Happily Ever After

The Millennium Falcon Owner’s Workshop Manual does not disappoint. Among the things I learned—

Han and Chewie are wanted (alive only) after the Battle of Yavin, for a reward of 300,000 Imperial credits

Among their charges are “Liberation of a known criminal, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan”

The ship “appears unremarkable but has been illegally modified for increased shield power and speed, and carries military-grade weapons” (YEAH it does!)

Later in the book we learn that Han has modified the engines such that while usually YT-1300s are supposed to warm up for three minutes before liftoff, the Falcon can lift off in 20 seconds and launch into hyperspace with about three minutes of prep time.

Basically “I’ve made a lot of modifications myself” is something of an understatement.

Leia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so scared. She’d almost been shot by Imperials at least ten times in the past month, and had only evaded capture by the skin of her teeth on her last mission. The week before she and Han had had to jump from the roof of a 60-story building onto the top of the Falcon in order to escape an Imperial intelligence agency with their lives. She’d been face to face with death, defeat, and imminent torture countless times since Yavin, and had hardly batted an eye.

“D-d-don’t worry, Worship. ‘M gonna—gonna get.... get us... outta this...”

Leia touched his forehead, and despite the icy cold, found that his skin was burning.

They’d been in the mountains for three days. Leia had secured the data chip that had been their objective into her pack, and they’d embarked on the trek back to their rendezvous point to meet Chewie—but Han had been coughing. And rasping.

You shouldn’t have come, Han, she’d scolded as he’d attempted to stifle fits of coughing in the crook of his arm. You’re sick—

Corellians don’t get sick, he’d insisted, again and again. As the days had progressed, his voice had grown hoarser, his cough more sinister, and still he’d soldiered on.

You should have listened to Chewie—you’re unwell—

The look Han had thrown her had been furious.

And what? Stayed behind? Left you with one of those clueless Coruscanti blasterheads to protect you?

Our operatives are highly trained—

Trained my ass—the kid is better in a bind than half those guys.

Han—

I’m your partner, he’d snapped.

And then the storm had set in, and Han had succumbed at last to the Corellian flu.

Huddled now as they were in the narrow cave they’d discovered, Leia was truly frightened. Their location was too remote to find help nearby, they couldn’t make it to the rendezvous point through the whiteout conditions outside, and she couldn’t raise Chewie on their comms. Beside her, Han’s temperature was clearly climbing. While at first he’d attempted to disguise his shivering and downplay his symptoms, over the preceding hour he’d become delirious. Leia had already bundled him into her bedroll despite his initial protests that he was ‘fine, Your Worship—quit it with the mother nerf bit, ‘m not sick—‘ but it seemed that their two sleeping bags and the heat rods they’d had in their survival packs weren’t enough. As the blizzard raged and the temperature continued to drop, Leia found herself beginning to fear hypothermia, and Han....

Stop that, she ordered herself furiously. He won’t die. He’s fine, he’s...

From within the layers of their combined bedrolls, Han shivered and convulsed. He was hunched into the sleeping bags, helpless, barely conscious. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat that Leia feared would freeze to his skin as the wind continued to blow icy bursts of snow through the craggy opening of their meager shelter.

She felt another burst of irritation as she looked at him, remembering how she’d emptied her pack in a panic, searching frantically for the fever reducer that she knew she’d had among their limited supplies. ’S gone, Han had coughed, already sinking into his fevered haze. ’m sorry, Princess, I took it—been taking it since yesterday—wasn’t... wasn’t feeling great...

What do you mean, you took—?! And you didn’t tell me! If you were sick, Han, you should have said—

His shuddering breath.

Didn’t want you to think—I was a liability—to the mission...

Leia felt herself near to tears. Infuriating man! Han Solo was going to die because he hadn’t trusted anyone else to protect her.

It was time to make a difficult decision. She glanced down at her pack. Inside, beside the useless bacta patches and ineffective comm unit, was their last option.

Their distress beacon.

As a last resort, when their long-distance comms failed and they couldn’t contact the alliance, a rebel operative could activate the distress beacon and, hopefully, be located and rescued by the Alliance.

So close to an Imperial mining facility, however... it was unlikely that the Alliance would be the first ones to pick up their signal and locate them.

“I p-promise, Leia. Won’t let anything—‘m gonna get you... outta this...”

Leia squeezed her eyes closed, unable to bear the sight of his suffering. Another frigid gale howled into their cave, and Han moaned. She sent a desperate, beseeching prayer into the cosmos.

Please, Chewie, she begged. Please, please...

With fingers so numb with cold they *hurt,* Leia activated the distress beacon.

Then she started to take off her clothes.

Leia, Han whimpered, as she peeled back the sleep rolls. He recoiled from her, and from the draft of cold air.

Leia crouched beside him in her underwear, shaking uncontrollably, skin burning from the cold. She bit her trembling lip.

“Move over, hotshot,” she whispered, trying to keep the panic from her voice.

Han seemed to come to his senses enough to help her take his clothes off—Leia wanted to shake her head with fond exasperation at that, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

She was so afraid.

“You’re so warm,” Han choked into her neck, when she’d shimmied into the bedrolls with him. She shoved one of the heat rods down by their feet, bundled Han’s coat over his shoulders, and wedged herself in tight against him, wriggling around to zip them in. Once enclosed into the sleeping bags, Leia felt immense relief, for Han was radiating a heat so incredible it brought tears to her eyes, but Han seemed unable to escape the chill that wracked his body. Clutching her to him, his face pressed against her shoulder, Han shivered and shivered. He held her like she was the only thing in the world that could help him, but like she wasn’t enough. Leia wanted so badly to be enough.

“‘M sorry,” he moaned, over and over, teeth chattering, limbs trembling. “Sweetheart, ‘m sorry—‘s my fault—‘m sorry—“

“It’s alright,” Leia breathed, again and again. She held him against her bare skin and rubbed her hands up and down his back, friction—more heat, they needed more heat. “Chewie’s coming,” she promised. “Chewie’s on his way, don’t worry. We’ll be on the Falcon, soon...”

She didn’t want to think about the alternatives.

“This ain’t how I pictured it,” Han groaned against her shoulder. Leia continued running her hands along his arms and back, along the body that had become so precious to her—how had Han Solo become so precious to her?

“Pictured what?”

Han didn’t answer, and for a moment Leia wondered if he’d been pulled again back into a fitful, frightening sleep. But then he ran his palms over her shoulder blades and back, and nuzzled his face against the side of her neck.

Oh, she thought. Oh.

She didn’t know if it was because she thought he wouldn’t remember anyway, or because she expected both of them to be frozen to death by morning, or because she assumed that if they weren’t they would be in Imperial custody by sunrise, but Leia squeezed him tighter, and whispered, near his ear: Me neither.

xxx

“‘M not drinking that.”

“Oh yes you are.”

“Kid, listen, I appreciate it, but it tastes like nerf piss—”

“It’s medicine, Han, it doesn’t matter how it tastes—”

“No? Then how about you drink it?”

Leia smiled softly outside Han’s cabin.

“You’re an even worse patient than Leia,” Luke sighed.

She heard Han’s outraged huff.

