#jhgraham

Yes

This is it.

Leia could feel it. Could sense it—not in the way she’d so recently discovered she could sense the trees and the birds and the man lying stretched out on his side next to her. It wasn’t the Force, but it was some kind of intuition, she supposed. Intuition or… instinct… She only knew that she could feel it between them at every moment now. In Han’s every glance she could see it smoldering in the hazel of his eyes. His every lingering touch seemed to set her on fire with it, and every word spoken between them vibrated with the certain energy of it. Every moment that she was with him she could feel the anticipation and the inevitability, a driving, unstoppable force—an unquestionable truth.

His broad, calloused hand traced over her ribs, his lips at her neck as they lay hidden away in his bunk at long last, and Leia trembled as she tried to piece together how this sudden, incredible thing had happened. The years of bickering and of denying, and the staunch loyalty to each other despite that contention, the longing she’d felt—and fought—for so long… all those fights about him leaving because she hadn’t been brave enough to admit why she’d wanted him to stay… The maddening back-and-forth they’d been dancing for so long… He’d seen right through her then, and now she felt like he could see right into her—into the heart of her—all the time.

Leia sighed as he laved at her neck, her arms wound tightly around his shoulders and her mind racing as she felt the heat of his breath on her skin and the gentle scrape of his teeth over her pulse point. Though they’d spent the past several nights together in his bunk, legs tangled and clinging to one another, this was the first time since their escape from Jabba’s palace that their comforting kisses and caresses had started verging on something more.  At first, in the wake of all that had happened, she’d been too stunned to really process any of it, and at night when Han held her, they’d simply slept. She’d been too raw, too shaken—every morning she woke up half-expecting to see the Second Death Star looming in the sky overhead and a swarm of stormtroopers hell-bent on tearing them apart—for it all to have been a dream—or to find herself brittle and alone on her lonely standard-issue cot, tears dried on her face and a searing, crippling emptiness in her chest and Han still gone… Or worst of all she knew, deep down in her heart, that every moment she’d spent curled up with him, clutching him to herself, she’d feared the ramifications would finally catch up to him and the reality of loving the daughter of Darth Vader would send him running…

None of that had happened, however, and instead with each passing day their victory felt less surreal and more absolute. Rather than wavering, Han’s commitment seemed fiercer and more stubbornly sure every time she looked at him—as though he could tell somehow that she’d dazedly worried it was all too good to be true and he was determined to prove that it wasn’t. Then as they fell into a kind of routine with each other and she slowly found her footing in a reality where the Emperor was dead and the rebels were victorious and Luke was her brother, where Darth Vader was her father and she had the Force and Han was whole and safe and a general and staying with them—with her—Leia could feel it.

Why was she so surprised? It wasn’t as though she doubted that he loved her. No, even before he’d said it, she’d known. She’d known on the long, slow trip to Bespin; maybe she’d known even before then, but she’d been afraid to believe it—told herself it couldn’t have been true. Han tugged her closer—pressed her against him—and the good, clean smell of him filled her every breath. No, it wasn’t his love that had so suddenly struck her and incited the nervous thrill in her stomach. It was the realization that they had come out the other side—that the wild, reckless love between them had withstood every blow the galaxy had delivered, that the threats that had surrounded them from all angles were all gone and they were there, together, and they loved each other still, loved each other somehow even more, the desperation giving way to solid, unquestionable surety... Leia knew that they had passed their test. They had survived the very worst, and now she could feel in her blood and in her bones and in the air she breathed that there was nothing left in the world that could touch them now; nothing left to endure that could compare to what they’d already outlasted, and in the wake of all that they’d fought through to keep each other was a resounding permanence that took her breath away. This was it.

Han seemed to be kissing her everywhere; her jaw and behind her ear and even her hair and her closed eyelids, and she could feel it in him as she could feel it in herself: the awe, the fierce possessiveness, the knowledge that they could and would have a future together, a life together. For so long Leia’s love for Han had been overshadowed by fear or hurting or grief, and once those things were gone there was only trust and safety and an intimacy so intense it left her trembling.

“Leia?”

Her eyes were burning, she realized. Her chest was aching and her lip was trembling as she looked up at him. When had lying tangled up, half-dressed in Han’s bunk with him—sharing his breath and feeling his heart—when had this overwhelming closeness become so comfortable and natural and right?

“Hey, you alright?” he asked. The gruff tenderness of his voice only served to make her chest even tighter, to grow the exhilarated heat blooming inside her. She nodded, lifting shaking fingers to touch his face and disheveled hair.

“I love you,” she whispered. She wanted him closer; she suddenly felt that any space at all between them was far too much, and there was a fire in her entire body as she pressed as close to him as possible, as she wound her legs around his and curled her arms behind his neck and pressed her face against his skin. Mine, she thought fiercely, burning and shaking and wanting and, goddess, how she loved him.

Han’s voice in her ear was almost pleading as he groaned and tightened his hold on her.

“Leia,” he mumbled against her neck as she ran her hand along his back. The sound was both affected and insistent; he said her name over and over, his lips lighting over her shoulder and her throat.

