#pre-esb

The Han and Leia 'fresher scene from Razor's Edge (one of my fave Legends books)

Vader ponders his son, who is out cold from a stun blast. The past haunts them both.

Luke has had enough of Han and Leia's rift post-Ord Mantell and concocts a way to force them to talk to each other. Pre-ESB, Hoth.

“Think that should do it,” Han said, adjusting the cloth he’d turned into an impromptu sling on Leia’s arm. “Need a painkiller?”

Leia considered that. It was mostly just a dull ache at the moment, but that was possibly due to the adrenaline still running through her veins. But then again, when was it not? “Let me try it without,” she said.

Han smiled, a small, weary version of his usual grin. “Trying to stay sharp?” he asked.

“Something like that,” she agreed.

It really had been a hell of a long day. After encountering half a platoon of Imperial troopers, they’d finally found a safe haven—well, as safe as they could make it, in any case. They just needed to hole up here for the night before meeting back up with Chewie at the rendezvous tomorrow.

Han was watching her, and his grin curled up a little more as he shook his head. “If you’re half as good with a blaster in your left hand as your right—“

“At least half as good,” Leia informed him, pleased at the compliment. “I’ve practiced.”

Han chuckled. “Of course you have.”

“This,” Leia said, indicating her wounded arm, “was bound to happen at some time. I was taught to be prepared.”

“Yeah,” Han agreed, and he was watching her again, like he was studying her a little. It made her think about the times she’d caught herself watching him, wondering about him. Thinking about what might be going through his head.

She tried not to think too hard about why she cared to know what was in his head. Or whether he cared about what was in hers.

“All right,” he said, drawing himself up a bit. “I’m gonna do one more check and turn in. You good here? You gonna get some sleep?”

“I’ll lie down,” Leia said. There was no use pretending she could make herself go to sleep, but she could give him that.

He seemed to think of something, and then looked a bit tentative, which was odd. “You, ah, need an—extra hand or anything?”

Oh. Right. Leia looked down and quickly surveyed her outfit. She didn’t really have anything to change into, and as uncomfortable as it could be to sleep in her bra, she sure as hell was not asking Han to help her with that.

“The boots,” she said, glad to identify something he could do. “Could you—“

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said, bending down to untie them for her and then sliding each one off her foot.

He took one foot in his hands and looked for a moment like he was going to kiss it or something. Just as she started to ask what in nine hells he thought he was doing, he looked up at her with the most mischievous version of his trademark grin. “At your service, Your Worship,” he said, placing her foot back on the floor with a flourish.

Leia laughed. “Go to bed, flyboy.”

As she lay there in the dark, Leia realized she should have asked for help with one more thing. Her hair was still in the tight braids she’d put up this morning, and now they were pulling on her scalp, giving her a headache.

She’d slept in plenty of uncomfortable positions and situations before, so she tried to ignore it for a while. But while the dull ache of her arm had faded into the background, the throbbing in her head was only getting worse.

Her brain was contributing to the headache by reverting to its familiar habit of rehashing the day the moment she closed her eyes.  The chase, the ambush, the lucky shot one of those bucketheads had managed—If only I’d dodged a little more. But no, no. They’d already beaten some pretty incredible odds, and they’d escaped with the mission intact and some minor scrapes and a bum arm between the two of them. Not bad for a day’s work, as Han would say.

Shavit. These damned braids were going to keep her up all night. Maybe if I just take a few of the pins out, loosen them up a bit, she thought, sitting up. She could manage that one-handed.

She carefully removed several of the pins and used her left hand to try to work a little slack into the strands pulling at her scalp. Better, definitely better.

She lay back down, closed her eyes again, tried to concentrate on the sound of her breathing, the way her meditation instructor had always guided her.

Breathe in, and out. In, and out. Just take the pain, and feel it leave your body. Breathe in, and out.

Ow.

In, and out. In, and out. Deep breaths.

Holy kriffing shit my head hurts.

In, and out. Come on Organa, you’re tougher than this. In, and—

I am going to rip these Goddess-damned braids out of my kriffing head.

Leia sat up. Her failures at meditation notwithstanding, she was going to have to take care of this if she was going to get a wink of sleep tonight. She’d just remove the braids and do a loose sleeping braid. It would be slow one-handed, but she could do it.