“Now wait a minute, kid. Nobody’s a worse patient than Leia—”

“I don’t know about that, flyboy,” Leia murmured, rounding the corner into his cabin at last. Han, propped in his bunk, grinned. “At least I have never threatened to disassemble a medical droid and sell it for parts on Kessel. It’s no wonder the medcenter was so quick to discharge you.”

Han shrugged and smirked.

“Thought it was Threepio,” he grinned.

“Chewie says the soup is almost ready,” Leia murmured.

Luke turned to Han with a determined gleam in his eye.

“I’ll bet Chewie can get you to take that,” he threatened, gesturing at the medicine Han was supposed to drink every four hours. He strode from the room, presumably to bring in reinforcements.

“Nice try, kid,” Han attempted to shout after him, “but I don’t gotta do what he says—”

His voice was still so hoarse and his sinuses so congested that Han’s blustering retort dissolved into a hacking cough.

“Nice,” Leia shook her head, watching Han reach furiously for a tissue, expression incredulously disbelieving: betrayed by his own body such that he couldn’t even holler threats across his own ship.

Han caught her eye and smiled again.

“Just givin’ him a hard time,” he shrugged. Still Han eyed the medicine like he’d have preferred to drink engine coolant.

Leia looked down at her lap. Han had been so unwell when they’d gotten him back to base that they hadn’t had much time to talk—by the time Chewie had found them, he’d been unconscious, and had remained so until they’d gotten him back to the medcenter on base. Leia decided not to mention to him that she’d sat at his bedside for sixteen hours, worried he wouldn’t wake up.

“Listen, Leia.”

Startled out of her thoughts, she glanced up. The look on Han’s face was one of disgust and resolve.

“I know I screwed up,” he muttered. “You knew I was too sick and I shouldn’t’ve tried to deny it—”

“Han—”

“‘M only saying, if you just give me another chance, it won’t happen again.”

Leia raised her eyebrows.

“Another chance?” she repeated.

There in his bunk, with his untouched medicine and rumpled hair, Han looked uncharacteristically shy.

He shrugged and glanced down at his mattress.

“Well I... I almost compromised the mission,” he muttered. “Figured you might’ve decided to do the next one with one of your highly trained operatives...”

Softly, Leia shook her head.

“You’re my partner,” she reminded him. Before she could think anything of it, Leia leaned forward to press her lips to Han’s cheek. When she drew back, his eyes were wide. He lifted a hand slowly to touch the place where her lips had been, and Leia watched the corner of his mouth draw up.

A roar sounded from the doorway.

“Alright, alright, I’ll drink it!” Han yelped, reaching for his medicine while Chewie brandished furious soup ladle.

Leia grinned and stood carefully from the bunk. She resolved not to think that night about lying bare flesh to bare flesh with Han in the bedroll... or about her name on his lips for hours on end as he’d tossed and turned with fever...

No, Leia wouldn’t dwell on that.

so cool under pressure

so calm in a crisis

great at handling difficult situations, for example, can get his own gloves off WHILE talking to a cute girl AT the same time no problem thanks for asking

so great at witty comebacks

definitely has slept with MANY a lady because, again, Han Solo is a cool guy, and not a grumpy hermit who, were he a person in the world, would spend all his weekends alone in his apartment with his phone turned off watching Ice Road Truckers

definitely not a weirdo with a shitty haircut who talks to his car

no. mister cool guy. always looks so cool. so cool in a fight

so cool. never panics about everything all the time constantly.

people trust him cause he’s got that cool guy charisma

always knows what he’s doing. han solo. an expert.

https://youtu.be/pA-uSnkNPQg

Baby, it’s Hoth outside.

Han wasn’t much for parties. In fact, he’d struggled to mask his dread when Leia had informed him of the Halloween Ball they were to attend. Usually her events were formal, stiff, and political—he had to make conversation with all kinds of dignitaries he didn’t want to engage, was interrogated about his views on militaristic and humanitarian issues by people who were clearly trying to expose some kind of suspected ignorance, grilled on things on which Leia worked or for which she advocated like they were trying to get him to slip up and oppose her.

But as he and Leia keyed into their apartment at the end of the night, Han couldn’t deny the party hadn’t been like that at all. Hosted by General Rieekan for New Republic military personnel and their families, the gathering had mostly just been a bunch of rank and file getting drunk and dancing. The Rogues were all there, Luke, Lando; even Chewie had agreed to come.

“No costume for you, Chewie?” Leia had smiled as they’d found him by the buffet. The Wookiee had turned to her.

“[I have come to the party as a Walking Carpet, Little Princess.]”

Han chuckled again to remember Leia’s look of horror, opening her mouth, contrite, clearly remembering, before noticing Chewie’s sparkling eyes and suppressed laughter.

“I told you we would have fun,” Leia murmured as they shut their door behind them. They stood together in the dark entryway, buzzed, happy. Leia had dressed for the evening as a figure from Alderaanian mythology—Minna, a witch-goddess who roamed the forests of the mountains, enchanting travelers, guiding the pure of heart through the misty paths and leading the wicked to their dooms. In her hair she wore a crown of golden leaves and white branches, and her body was draped with flowing silver fabric that seemed to glisten like fresh snow beneath a winter moon. She had dusted her skin with shimmering silver glitter.

Han had been transfixed by her appearance. All night it had been torture, to want her so badly. Watching her laugh, pink-faced and carefree, as she’d danced the Corellian Shuffle with Wedge and Lando, trying to teach Luke the steps. How Han had stood to the side, grinning, watching her. Slide to the left. Slide to the right. At first Han had been chuckling, seeing the kid’s stumbling attempts to learn, watching the Rogues make fun, seeing Leia’s patient instruction. But once Luke got the hang of it and Leia had simply allowed herself to have fun with the dance, Han had found himself staring as though at an actual goddess, as she swayed and jumped, her face lively and flushed, her joy almost childlike in a way he was sure she hadn’t been since before the Death Star, and the way she moved—hell, the way she moved. Her natural rhythm and grace mesmerizing, her silver dress and glittery skin gleaming, the shape and movement of her body in her enthralling costume highlighted under the flashing party lights. Not inherently sexual, but Han had intel that others did not—he was able to connect her panting breath and abandoned exertion with her breathless, gasping pleasure. Watching how she moved her hips there on the dance floor when he knew just how she moved them when he was inside her.

Hell.

And then, as the song had continued, how her eyes had landed on him. How even as she’d jumped and danced and laughed with her friends, she’d sought him, locked her gaze on him. She’d smiled a bright smile, and then he’d watched her make up her mind. Grin slanting sultry, she’d held up her hand and crooked one finger, beckoning. He couldn’t hear her over the pounding music but he’d been able to read her lips, Come dance with me, Flyboy.

As a rule Han didn’t dance but how could he have refused? Her gleaming eyes, her obvious exhilaration, her hopeful anticipation and her desire for him, specifically, to be with her in that moment.

Just as a traveler drawn to Minna in the Alderaanian woods of ancient days, so was Han drawn to Leia there at that kriffing party, his feet carrying him towards her, a man bewitched, but he had had no thoughts of fighting it. He was willingly ensnared.