“I love you,” he vowed, drawing back to meet her gaze once more. The gold in his eyes had never been more apparent. “Leia,” he said, low and reverent, “I love you.”

Her response was to kiss him deeply to convey what was in her heart, because for the first time in her life words felt useless and cumbersome, and she couldn’t have articulated this if she tried. The weeks chugging sublight to Bespin had been punctuated by conflicted longing, but now Leia didn’t have a single wall—not a single brick left standing around her tender heart to keep her from taking it further, not now that she’d been vulnerable with Han in every other conceivable way. Han loved her, she marveled, as she feverishly touched him and kissed him and arched beneath him. He loved her more than he loved his ship, he loved her more than his own pride, he loved her so much that he’d been prepared to step aside so that she could be happy with Luke—Luke!—and he loved her so much that the most hideous revelation she’d ever made had only brought him closer, made him hold her closer. The knowledge of his commitment and devotion and how they matched her own was freeing and safe and shockingly unprecedented.

Leia couldn’t get enough of his smooth skin. She kissed down his bare shoulders and stroked his sides and chest and abdomen and hips. Yes, Leia could sense it, but now she thought that maybe it was the Force. She could sense that they belonged with each other and to each other, and she wanted that so badly—wanted Han so badly. This was right, and she knew it.

Han kissed her lips again—gentle and searching but also fervent and deep. Leia loved kissing him, loved the feel of his lips and the sweep of his tongue, the taste of him and the warmth of his body and his breath.

His hands were all over her. She wore nothing but his shirt and her standard-issue skivvies, and his shirt was bunched up around her navel as he caressed every centim of bare skin. His fingertips skated along her arms, his palms smoothed over her ribs; he gripped her waist and her thighs and reached for her shins… Leia’s eyes drifted shut as she reveled in his touch. All those long months lying awake at night, tormented by the probability that she would never hear his voice again, never know his kiss again, never get the ending she so badly wanted; and now he was here, solid and real and touching her, loving her with every press of his lips and every brush of his hands. Were there sparks catching on her skin? Was he setting her on fire on the outside, like she was already blazing on the inside?

Leia wrapped her legs around his waist, desperate to tug his body closer. The tortured sound that rumbled up from Han’s chest raised every hair on Leia’s body. His grip tightened on her hip then, fingers flexing helplessly, a ragged ‘Sweetheart’ following that sounded like a prayer against her ear, his lips right there, his breath sending a shiver all the way down her back.

She could tell as she nudged him off of her that he immediately thought he’d pushed her too far, but the apology died on his lips as she sat up and, her heart hammering, slipped his soft, worn shirt over her head and let it drop to the deck. Leia leaned back against the pillows. Vulnerable, she thought with a sudden pang of irrational worry, and not only because she was mostly naked now before him for the first time, but because she felt inside-out, like her thoughts and feelings and emotions were as bared as her body, like she was offering Han her naked soul for his perusal. I am, she thought fiercely. I already have. Her fingers curled into the sheets, and she looked back into his face.

Han was staring at her like he was stunned, or punch-drunk, or like he didn’t trust his own eyes or his own restraint or his own ability to read her, and Leia bit her lip. She wanted to reach for him, smile at him, draw him back down to her, but suddenly she couldn’t move. It was maybe only a heartbeat at most, but it felt like forever that they were still, eyes locked, Leia’s breathing shallow and quick and a chill rising on her skin despite the incredible heat she felt in her entire body.

She watched Han’s eyes leave hers, watched him look down the length of her bare form for the span of several breaths before he glanced back up at her face, and it wasn’t until she watched him try and fail to speak that she was unfrozen. In the same moment that he reached for her she drew him close, and everything else melted away as they held each other, his arms curling beneath her to wrap around her back, hers locked behind his neck, the heat of their bare skin touching torso to torso, heart to heart. He knew her, better than anyone, knew her mind and her heart, and why she’d pulled the brakes on the way to Bespin; but the look in his eyes told her that he knew she wouldn’t pull the brakes again.

They held each other like they would never let go. Her feet slid against his calves, his fingers in her hair as they pressed as close as they could, lips meeting and breaking apart so that they could kiss and nuzzle every part of each other they could reach.

“I love you,” Leia whispered again. “Han, I love you.”

Han drew away, breathing heavily, and rested his forehead against hers.

“Leia,” he breathed. “Sweetheart, are you sure?” He drew back further still to cup her face in one hand. His thumb rubbed gently across her cheekbone, and she thought she might burst into tears from loving him so much and from knowing—from feeling—with such utter certainty that he loved her in return.

Eyes burning even more, she smiled and pressed impossibly closer to him, threading her fingers through the soft hair at the nape of his neck, stroking her thumbs along the curve of his jaw.  

Anticipation and inevitability. A driving, unstoppable force—an unquestionable truth.

Their foreheads resting together again, awash in a harmony and trust so sweet that her throat was tight, there was no doubt in her mind as she answered. She wanted him, all of him, now and always, and she wanted him to have all of her, too: her body, her vulnerability, her trust and her love. She was certain.