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They’re only about twenty three miles into their roadtrip when Luke decides to pick up a hitchhiker. Leia, asleep in the passenger side after two strenuous semesters, is not woken by the pitstop.
It’s a hot August, and they’re about to part ways again for their junior year of college. Three weeks left of the summer, and they decide they absolutely need a road trip. Neither twin wants to admit that it’s probably their last hurrah -- that Luke’s going to go off and join the resistance, that Leia’s going to take down the Empire from the inside as an elected official. Next summer will be filled with training courses and internships, respectively, and they have far too little memories to sustain them for so long.
Leia wakes up to a tug on her braid and a voice in her ear saying, “Dreamin’ bout me, Princess?” She nearly screams.
It’s fine, Luke assures her with a mischievous smile. He’s just a hitchhiker, he’s only going to Wichita, he’ll be gone before we know it, there’s nothing to worry about.
“But we don’t even know him!” Leia’s characteristic panic comes rushing into the beat-up car, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Did you even check him for weapons? He could be a serial killer! Besides, picking up hitchhikers is illegal in New York, Luke.”
The stranger gives her a smirk that she instantly hates. “Good thing we’re already in Jersey, huh, Princess?”
Luke is too open and trusting. Leia wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already told the hitchhiker their social security numbers. From what the man seems to know about her, she must have been asleep for hours -- the sunset turns the sky pink over the open road, but she insists they continue to drive to somewhere nice instead of stopping at these dirty motels. Luke gives her a concerned look, hesitant, and Leia says, “Don’t worry. My treat.”
The stranger in the back snorts. It seems he knows all about her upper-class upbringing, her Ivy League education, her jeans she bought with the holes already in them. He knows about what happened to Luke’s aunt and uncle and it looks like they’ve already had a heart-to-heart over it, or maybe just a beer.
Somehow, after all this, all they know is his name: Han -- wait for it: Solo.
They stop for the night at a Best Western -- it’s the least Leia will settle for, knowing the Organa’s will be keeping a watchful eye on her credit card statement -- and book two rooms. The elevator is cramped and small and Leia and Luke stare at each other in the mirrored walls, noticing the way their eyes look like four in the same head, how their noses curl up in the same direction, those tiny details that led them to the realization that they were part of each other.
They exit on the fourth floor, and, while squirming out of the elevator, Han somehow gets his arms around Leia’s waist. “Only booked two rooms, Princess -- usually I’d like to buy a girl dinner first, but if you’re so adamant.”
She pushes him off with a disgusted grunt, pulling Luke into the room behind her and throwing the second room’s key to the ground with a huff. “Shove it up your ass.”
He pounds on the door behind them, and Leia sends a scowl towards a giggling Luke, trying to block out Han’s words. “Dirty words for a princess! Keep an eye on her, Luke!”
“Don’t call me that!” With an indignant sigh, she turns to her brother, and gives him a desperate plea. “This was supposed to be just us, Luke.”
He hops into bed with a smirk, kicking his shoes off. “C’mon, sis. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
By noon the next day, Leia is ready to strangle someone. And hint: it wasn’t a Skywalker.
“If you had just taken Driver’s Ed with the rest of us, I could be handing off the wheel to you instead of Han,” Luke says from the passenger seat. Han winks at her in the rearview mirror. She snarls.
Luke dozes off after lunch, happy to be free of the car, and bored to death of Han’s incessant babbling about some pickup truck he left back in Jersey City. When he notices Luke dozing off, he switches on the radio. Leia is surprised to see Han humming along.
He looks like an outlaw, she thinks, smiling to herself in the back seat.
“See something you like, princess?”
Maybe, she thinks.
“Shut up, laserbrain.”
He smirks, and she realizes she’s made a grave mistake.
“ Laserbrain -- you know, I like that.”
When they arrive at the bed-and-breakfast, it’s still early evening, and the twins wander around the grounds. They’re used to talking about nothing in particular -- he can’t understand her high-society life, and she has trouble defining his in return -- but it’s a comfort, knowing that it’s not the content of the conversation but simply each others’ presence that keeps them happy.
They part ways, Leia citing a headache from the road, and she heads back to their rooms. Luke wanders toward a lake at the end of the property, where he sees Han sitting, almost contemplative, if you can believe it, by its shore.
It’s the two of them alone on the dock, focused out on the calm lake. For a moment, it’s peaceful, but Han Solo has never been known for tranquility, and he interrupts the moment with a cough. “So, how long have you and the princess been together?”
Luke gives Han a confused stare, before chuckling and shaking his head. “It’s not like that at all. She’s my sister.”
Han is silent for a moment. “What do you think?” He says at last, eyes on the moon, wide.
“Huh?”
Han strains his eyes to see the horizon, a blue-grey blur in the starlight. He imagines, for a moment, that there’s someone waiting for him there, just beyond the far bank of the lake, dressed in all white, and though he can’t make out the person’s face, he sees them smiling.
It’s just the moon’s waving reflection on the water’s surface, playing tricks on him. But it’s nice to pretend.
“You think a princess, and a guy like me …”
“What was that?”
Han hadn’t noticed Luke get up and leave, but he was nearly back to the cabin, eyeing Han strangely for talking to himself.
“Nothing,” Han said, shaking his head, giving the moon a goodnight nod before going after him.
“What do you mean, a ‘change of plans’?” Leia looks absolutely furious from the driver’s seat, and Luke shoots Han a worried look.