“It’s the Corellian Shuffle, hotshot,” Leia had told him breathlessly. “I know you know the steps.”

He did know the steps, though he’d never before been so inclined as to perform them, but there with Leia it was the most appealing thing in the galaxy. He’d held her hands as was custom, swaying with her to the beat of the music, deriving some kind of primal satisfaction to see Leia’s eyes light up with surprise and pleasure as he’d danced the steps with precision and competence.

The hours had stretched on and he’d danced with her some more, and though they never danced too erotically it was erotic just to watch her, to move with her, to put his hands on her waist or hips. They did “cauldron shots” with Luke and Janson, accepted countless pieces of candy from big bowls passed round and round, and at the end of the night Han realized he’d had fun.

When was the last time any of them had had so much fun?

Now in their dark foyer Han felt full to bursting with disbelief, and happiness, and gratefulness, and desire. And he couldn’t believe his dumb luck. Few years before he’d been slumming some shady cantinas, smuggling to survive, hard and cynical. Now here he was going to New Republic Halloween balls with the love of his life, and returning to their home in the early morning to make love after a night of hilarity and camaraderie and longing.

“Are you gonna enchant me now?” Han asked, reaching for her. Leia leaned into him so immediately that he knew she’d been craving this as badly as he had been. Their relationship had changed since Endor—they were so used to each other now, and Han was sometimes stunned to find himself domestic, to find himself settled into a routine. A lifemate, an apartment, and plans for more. But no matter how many months passed, he never tired of it, and no matter how many times they made love, it was never enough for him.

He imagined he’d spend the rest of his life wanting her, and now in the privacy of their home, he let his hands roam lower than they had at the party, over her hips, the swell of her ass beneath the clinging fabric of her costume.

He was tempted to love her right there in the foyer.

“Me? Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to lead me off in a trance, Flyboy?” she laughed, arching a brow. Han grinned a rueful smile, lifting a hand to his jaw. He’d gone as a vampire to the party, figuring a dumb cape and fake fangs would be easy enough to endure. But the cape had felt ridiculous, not his style—more Lando’s scene—so he’d left it on a chair while they’d danced. Then the teeth had made it hard to kiss Leia, to drink the shots and eat the candy, so he’d chucked those too. Nothing was left of his costume now other than the lines of fake red blood Leia had painted from the corners of his mouth, and the white shirt with its big collar.

Han wanted to say that he’d already been entranced all night, that it was she who held all the power. But Han knew that he held power over her, too, that she matched his devotion in its entirety, and the way she was leaning into him, looking up at him, dark eyes glimmering, biting her lip and clutching his big dumb vampire collar, he knew that tonight she wanted him to take the lead. The thought set his already pounding heart racing: the reality of her in his arms, wanting to play, their breathless banter that would lead them into the bedroom, the knowledge that it aroused her to think of him seducing her like some character in a holo.

“A trance, huh? That work on goddesses? Or, Jedi?”

Leia huffed a startled laugh.

“I’m no Jedi.”

The feel of her against him, the heat of her through her clothes, and the intensity of her gaze became too much for Han. He bowed his head to press his lips against the side of her neck, leaving a trail of soft kisses along her jaw and throat. He felt Leia tremble and felt a wave of powerful gratification and yearning wash over him. Han smiled softly against her skin, holding her closer, and nodding as he felt her fingers slide into his hair.

“Not denying the goddess part?” he smirked. No matter what she answered Han was determined to make her feel like one tonight, and her response was a low moan as he continued to kiss her neck, nuzzling and pecking softly.

“Spent all night thinking about this,” he admitted as she tilted her head for him. “Want you so bad.”

Gently he used his teeth on her, taking care not to bite too hard but hard enough that it might have left a mark. He held it for just a moment, and then used his tongue and lips on the same spot, sucking and soothing where he’d bitten. He didn’t know if she was thinking about vampires and trances and him having his way with her, but she whimpered and clutched him to her, breathed oh so dreamily that he thought maybe she was in a trance after all. For his part he figured that his having his way with her was also her having her way with him, given how perfectly their desires and need aligned. That she was getting her way if he had his way with her.

Suddenly Leia rose onto her toes and drew him to her mouth so forcefully that Han almost fell over. With a startled huff of breath he lifted her in his arms, thrumming as she kissed him as though drinking from him. He turned and pressed her back against the door, her legs around his waist, his hands gripping under her ass and strong thighs, and they both groaned with relief and desire.

Eventually, when their kisses were positively feverish, he wrenched away from the door and moved blindly through their apartment until they were falling together into bed, still grasping at one another, still kissing even as they fell.

It was Han who drew away first, and he felt his breath leave him as he looked down at her.

“Kriff,” he murmured, touching her hip. Stretched out before him on their bed, the shape of her body accentuated by her gown, Leia was impossibly beautiful to him. The low light from passing speeders that filtered through their bedroom windows shone on the iridescent fabric of her dress and on her silver painted glitter, limning the full curves of her breasts, the slopes of her ribs and abdomen, and her lush hips in blue and purple.

He must have looked speechless, for Leia’s smile was mischievous and knowing as she reached for the neck of her gown and pulled it down, freeing her arms and pushing the gleaming material down to her waist. The sight of her laid out before him, breasts bare and luminous in the dimness, chest rising and falling as rapidly as his own... Fuck. Then Leia ran her hands over herself, from her stomach up over her ribs and the rosy peaks of her breasts, and Han heard himself make a plaintive sound of want. Her hands came to rest on the pillow to either side of her head, palms up, fingers relaxed, and as every time they were together Han felt he had never wanted her so badly.

For a moment neither of them moved, both watching the other, gazes roaming hungrily. After imagining this all night, it was both enflaming and torturous to look down at her, the sight so sexy he felt himself aching, and her precious trust in him so obvious his heart throbbed.

“Han,” Leia breathed at last, and their inaction ended. Han frantically pulled her costume the rest of the way off, divested her of her panties and the crown while she tore at his shirt and yanked at his belt. Then Leia was sinking her teeth into his neck as he had done to her, Han’s groan fierce and needful as she nipped and kissed and sucked as he had before, her intent and passion obvious, possessive and unrestrained. Wild together in bed, marking one another with mouths and teeth, their loving was almost ferocious. Han laved at Leia’s breasts, her belly. She arched under him as he moved above her, her legs around his waist, then gasped and moaned on hands and knees, until finally she was moving in his lap, their arms around each other, hands both caressing and yet demanding, lips reverent and yet devouring at each other’s throats and shoulders and collarbones.

When they finally finished they remained entwined, Leia’s thighs on either side of him, her hips rocking the barest amount, nerves still jumping with the last currents of pleasure, and Han held her tight as she whimpered against his neck, his fingers in her damp hair, his body still within hers. Overcome, Han whispered desperately how he loved her, couldn’t believe her, wanted her still.

Her silver glitter was smudged all over him. Her mouth, the pale column of her neck, her breasts and swollen nipples were stained scarlet from his painted-on blood.

Drawing away to behold her sitting astride him, the color high in her cheeks, hearing her hum of satisfaction as he trailed his fingertips down her back, Han could only utter Sweetheart.

