for as long as she could remember. Whatever existed between them was blurry, much blurrier than Leia preferred anything to be, but the rest was so comfortable she could barely bring herself to care. To see Han taking such comfort in her touch now reminded her of that.
“I know what it’s like,” Han said, and she felt a small pang of embarrassment for not considering the small bits of his past she had known for quite some time. He was no stranger to the torture of monsters like Jabba. “I mean, I don’t. Not that specifically, but… I sound stupid.”
“No, go on,” Leia encouraged him now, sliding into the bunk to sit next to him, so that his head lay comfortably against her stomach. They both recognized how quickly her mood had changed, though neither of them would say it. Han knew his theory that he was slowly getting better at calming her down more than he angered her would just get him a lecture (and a setback in progress), and Leia was raised too well to ever brag about her own ability to regulate her emotions. Especially with temperamental men like him. Another thing she couldn’t say without forgetting her manners.
“What I mean is,” He continued after a few moments of just enjoying her presence, “I know what it’s like to feel humiliated in that way. Being a slave is humiliating. I’ve spent all my adult life trying to pretend I never was one.”
Leia, even fresh out of the horror she just endured, felt lacking in her understanding. From what she pieced together, Han had been a slave for most of his childhood. She couldn’t imagine that, especially now after getting such a comparatively small but still awful sample.
“The way people look at you, especially scum like Jabba, it makes your skin crawl,” He said, and she nodded, the memory of Jabba’s buggy eyes so recent it seemed to still be settling. “I always hated working with slavers, Leia. I know it doesn’t make it any better, but I did. It was just unavoidable.
“I can’t help but think, if I never had, that had never happened to you,” Han said finally. Leia almost instantly began to argue, but he didn’t let her. “I don’t regret being a smuggler or a criminal, even if you’re not such a fan of the profession. But I didn’t have to work with such a lowlife and I did, I did and now this happened and it’s all a mess.”
“Han, that’s all in the past. You can’t change it and there’s no point in dwelling on it,” Leia said, her fingers twisting through his hair gently as she spoke. “What happened to me there, it was worth it to save you.”
Han made a pained expression. “I’d rather you let me collect dust for the rest of time than have to have you suffer.”
“You would do the same for me,” She pointed out.
“I would,” He agreed. “But that’s now. Does it really make up for the years I spent not caring at all?”
“I don’t know,” Leia admitted, though Han’s question was rhetorical. “But I’m sure that little boy on Corellia would be pretty damn proud of you right now. You’re friends with the woman who killed Jabba the Hutt.”
“‘Friends?’” Han asked, offended. “I hope we’re more than ‘friends’.”
“Don’t push your luck, you still need another shower or two before you stop smelling like a tauntaun,” Leia said, but kissed him anyway.