“ Relax, Princess,” he drawls from the backseat, where he’s made himself quite comfortable. “Keep your eyes on the road, would ya? My people decided they wanted me in California instead. Looks like I’ll be coming all the way to Sacramento.”
“Your people?” Leia looks at her brother, concerned. “What is this guy, some kind of drug smuggler?”
“The less you know, the better,” Han interrupted. “Feel free to pat me down, if you think I’m hiding anything. Or if you’re just feeling frisky.”
They pass a sign for Wichita city limits, and Leia veers out of the lane, and onto the exit.
“Leia! What are you doing?”
“Stay out of this, Luke,” Han says, sitting upright, his breath on her shoulder as he leans forward.
“Yeah,” Leia mutters. “Stay out of this, Luke.”
She pulls over the first chance she gets -- the lights flicker SHELL atop the deserted gas station, and she gets out and slams the door behind her, Han quickly following suit. Luke looks like a lost puppydog in the passenger seat.
She storms into the gas station and up to the register, glad that Solo didn’t follow her in, and lets out a long, angry breath. The teenager behind the counter looks absolutely terrified.
“A pack of Marlboro lights,” she says sullenly.
There’s a breath in her ear. “And here I was, hoping your vice would be a little more kinky.”
Leia was ready to smash the guy’s head in. “We’ve took you as far as we agreed. Now get lost.”
He slams a ten on the counter and grabs the pack of cigarettes. “You sure that’s what you want?” He steps closer.
No, she wants to say, this is the closest to adventure I’ve ever felt. She can feel the adrenaline running through her bloodstream, seeping out her pores, making the run-down gas station neon and gold. She feels alive just looking at him.
“You don’t look like a girl who smokes,” he says impatiently.
She wonders how he judges his books, but doesn’t say anything on it. “Someone like you could drive me to drink.” It wasn’t even a lie.
That night, Leia pulls over into a Kansas cornfield off the highway -- right into the crops, and everything -- and puts the car in park. “This is where we’re staying, for the night.” Because fuck the rules, she needs to live a little , for once.
“Won’t your parents be mad?” Luke asks.
“So be it,” she announces.
“Maybe you should call them.”
Leia leaves her phone in the car.
Luke begs his sister to take the car’s backseat, and he and Han will sleep outside, but she refuses. Han and Luke end up sharing the car, snuggled in like bear cubs, and Leia makes herself a bed out of corn stalks and stray cotton.
If you’re just doing this to prove something to Han, it isn’t worth it, is Luke’s way of saying goodnight.
She shakes her head. She is proving something to herself, but she doesn’t yet know what.
Leia wakes up at dawn, like always.
Luke is passed out in the car, which she opens as quietly as possible to grab her phone, and Han is nowhere to be seen. Good, a part of her thinks. Glad to be rid of that bastard.
Good, another part of her thinks. Who knows what I’d have done if he was still around.
She wades into the corn like a yellow ocean. The road is empty in the morning sun, and, seeing as how no one has come to scream at them or call the police yet, Leia is guessing that the barn at the end of the property is empty.
She should really call her parents. She’s never been this rebellious in her life.
It feels too good to be true.
She gets closer and closer, parting corn like the red sea, until she is just ouside the barn door and can hear a voice radiating from inside of it. She is just about to run back to Luke to get them out of there when she recognized its deep tremor.
“I know I said I’d be in Wichita, but I had to reroute -- listen. I’ll be in Sacramento soon, and I can fly back to Kansas from there … I’ll find a way to pay for the ticket. I’ll call Lando or something -- I spent the last of my money on a pack of cigarettes.”
The static of the cell phone is muffled, but rings out strong and clear. Han, it says, you don’t even smoke.
“It’s a long story, all right? Don’t get your panties in a twist over me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Leia could’ve guessed the second she met him that he was the type to hang up without saying goodbye.
She creeps silently back to the car before Han can catch her eavesdropping. She feels too-awake in the harsh sunlight and pretends to be asleep when Luke wakes up, and answers hysterical texts from her parents with uncharacteristic two-syllable answers like “I’m fine,” and “all good” and then, after a moment, "love you too.
It is close to midnight when Luke pulls over at a seedy motel straight out of a movie.
To call the day “hot” would be an understatement. It was sweltering. Han could feel the sweat on everything he touched. It ran down his face like a waterfall. By noon, the jokes he cracked from the backseat were winding down out of exhaustion, and by nightfall, the thrum of heat silenced the whole car. He can hear his heart make those thumping sounds every time he glances towards the passenger seat. She seems to be silently smug, like she knows something he doesn’t, and it drives him crazy.
Luke pays for his own room and Leia pays for two more -- Han is ready to protest before remembering he doesn’t have a penny to his name.
Thank you, he thinks, but says instead, “Hope you’re not expecting a refund, Princess.”
She gives him that new, knowing smile and exits, stage right.
When he realizes he can’t sleep, after only a few hours of trying, his bright idea is to raid the minibar. After all, might as well take advantage of the bill he’s not footing. He makes his way out to the concrete slab outside his room that serves as the ground with three bags of M&M’s and a bottle of gin.
And he hears the next door over open, but thinks nothing of it.
And he feels her breath on his neck, but thinks he must be imagining things.
And he hears her say, “And here I was, hoping your vice would be a little more kinky.”
And he thinks he’s in love, but there’s only one way to be sure.
And he grips her so hard he thinks she might squeeze right out of his fingers, and he kisses her, and it feels so good it hurts , and he has so many questions and so few answers, and he’s holding her so close he can barely breathe, but he realizes he doesn’t want to --
Not if it means letting go.