“Your vampire bride?” she mused shakily, tracing lines over the backs of his arms, over his chest.

Han nodded, drawing her closer to kiss her again.

“I like the sound of that,” he agreed, mouth at her neck once more.

Halloween night was over, the sun beginning to rise on a new day, as Han laid Leia down on their rumpled sheets once more—a vampire having his way with a human woman or a humble mortal worshipping a goddess, it didn’t matter to Han. He would do any of it, all of it, for as long as she wanted him to. As he bent to kiss the hot center of her body with the fleeting thought that she was sweeter than any Halloween candy and more intoxicating than any cauldron shot, it struck Han how truly Leia was the goddess she had dressed as. Not in any way that removed her from her own humanity. But she was a protector of the innocent and the righteous, and the demise and dread of evil. A force. And how he had been, truly, under her spell from the moment they’d met—lured, caught, following her, unbeknownst to him, all along. He would follow her anywhere, he knew: into a treacherous forest from some Alderaanian myth, into battle against ten thousand stormtroopers, into a hundred Death Stars.

Into a Halloween party.

Into the deep intimacy they now shared.

It was useless.

Leia shivered and came to terms with this grim truth. Useless. No matter how many socks she layered, no matter how close she dragged the standard-issue space heater, and no matter how she adjusted her thermal sleeping bag, it was useless. She could not get warm. And, similarly, no matter how many nerfs she counted and no matter how she tried to let herself drift off, she simply could not sleep when she was shivering as she was.

Leia groaned into the silence of her dark quarters. Over the weeks she’d become accustomed to the inescapable cold: she could tolerate seeing her breath puff in front of her in the command center. She could tolerate the biting sting on her face when she stood near to the blast doors. She could even tolerate needing to eat her meals with her gloves on.

What she could not tolerate, it seemed, was shivering on her cot night after night, feet like ice, teeth chattering. Stubbornly, Leia darted one arm out from within her meager cocoon and grabbed her heavy coat off the back of the chair near her head; she laid it over her sleep sack and scrambled to get her hand back inside, heat escaping from within her sealed thermal nest.

Better, she thought. Much better. She burrowed deeper down into her bedding, waiting to warm up.

But she didn’t.

Drawing her knees up to her chest and tucking her hands under her armpits, Leia scowled to herself. She couldn’t do this again—she couldn’t go through another day exhausted and cold again. She felt as though she’d taken giant steps back: after Yavin she’d been perpetually exhausted and agitated, unable to sleep at night due to her nightmares. It seemed that just when they’d finally stopped—when she’d finally started feeling—better, feeling—not like herself, not her old self, no, she would never be her old self again, but..... she’d started feeling like a person again. A person, and not a droid, not a machine on autopilot with one function, one goal programmed: defeat the Empire, defeat the Empire, defeat the Empire..... Just when that angry, broken, hollow Leia had left, she found herself caught in the cycle again. Sleepless nights spent shivering, long shifts spent suppressing yawns, irritable, freezing—why did no one else seem to be quite so freezing?

Curled up in a ball and covered in goosebumps, she craned her head to check her chrono. It was almost midnight, and she was running out of sleeping time. Soon enough her alarm would blare and she’d have to emerge from her sleep sack-jacket shelter into the icy pre-dawn of Hoth. She’d have to freeze her naked ass off in the sonic ‘fresher stall, then cross the drafty base to the mess hall for caf, which she’d sip with bleary dismay, resigned to the countless chilly hours stretching before her before she could crawl back onto her cot once more and try again to sleep.

Maybe if she put her snowsuit on over her night clothes... Was the space heater faulty? Surely no one else was suffering so on a nightly basis—it was torture, this cold, but damned if she would complain.

The chrono read 0017, and her nightly battle with herself began.

She could go to the Falcon. Oh, how wonderful it would be... the old freighter was warm, so warm. She could make herself a hot cup of tea in the warm galley, make use of the warm ‘fresher, climb into the warm crew bunk with no need for three pairs of socks or her heavy duty coat, and sleep.....

Except she couldn’t go to the Falcon, not for a hundred reasons. The first being that it wasn’t fair, was it? The rest of the rebels had no place to seek refuge if their beds were cold at night, and who was she to vote in favor of their relocation to Hoth, subject everyone to this icy hell, and then sneak off to sleep cozy and toasty on the Millennium Falcon while everyone else huddled against their crappy heaters? No, she would share the same fate as all other enlisted personnel, and shiver right along with them.

Oh, but she could take that thick, plush blanket from the main hold, abscond with it to the crew quarters, and fall asleep wrapped up in it, bundled up, breathing in its wonderful smell—

Like Han. It smells like Han. You want to fall asleep smelling Han? You want to fall asleep thinking about Han? Perhaps you don’t want to fall asleep in the crew quarters at all, but perhaps his cabin, perhaps his bunk—perhaps not wrapped in his blanket but wrapped in is arms, is that what you want? His heat, his smell, his touch—?

Leia squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head, desperate to silence the voice inside it, desperate to drive away the images it had evoked.

This was her problem. This was the worst part of Hoth. For every moment she spent hating the cold she spent twice as many longing for Han Solo, and like an untreated wound the wanting seemed only to grow worse and worse, festering, spreading, infecting. For months Leia had had countless reasons why she couldn’t pursue him: From a practical standpoint, she needed to devote all her time to the rebellion and could afford no distractions. From a moral standpoint, it was disrespectful and tasteless to get caught up in something so trivial and juvenile as a crush after what had happened to Alderaan, and from a personal standpoint, could she even have a romantic relationship despite all her baggage? Her grief, her guilt, her crippling fear of more loss, her fear of vulnerability, her trauma, her triggers? Selfish to impose that on anyone else—and Han wouldn’t want to go to bed with her anyway if he knew it meant going to bed with billions of dead Alderaanians. How could she be thinking of that, anyway, after what had happened? Shouldn’t she be consumed still by her need for revenge? Her despair? And Han was leaving, he wasn’t committed to her, he would hurt her, he—

He was still here. Two years later, here. Making her smile. Having her back. Treating her like a person, pushing her buttons, making her feel, making her heal, making her forget the insidious cold and—

And couldn’t she just go to the damn Millennium Falcon for the night?

Leia rolled flat onto her back, glaring at the dark ceiling. Her resolve was crumbling and she knew it. And not just with regard to his ship. Just as each night her she was more tempted to go sleep on the Falcon, so too was she more tempted to screw her list of reasons and give over to her feelings for Han.

She closed her eyes, imagining it. What would it be like? If she told him how she felt about him—confessed that she had feelings for him, wanted him... Would he answer in kind? Or would he let his actions speak for him? In her mind’s eye Leia pictured it, how his surprise would give way to relief, happiness, and then intention. Would his gaze sharpen, soften? Would he lift his big hands to cup her face, draw her to him, kiss her? Leia tried to imagine what it would be like, kissing him. He was so tall—his stature so strong, body capable and masculine—would he hoist her up closer, to claim her mouth with his? Would he kiss her softly, at first? Or deeply, aggressively, with all the pent-up desire they’d both been harboring for so, so long? She was sure, wasn’t she, that he’d been desiring her, too...