She set to work, and breathed a sigh of relief as the tension in her head began to dissipate. She combed her fingers through the loose strands, then spent a moment strategizing how to braid it without moving her right arm. Maybe she could flip her hair to the front and hold one section at a time, then flip it back over when she was done. Or just twist it this way and then use her fingers to keep the sections separate.

Okay, she had a plan. She’d just take this first section and bring it over, and then—

“Aaaah!” she cried out as pain shot up her wounded arm. Apparently despite her brain’s careful strategy, her muscle memory had prompted her to attempt to reach up with her bad arm to braid as usual.

Before she could think, Han had half-dashed, half-stumbled into the room, hand on his blaster. She must have been louder than she thought.

“Leia?” he asked, clearly alarmed. “You all right?”

Now Leia felt even more stupid. “Yes, I was just trying to rebraid my hair and I forgot about my arm and…” She trailed off. “What?”

His initial alarm gone, Han was looking at her with interest. It was like the studied look from earlier, but he was clearly surprised at something.

Oh, yes. Her hair was down.

She’d given up being particular about a lot of things after joining the Rebellion full-time, and she’d never been wedded, ha, to the idea that the only person who should see her with her hair down should be her spouse. But she still felt a little naked, to have him see her like this.

She wondered whether she would feel like this if it were Chewie seeing her instead. Or Luke. Or Wedge.

“It’s nice,” Han said. “Your hair.”

“Thanks.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. This is not a big deal. This is a necessity. And Han was her friend. She’d just trusted him with her life; she could trust him with this.

Her eyes opened. “Could you, ah, help me, please? With braiding it again?”

“Uh, sure,” he said, and did he actually look nervous about this? What the hell did he have to be nervous about? Was she making it weird? Maybe—

“You do know how, right?” she asked.

That got a little bit of a chuckle from him as he approached her, from deep in his chest. “Yeah, I know how to braid.” Leia decided not to ask where.

“Something loose, to sleep in. Then in the morning, if you could—“

“Yeah,” he said, touching her hair so carefully, so slowly as he began to gather it into sections. “Ain’t gonna be to your royal standard, but I can do it.“

She felt Han begin to lay one section on top of the first, his fingers gentle as he worked. It seemed so slow and so fast at once. And it was so quiet in the room.

He reached for the elastic Leia had left on the table beside her, wrapped it around the base of the finished braid.

“There,” he said, his hand lingering on her shoulder. It was gathering electricity. Charged.

“Thanks,” she said.

Here’s an oldie but goodie. If you haven’t yet read this, I highly recommend.

Y'all may laugh at me for this. Heck, I’M laughing at me! Because I’m a complete dork and I can’t stop myself, here goes nothing…

Princess Leia is good at sports involving water in its various forms. With so much mountainous terrain, activities like the gffa equivalent of skiing would have been popular during the cold season. Skating too, for that matter, as there were plenty of frozen lakes. As a child, she was a graceful skater but much preferred the team spirit and excitement of pond hockey! Her aunts didn’t exactly approve of that particular interest, of course. Bail, however, would cover for her occasional absence at dinner, allowing her a bit of ice time. He knew that being active would help her manage stress and study more efficiently. Wise man.

One would think that these activities would ease Leia’s adjustment to life on Hoth. This is true, to some extent, on the warm days anyway, and when she has time or some sort of excuse to be outside. Who gives her those excuses? Han does, when he sees that she is completely overworked and stressed out. (I think someone could write a fun fic here!)

Luke has no idea what to do with large amounts of water, frozen or liquid. It kind of weirds him out at first, but he finds that he likes it. Rogue Squadron has killer snowball fights, and Leia surreptitiously teaches him to ski, using Alliance equipment. 

At one point, during a period of military inaction, Wes decides that enough is enough and convinces Rogue Squadron to host the “Echo Base Downhill” on Hoth Mountain. Winner gets to choose what they want from the unknown goods in the Falcon’s hold. Leia secretly hopes she’s the champion because she suspects that Han’s hoarding her favorite beverage, hot chocolate. (He’s got that indeed, as well as something to spike it with!) Last place gets a ridiculous sweater made by Wedge’s grandmother. Luke secretly wants the sweater. Desert boy is cold.