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There’s something about Endor, Leia thinks, that’s more peaceful, more still, than anywhere else she’s ever been. The war isn’t over, not at all, but in the past few days, she’s allowed herself moments like these - curled up with Han, behind closed (metaphorical) doors, the two of them breathing side-by-side in a bed high up in Bright Tree Village.
Time to rest, she thinks as she lazily brushes a hand through Han’s hair, and time to heal.
Heal mentally, heal physically, heal in every sense of the word. There’s a bone deep tiredness that’s been a part of Leia for as long as she can remember, and with Han still recovering from the last remnants of hibernation sickness, she thinks they’ve more than earned a day or two to sleep in.
And she might be awake now, but Han isn’t. He’s been crashing little by little each day since the Death Star turned to dust, all his adrenaline finally spent, so Leia quietly crawls out of bed and leaves him to sleep.
The sun is warm on Leia’s face and shoulders as she steps onto the wooden walkway outside of the hut she and Han have been sharing. There’s no one around this high up. She thinks that Mon might have had something to do with the arrangements and the much appreciated privacy they’ve given her and Han. She forgets, sometimes, that the universe can be so still, that despite all the pain and destruction and chaos, there are places with a soft breeze and sun-dappled leaves and birds chirping softly in the morning light. Not for the first time, she takes a moment to be grateful that, even for what’s likely to be a short time, she’s found one of those pockets of peace in the galaxy.
The Ewoks have been graciously preparing food for their guests each morning, so Leia finds her way to breakfast and gathers up enough bread and fruit in her arms for two. She expects Han to be awake when she gets back, and he is, blinking lazily at the doorway as she steps back inside and pulls the curtain closed behind her.
“Morning,” Han sighs, reaching one arm towards Leia like it’ll make her crawl back into bed faster. “Having an adventure without me?”
“If hunting down breakfast is an adventure, then sure,” Leia says as she sets her findings on the table near the bed and climbs back in without another word. She closes her eyes against the feeling of Han’s arm clumsily wrapping around her waist. When she opens them again, he’s looking up at her with that soft expression on his face - the one he’d tried to hide from the world before he’d given in and let her see it. And now that he has, he can’t seem to stop.
There’s something else there, though; an uneasiness that he can’t quite hide. Leia brushes her thumb beneath his eye and waits.
“Bad dream,” Han answers Leia’s unspoken question, shaking his head roughly.
Leia gives him a sympathetic look. “Were you back there?”
He shrugs. “Not there there.” Leia nods. Han doesn’t have to say the word carbonite for her to know what he means. “There, like, that cell on Bespin.”
“Swear I wake up all achy after I dream about it,” he adds, running one hand up and down Leia’s bare arm in an obvious attempt to ground himself.
Leia understands. She knows Han knows that, because she was there, too, and she revisits those moments just as often as he does. Sometimes all it takes is closing her eyes, just for a second, and there she is.
There she is, and Han’s on the ground as Lando’s cape whooshes past her. He doesn’t try to push himself up - it’s like he’s resigned himself to the pain, to the fact that all of this is happening, and Leia can’t take it.
“You certainly have a way with people,” she mumbles with an attempt at a smile that she hopes looks genuine. He smiles back, but it turns into a grimace as she and Chewie do their best to pull him off the floor as gently as possible.
“What can I do?” Leia breathes into his shoulder once he’s standing, half of his weight resting against her. “Tell me what you need.”
He glances towards where he’d been lying before Lando had come in. A few difficult steps later and he’s on his back, looking up at Leia with an awful sort of guilt in his eyes.
“‘M sorry,” he says softly, only for her, before she can stop him. “You don’t deserve this.”
“There are a lot of people in this city who should be sorry right now,” Leia replies firmly, “and you are not one of them.”
“You don’t deserve this either,” she adds. He looks too exhausted, in too much pain, to keep up his normal bravado. “In case you were thinking otherwise.”
He shrugs, and then winces, and Leia urges him to stay still. He’s been nearly melting around her lately, ever since the tension finally broke between them on the way here and their relationship had morphed into whatever it is now - this pull that has only gotten stronger these past few days.
In some ways, Leia knows she can’t think about them right now, and in others, they’re all she can think about. Han seems to feel the same, judging by the way he’s still looking at her. He takes a deep breath and then, without warning, tries to push himself up on one arm to get a better look at the cell around them. Leia has just enough time to force her own arm under him and cushion his shoulders as they fall back towards the slab. He’s breathing far too shallowly for Leia’s liking, but there’s nothing she can do, locked in here, and she doesn’t -
Han takes her hand.
It’s that little motion, that contact, that breaks her out of her spiral. He’s rubbing his thumb over her palm, slowly and shakily, and she moves closer, the grates in the floor leaving marks on her knees. “Dunno how we’re gonna get out of this one,” Han sighs. Leia knows what he’s saying. He doesn’t know how they’re going to get out of this one, and she doesn’t either. Neither of them know exactly what’s coming next. If this time is all they have left, Leia will hold onto Han as tightly as she possibly can.
So she reaches up and brushes a hand through his hair, like she’d done when she’d first been pushed into this little room, like she’d done three nights ago in Han’s bunk on the Falcon, when the galaxy had felt limited to the arm’s length of space around them.
“Hey,” Han’s voice, the one he’d used before Leia had lost the sound for months, morphs slowly into a calm, albeit tired, one. She shakes the memory out of her mind and takes in her surroundings - she’s on Endor, sitting on top of a blanket on the bed, Han’s fingers tangled in hers.
“You okay?” Han asks. There’s concern on his face, but there’s a very small smile there, too. “Or are we both stuck back there today?”
“I’m okay,” Leia says as she settles herself in front of him. Her leg is folded against his thigh, and his hand has come to rest against her hip. She doesn’t have to speak her next words aloud to know that they’re true. “We aren’t there anymore. We won’t ever be again.”
“That’s right,” Han nods, looking lighter than he did when she’d first found him awake. Leia has come to find that he’s quieter on days like these, less outspoken and slower to catch up with everyone around him. She’s patient, always, and she always will be, whether these days come and go for a month or for the rest of their lives.
“I’m here,” she reminds him, and he answers with a grateful nod. “We can just relax today, if you want. I’ll bring my datapad up here. Just the two of us.”
“You know I’m not going to argue with that,” he smiles and tugs her closer for a kiss, and she takes in every second of it. Because unlike the kiss on Bespin, there’s no fear that this one will be their last. There’s no uncertainty about the future, because she’s sure about him, and he’s sure about her.
And sometimes, even in a galaxy that’s nothing but certain, something as simple as that makes all the difference.