In her cold quarters Leia felt her face was hot, and that there was heat in her stomach and...

She swallowed. There was another way she could warm up and find some sleep tonight...

Leia felt suddenly, foolishly, wary. It wasn’t that she’d never touched herself before but she’d never done so with premeditated intentions beforehand to think of Han, had never been driven to it from thinking about him to begin with, and was it wrong? Dangerous? It seemed dangerous, to wade so deeply into the depths of her own desire...

Biting her lip, her heart pounding, she slid her hand down her body. Her fingers were cold at first, but it was like she was barely paying attention to her own touch. Instead, she was suddenly, desperately imagining how his lips would feel against her throat. How often had she looked at those lips, how they slanted with his smirk, lopsided when he grinned... The thought of them moving over her skin dissolved any inhibition she left; she could think of nothing but Han.

How would... how would it feel, if it were his fingers, not hers, gliding between her legs? Her entire body seemed to come online at the thought of him touching her there, like Han was some ON-switch she’d never before discovered. Breathless all of a sudden, Leia imagined herself in his bunk, how good he would smell—his skin—the sound of his voice—kissing him...

As Leia’s fingers continued to move over herself, she opened her eyes.

She saw him there, beside her, above her, watching. In the low light his eyes moved over her with such heat that Leia felt herself lit on fire. Naked before his gaze, touching herself while he watched, she was neither shy nor inhibited.

“Kriff,” he hissed, face awed, eyes darting to watch her hand before settling back on her face. “Kriff, Leia. Fuck.”

He lifted a hand to grasp her hip—it slid up her body, over her ribs, and Leia felt dizzy. His hand moved between her breasts, cupping one and then the other, his gaze rapt and intense. Leia was in some kind of trance, unable to do anything but continue, unable to feel anything but pleasure, unable to question what was happening.

With her free hand she drew him down to her and moaned into his kiss, exulting to finally know his mouth, to feel his tongue against hers.

“Leia,” Han moaned, voice low, needing. She felt that it both reflected and amplified her own desire and lust, and in response she could only whisper his name in return, no control over herself, drifting and swept along. Leia felt like a spectator rather than a participant as Han’s mouth found her neck, as she felt herself tilting her head for him, arching and biting her lip.

Like she was trapped in her body, observing with shivering wonderment what was happening to herself.

“Sweetheart,” he groaned between sucking kisses against her pulse point. “You’re killing me—Leia, hell, you’re killing me—“

Han’s kisses brushed along her collarbones and chest. She felt a huff of breath against her skin—wet from his mouth—as he drew back to look down at her, the sound of it like disbelief, like he couldn’t believe her or couldn’t believe how badly he wanted her, Leia didn’t know, but Han bent again, his sucking kiss at her breast now, and Leia arched in shocked response, the hot wet pull at her swollen flesh almost too much to bear.

She heard her own voice—she thought it was her voice, she had never heard herself sound like this before.

“Han!” she gasped, whimpering. “Mm, oh, Han—“

The movement of her hand between her thighs was futile, her fingers powerless against the rising want—not enough, not enough, not—

Han breathed Leia against her skin and reached for her hand, trailing his own down her arm to her wrist and lifting it urgently to his mouth. He pressed a kiss against her palm, his eyes dark gold, before hastily replacing her fingers with his.

Leia was almost stunned to hear the sound she made, shocked that he was touching her so intimately, shocked that she was allowing it—his fingers moving over her slick flesh so different from her own, enflaming, incredible. She found herself reaching for him, touching him everywhere she could reach, her hands moving seemingly of their own accord. Leia gripped his soft hair, clutched him against herself, ran her palms and fingertips over the smooth flesh she’d never before seen—his arms and shoulders and back so strong, so hot, so hard. Leia was lost in her haze of bliss, the scene otherworldly, incendiary.

Han pressed one finger inside her and she felt her mouth open in a soundless cry.

“Like this?” he asked gruffly against her lips, kissing her once more. “This what you imagined, Sweetheart?”

Leia felt herself nodding against him, felt herself spreading her legs wider, felt herself moving to meet his stroke between her legs. She heard herself continuing to moan against his mouth.

“Yes,” she whimpered. “Oh. Han. Yes.”

Han’s face looked almost pained, his expression so affected it was almost tortured.

“Hell,” he groaned. “Leia.”

Leia bit her lip and arched her back as Han crooked his finger inside her, her legs shaking.

“Can’t believe you—on that ice ball, I—Leia, d’you got any idea how bad I wanted you? Hell—“

These words he whispered by her ear and Leia ran her hands over the planes of his broad back again and again, nodding, stroking his hair, promising Yes, saying I know, yes, I— over and over. Trying to tell him, to show him, how she’d shared that burden of want, how she’d been as powerless as he against the force that had been drawing them together all that time....

Han eased a second finger in alongside the first and Leia felt her fingers in his hair clench and pull.

He seemed to hiss his agreement.

“Tell me what else you thought about.”

Demand or plea, Leia didn’t know or care, she couldn’t, she was held captive by this spell, by the unfamiliar thrill of his fingers moving inside her body, by the glory of his bare form pressed against her.

Before she could answer Han drew away once more, moving away from her. Leia watched with surreal anticipation as he laid down a few more kisses—on her nipples, above her naval, his tongue sweeping over the shape of one hipbone—

She should have been shocked as he lifted her thighs against his shoulders, as he withdrew his fingers from within her to grasp her hips with both hands. He met her eyes with a gaze so hot and hungry and reverent that she quaked.

“Did you think about this?” he asked fervently. For one second it seemed to Leia that he tried to grin, but his voice sounded shaky when he asked her, and any effort he made to smirk was soon forgotten in the face of his desire.

Leia heard herself answer.

“Did you?” she asked, holding his gaze. Seeing him look up at her from between her legs. “Did you imagine this?”

Han’s grip about her tightened.

“Yes,” he confessed. He suddenly laughed against the crux of her body. “Kriff, don’t think there’s anything I didn’t imagine—“

His voice trailed off, saturated with lust, and then Leia clutched at his hair as he resumed those hot kisses once more. Again she heard herself encouraging and entreating him, trembling to feel him loving her with his mouth and tongue.

Han swore softly—she could just barely hear him—and let go of one hip to touch her again as he had before—

“Oh, stop!” Leia gasped, overwhelmed. “Han—please. I want you—“

He lifted his head again to look at her, stopping at once.

“Wanna make you come like this,” he groaned, turning to press a kiss to her inner thigh. “Want—“

But Leia was shaking her head, squeezing his hand.

“Get up here,” she begged. “Please. I need—oh—Han—“

Han spent one more moment teasing her with his tender ministrations before rising up onto his hands and knees.

It occurred to Leia that the sight of him was more magnificent than anything she could have imagined. His bare body above her, moving over her—lean, muscular, golden... Hazily she attempted to memorize every detail: how his flat abdomen flexed, how his broad chest narrowed to his lean waist and hips, the sight of his strong thighs, his—

Han seemed intent on kissing as many parts of her as he could reach on his way to her mouth. She watched, stricken and panting, as he kissed her belly, between her breasts, the bends of her inner elbows. He pressed three soft kisses over an angry scar on her upper arm that Leia had never seen before.

Against her shoulder he whispered a series of Sweethearts that moved Leia almost to tears.

She found herself parting her legs once more and urging him to settle between them. Han cupped her face between his hands, kissing her gently, and Leia sighed, drunk, exhilarated. Oh, how she had wanted this. She wanted this, she wanted, she—

She heard herself say “I imagined this too,” with an intimate sigh. What was she trying to do? Tease him? Please him? Or simply share the vulnerable truth?

Han rested his forehead against hers.

She thought he would say “me too.”

Instead he said “I love you.”

Impossibly, Leia closed her eyes against his neck, murmuring “I know, I know,” and waiting for him to finally shift to press inside her, needing to feel him there, knowing that only he could have made her feel this way, would ever make her feel this way, in both her body and her heart, she needed to feel them joined together, to answer the ache there, oh, she loved him, she—

Leia opened her eyes, startled, sweating, and confused. Somewhere nearby there was an alarm going off.

She sat bolt upright, fumbling for her chrono. 0515. She was on Hoth, she was in her quarters, fully dressed, she—

Trembling, Leia looked down at her cot. It had seemed so real—in Han’s bunk, the two of them, it had been so vivid. Her body still thrummed with the pleasure, still felt the phantom heat of his body, she...

She was so, so screwed. Leia groaned, shaking her head, pressing her fingertips against her temples.

A sex dream. A sex dream? Oh, and he would be at the briefing this morning! With disgust, Leia kicked away her sleeping bag and stood to shuffle towards the ‘fresher. She’d really made a mess of things this time. Just how exactly would she manage to look him in the eye after having touched herself while fantasizing about him? After having drifted into the most carnal, the most erotic dream—

Leia stripped out of her sweaty thermals and cycled on the sonic ‘fresher, for once not freezing in the early morning but flushed, hot.

Never again, Leia scolded herself. I am never doing that again, I can never let it happen again. Last night was a momentary lapse in sanity that will not be repeated if for no other reason than to keep from going insane—

The sonics deactivated and Leia stepped out of the stall. Now that her heart rate was calming, she was beginning to feel cold again.

So much for nothing, Leia thought irritably, running her hands over her arms in an attempt to stimulate some heat with the friction.

Then Leia frowned, and looked down at her arm. With one fingertip she traced a line where in her dream that scar had been, the one that Dream Han had kissed so carefully...

Leia shook herself and began to dress. Dreams rarely made sense, after all. It was time to face reality. And the reality was that she needed to stop thinking about going to bed with Han and start thinking about her duties.

As she left her quarters for the morning and tread her daily path to the mess hall, Leia actively decided not to reflect upon the most alluring part of the entire dream:

“I love you.”

“I know.”

I am not in love with Han, she told herself fiercely as she made her way through the icy passages. She repeated it over and over again like a kind of desperate mantra, but as she got to the mess hall and saw him sitting at their usual table, she deflated. She couldn’t even succeed in convincing herself.

Leia frowned outside the Falcon. As she’d left her quarters and headed across the chilly base, she’d been convinced this was unremarkable and harmless. After all, Han had told her that she could come by in the mornings for caf—in fact, he’d been telling her so for months. There was no deeper meaning to be found in her decision to take him up on the offer at last, she insisted, and surely Han wouldn’t think there was. No, it was nothing more complicated than the fact that she hadn’t slept well, and his ship was on her way to her early morning meeting, and while usually she made it a point to drink the mess hall caf like all other enlisted personnel, well, it was so early and in-between shifts anyway—was it so terrible if just once she wanted to be warm while she drank her caf? Ramshackle and temperamental though the Falcon was, the envirosystem was certainly functioning, and Leia had to admit that the ship was like heaven on Hoth. Not that Leia would ever openly acknowledge that it was the one place she found she wasn’t shivering, but it was true: Han kept the main hold so warm it was practically cozy.

Leia let out a breath that curled as a cloud before her in the icy morning. There was no one around in the hangar bay, but the Falcon’s ramp was down and light spilled from within the ship. She glanced down at her chrono—0400, and her stomach gave an odd kind of twist. Abruptly she felt like an utter fool, loitering outside Han’s living space practically in the middle of the night.

Organa, what is the matter with you?

She lifted a gloved hand to her forehead and closed her eyes in exasperation and embarrassment. Her logical argument now seemed transparent and weak. Certainly while she was brushing her teeth and tugging on her boots and convincing herself it was completely casual to go get caf on the Falcon, she was conveniently not addressing the frankly erotic dream she’d had about him the night before.

Waking on her cot in the darkness, panting and afflicted, tormented by images of Han tangled up with her in all kinds of sexual positions, had become practically a nightly occurrence since they’d set up base on Hoth. It was almost laughable—certainly ironic—that she kept waking up hot and sweaty on a planet so cold their speeders wouldn’t work. There in the frigid air, even, she felt a burst of heat, remembering how in her dream Han had smirked up at her from between her legs, gaze intense and tender, before bowing his head to resume pleasuring her with his tongue—

Horrified, Leia whirled away from the ramp as though the ship’s occupants could somehow see what she was thinking. Fool! She was a fool. Leia Organa, princess and senator, ambassador and diplomat, commander and spy, was stunned and red-faced to be confronted with the abrupt truth of it. After all these months of denying it, Leia was skulking around Han Solo’s ship at a positively indecent hour, like a teenager with a crush, because she wanted him, was hoping to see him—was entertaining, even as she stood there—all kinds of fantasies that featured a sleepy and rumpled Han Solo emerging from his cabin, pleasantly surprised to find her there, voice perhaps rough with sleep, joining her in the galley for an early caf and some tender banter laden with innuendo and feelings...

And that was how Leia knew that she wasn’t simply lusting after Han. Because surely if that were all it was, her secret hopefulness for an early morning encounter wouldn’t include that rare, treasured look he got on his face, the one that was equal parts roguish and bashful, like the other day when he’d slipped on that patch of ice in front of her and had skidded and slipped, arms flailing, before finally landing flat on his back on the ground. And Leia, through a gasp of laughter, had spoken without thinking, so charmed and enchanted by his baffled expression, as though his own feet had betrayed him, as though he couldn’t believe it of himself—cocky and sturdy Corellian balance and swagger—to fall on his ass in the hangar. She’d held out a hand to help him up, any semblance of pretense or station forgotten, and had said, ‘Knew you’d fall for me eventually, Captain Credits.’

Han had blinked in surprise, his eyes flashing to hers as though in disbelief, and then he’d grinned, lopsided and big but somehow meaningful even as he’d grasped her outstretched hand and waggled his eyebrows at her.

‘Just trying to follow protocol, Princess,’ he’d smirked, his eyes light and laughing. ‘Ain’t us peasants supposed to lie all prostrate at your royal feet?’

Now Leia winced at the memory. She wondered if it was obvious to everyone, what was developing between the two of them. Wondered if he would take her appearance on his ship at 0400 to mean what it did—that Leia Organa wanted him badly, in more ways than one.

So what if he knows how you feel? asked a voice in her head. Leia had found herself arguing with this voice often—it was the same voice that, last week, had tried to convince her after a particularly graphic dream to stay in her cot just a little bit longer, to turn off her alarm and close her eyes, pick up where her dream had left off, and slide her hand down into her standard-issue thermal leggings—

Shaking her head and smoothing her braids, Leia turned back to the ship. For once the voice in her head was in complete agreement with her own common sense. So what if Han knew how she felt? Wasn’t... wasn’t she all but certain, now, that he felt the same? And wasn’t it becoming increasingly obvious, after all their partner missions and moves from base to base, that Han wasn’t leaving anymore? In fact, as he voluntarily took on more and more responsibility with the rebellion, no longer simply smuggling supplies but running patrols, scouting perimeters, conferring with General Rieekan, and quite frankly acting alongside her as an active rebel spy, well...

She couldn’t kid herself. She was beginning to think he was planning to enlist. And if he was sticking around, if he was enlisting, if he harbored the same earnest feelings for her that she was nurturing for him...

What reason did she have to keep denying this, other than her own fear?

And Princess Leia was tired of being a prisoner of fear.

Taking a deep breath, she marched up the ramp.

She didn’t realize until she strode into the main hold and found it empty that she’d half-expected to find Han sitting at the holochess table waiting for her. Instead, though all the lights seemed to be on, neither Han nor Chewie were anywhere to be found. She paused and took off her gloves, relishing the warmth of the ship. With the ramp down and the main hold illuminated, she’d assumed Han was awake, but perhaps he was indeed still sleeping. It was three hours before the morning shift, after all... perhaps it would be best to collect her caf and go...

Reluctant all over again, Leia crept quickly and silently through the hold and headed for the galley, but rounding the bend in the corridor, she froze.

She had found Han.

She had found much more of Han than she had bargained for.

There, in the open doorway of the forward hold, across from the ship’s tiny galley, Han Solo hung from a bar with his back to her. He was naked from the waist up, his skin golden and taut over the muscles that were working beneath, contracting and bunching as he lifted his big, long body again and again, bringing his chin to the bar. He was wearing a pair of faded bloodstripes that rode low around his waist. No holster rig. No shoes or socks. Leia wasn’t aware that she was staring, incapable of any thought or observation outside of Han, absorbing and cataloguing the details of his body in a kind of stunned and ravenous daze.

The steady grip of his big, strong hands around the bar. The forearms she had so often admired. Biceps that seemed even more impressive like this, unobscured by shirt sleeves or jackets, bulging as they moved his entire frame up and down. These attached to the broad shoulders she found so attractive. Back masculine, muscular, lean. Waist and hips narrow, and accentuated by the fit of his well-worn trousers his ass firm and—

Suddenly Han let go of the bar and dropped to the deck, and Leia, startled, jumped and made a mortifying gasping sound, and Han whirled around at once.

There was a single instant of shocked eye contact, Han gaping at her in surprise, Leia pinned on the spot by the sudden, embarrassing realization that it was 0400 and she appeared by all accounts to have crept aboard to spy on Han’s shirtless exercise.

“Worship?” he blinked at last, visibly relaxing after the scare she’d given him. He reached up to prop one arm up on the bar he’d been hanging from, his posture open and nonchalant, gaze upon her curious and discerning. What Leia was discerning was his bare chest and abdomen. She opened her mouth to say something—anything. Did Han know—goddess, he—it wasn’t fair, to look like this. Always Leia had found him attractive. From the start she’d thought him handsome, thought his body perfectly proportioned. But his bare torso like this? The sight of his flesh, his physique? Lanky but muscular, lean and strong, a masculinity so overt that she was blushing, and in an instant she recalled her dream, only the details became powerfully vivid in light of this new intel, heightened and improved by the new knowledge of how Han’s bare body looked in rhythmic motion. She imagined him lifting his head from between her legs and holding himself above her, how he might look rocking over her, those bulging biceps, the broad shoulders, flat abdomen and lean hips—

“Leia?”

Never had Leia been more grateful for her diplomatic training. Never in her entire life.

“I’m sorry,” she said with such composure that she surprised even herself, although she could feel her face burning. “I’m supposed to meet General Rieekan at 0430 and since you said I could... ‘come over anytime to defrost,’ I—I thought I’d...”

Han’s eyebrows were raised with such incredulity that his forehead was rumpled, and as she trailed off his mouth slanted into a pronounced and gleeful smirk.

“You sure took that literally, Sweetheart.”

Leia flushed.

“The ramp was down and the lights were on, so I knew you were up, otherwise I—if I’m imposing I can go to the mess hall—“

Han let his hand fall from the bar and stood up straight, shaking his head. He looked suddenly earnest.

“No, I. I meant it literally. C’mon, gave you the ramp code, didn’t I?”

It was Leia’s turn to raise her eyebrows.

“I thought you gave me the ramp code for ‘emergencies’ in case we were on a mission and you were ‘captured by some kriffing Imp.’”

Han shrugged one bare shoulder.

“Yeah well, freezing your ass off on this ice ball ‘s a good enough emergency if you ask me, Highness. Can’t fight a war if you’re in the medcenter with frostbite.”

Leia smiled softly, still acutely aware of his state of undress. She was looking with determination at his face, but she knew Han had already caught her staring at his body.

She cleared her throat.

“I was just hoping to have some caf...”

Han nodded.

“Already got some going—not the instant shit though. Brewing a pot, if, uh. If you got time to wait.”

Leia nodded and they both looked at each other for a moment, and to her astonishment Han looked as shy as she suddenly felt. Not because of his nakedness—somehow she knew she could have come upon him entirely nude and he wouldn’t have been embarrassed—but something about the implications of her arrival and his invitation to stay for caf seemed to have struck him as significant.

xxx

When Han joined her in the galley, he was wearing a thin undershirt, and Leia was as relieved as she was disappointed. They leaned facing each other against the galley’s compact cooktop, waiting for the caf to finish and breathing in the aroma while it brewed. Leia looked down at her hands, feeling uncharacteristically awkward.

“Do you wake up this early every morning to... exercise?” she asked in an attempt to make conversation. She regretted it instantly. For some reason drawing attention to the fact that she’d watched him doing chin-ups felt like she was drawing attention to the powerful reaction she’d had to the sight.

Han took down two thermoses from one of the storage compartments overhead and reached for the pot of caf as the dispenser beeped and turned off.

“Sometimes,” he said gruffly. “Not usually this early.”

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Han cut his eyes to her, and Leia wasn’t sure what happened next. Sometimes she seemed to have powerful moments of intuition, but this seemed to transcend even that. Perhaps it was her imagination, ignited by the look on his face, which was at once furtive and candid, and shaded with longing, but suddenly her dream came again to her mind, their bodies writhing together, except this time they were in his bunk instead of on her standard issue cot, and this time—though she knew it was impossible—she could have sworn it was no product of her own mind.

“Something like that,” Han breathed.

As she watched he poured a measure of caf into each thermos, and before she could say a word he took creamer—real cream, not powdered—from within the cooling unit and added some to her thermos.

Just the way she liked it.

He lifted the thermos to pass to her, and when she took it from him their fingers brushed. She watched Han’s gaze focus on their hands brushing before lifting to settle on her face, his eyes greener than usual in the light of the galley.

Leia wondered if he could tell she was tempted to set the caf aside, forgotten, to run her hands up under that thin white shirt, to find out what the skin felt like there—if he was as hard and smooth and warm as he’d appeared when he’d done those merciless chin-ups.

Han turned to face the cooktop and rested both hands on it, grimacing, and then reaching to run a hand through his ruffled hair, clearly still in a disarray from the night. He lifted his thermos to his lips and took a long drink that Leia found so arousing that she was almost angry. Could she think of nothing else? The chin-ups surely were sexy, but drinking caf? Why did the sight of his lips pursing on the thermos and his throat working as he swallowed have such an effect on her?

And when had the galley gotten this small? So small they could barely fit inside together without touching.

Leia lifted her caf to take a drink, too, just for something to do, but as the steaming beverage touched her tongue she jerked away in dismay.

“Kriff!” she gasped, the scalding liquid burning her tongue. She’d become so accustomed to the lukewarm instant variety in the mess hall that she’d forgotten how hot Han’s caf could be. Some caf splashed out of her thermos and out onto her hand, and she cursed again. Leia inwardly cringed. So far she’d awoken from a sex dream about Han Solo, she had talked herself into entering his ship at 0400 and had fretted about outside for almost five minutes, she had been caught checking Han out while he exercised shirtless, she’d stood tongue-tied and nervous before him while the caf brewed, had fantasized right in front of him about having sex with him, and had spilled her drink and burned herself to boot. This was not how Leia had imagined the morning would go, and in fact she couldn’t remember ever having been so clumsy—literally or conversationally—in her life.

“I must be more tired than I thought,” she explained weakly as she reached for one of the rags Han and Chewie used to dry dishes. Han grabbed it first, though, and instead of handing it to her he took her hand in his and toweled off the caf.

“You burn yourself?” he asked, brow creasing in concern as he inspected her hand.

“Oh—no. Well—yes. My tongue, not. Not my hand. I shouldn’t have taken a sip so soon, it was hot—“

“Should’ve warned you,” Han murmured, appearing genuinely contrite. “Knew it was hot—know how sensitive your mouth is.”

They both froze and looked at each other, his hand still holding hers. While it was true that Han often joked about how long she spent blowing on her soup and tea and caf before deeming it an acceptable ingestible temperature, after a morning of starkly carnal thoughts, his words seemed explicitly provocative. He seemed to think so too, for he was staring at her, at her eyes and her lips in turn, and as before she’d imagined running her hands up under his shirt, now she imagined moving to kiss him, inviting him to discover just how sensitive her mouth might be, and other parts of her, too.

Leia moved forward as though in a trance. Han was suddenly like a ship and she was caught in a tractor beam, drawn towards him, and she didn’t fight it. He turned her hand in his so that their fingers were laced together, and just that sent a thrill through her, to feel her hand in his like that, his rougher, bigger palm against her own. He held their joint hands against his chest, against the soft fabric, and Leia actually bit her lip against her want as she leaned forward—forward—she actually went up onto her booted toes. Han’s other hand moved to rest against the side of her neck, fingers brushing her jaw, thumb against her cheek, and it was no longer true that she didn’t shiver on the Falcon, for a shiver ran all the way down her back then. Han was looking at her like he was starving, like he wanted to kiss her more than anything in the galaxy—if he had said so just then she would have believed him at once, the way he was looking at her. His gaze was sharp upon her, reading her, becoming less wary and more hopeful by the second, and it was the hope that most affected her, the way it seemed to open some secret shutters that had previously left some crucial part of him obscured. Leia had forgotten all about her dream now, for it paled in all ways in comparison to the real life man before her, jaw yet unshaven, scruffy bed hair a mess in a way that seemed to invite her to mess it up some more, undershirt taut along his shoulder and chest—over the beautiful shape of him that she had seen so gorgeously bare, and eyes that looked at her like—hot and yearning, looking at her like—

Leia tilted her face up. Han drew her towards him. She closed her eyes, breathless, ready—

Her comm blared from within her pocket, and they both jumped as though they’d been caught red-handed. Han released her at once as she fumbled to silence the alarm—the schedule reminder she’d set the day before: Taun-Taun Meeting 0430–Five Minutes

“It’s 0425,” Leia gasped.

Han looked winded. Leia felt winded. Dazed, she reached for her thermos of caf.

“I—I need to go,” she said. Apologetic. Why was she apologetic? She wasn’t rejecting him—did he think she was rejecting him? Was that something Han would feel? She suddenly realized—yes, she could do that to Han. She could make Han feel that—rejection—and she knew it instinctively, and not just because she knew he held that power over her too but because of that hopefulness he’d revealed—“I’m sorry, I—the meeting—“

“Don’t worry about it,” Han muttered, gruffer than ever before—was he blushing? she certainly was—he stepped aside to let her pass, and Leia was crestfallen, her face flaming. Was this it? Their chance ruined? What if he never tried to kiss her again? What if this whole awkward encounter put the whole thing to bed for him? Would he tease her now, about their almost-kiss? Would they pretend they hadn’t almost kissed? So long she’d awaited it and now she had to rush off to meet Carlist Rieekan to see the stupid taun-tauns that would be used in place of speeders?! Not knowing what else to do, she moved to hurry past Han.

Leia slipped with such stereotypical calamity that she could have been on a holocartoon, her boot slipping in what she instantly realized—even as she fell—must have been a puddle of caf that she’d spilled on the deck when she’d sloshed it over her hand.

But Leia didn’t wind up on her ass, because Han caught her, his hands clamping her arms like a vice. They looked at each other in mutual surprise, and somehow this was the last straw for Leia. The final embarrassment after a full morning of embarrassment.

It wasn’t princess-like but Leia was a woman, not a title, and so when she finally spoke she said exactly what she felt.

“Fuck this morning.”

That’s when it happened, just as she’d imagined. Han’s face crinkled into delight, and he grinned. The big lopsided one like when he’d slipped on the ice, the one that she imagined sometimes when she was falling asleep.

He laughed—not a moment of it at her expense—and helped her stand back up.

“Dunno,” he grinned, releasing her. “Been a pretty good morning for me. We should do it again. Tomorrow.”

Leia smiled back at him, shy but pleased, and smirking herself, too, with him, at him, at herself. She nodded.

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow!

With that she moved—more carefully now—to step by him and into the ring corridor.

It wasn’t until she was hurrying down the ramp, caf in tow and certainly late for her meeting, that Han called after her.

“Hey, Sweetheart!”

She glanced back to see him at the top of the ramp, in the bloodstripes and undershirt and bare feet still despite the chill that surely reached him where he stood, his expression practically ecstatic. He leaned against the hatch, as he had so many times before, and spoke.

“Who’s falling for who, now?”

So what if he knows how you feel?

Leia lifted her thermos at him in salute.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Captain.”

“That’s Captain Credits to you, Princess.”

When Leia met Rieekan in front of the enclosure that now held several dozen of the oddest creatures she’d ever seen, she was ten minutes late, she had caf on her snowsuit, and the taun-tauns smelled like nerf manure, but Leia smiled into her thermos.