A/N: What happened with that bounty hunter on Ord Mantell that changed his mind, but mostly what happened after that. Timeline is obviously pre-ESB. This is my first SW fic (or any fic) in a really long time. Read and review!
"Everything is more beautiful
because we're doomed.
You will never be lovelier than you are now.
We will never be here again." ― Homer, The Iliad
ord mantell, the bar:
There is a moment before all hell breaks lose when he thinks he might really regret leaving. She is leaning against the bar across the room with her hair swept off her neck and her eyes glowing as she turns around to smile at where he is kicked back in an alcove booth, congratulating himself on a mission well done.
But it is more than a moment because she has time to sit down and rest her chin on her hand and stare at him with those endless eyes before the bar explodes around her. He can feel the question on her lips even though she hasn't said anything, and he has time to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He has time to think maybe he will stay after all.
And then the (slow motion) moment is up because that masked man on the side of the room has been looking at them far too long and he has been able to recognize the motion of someone going for a gun before he could say his ABCs. So the moment ends with blaster fire and screams and dear gods was that a bomb until the bar is in ruins and he's standing in the middle of a mess he created.
There are moments (too many) when he sees nothing but ruin around him. He can hear himself yell her name, but his ears are ringing and had someone really set off a bomb just to try to kill him? He would have been flattered if he weren't so damn scared.
And then. And then.
There's an instant where her arms are vice tight around his neck, where she's murmuring his name in a voice so heavy with relief that if it was in water it would have sunk. There is an instant where his arms are wrapped around her ribs so tight he would have sworn they could break (but she had always seemed to be made out of something stronger than just bones...maybe steel or stardust or a combination of the two) and his hands are tangled in her hair and she is weightless. There is an instant of shared desperation as they hold each other and then she is limp in his arms, slumped against his chest as her knees buckle and he is realizing that the warmth on his fingers is blood. There is an instant, before he processes that she's breathing easily, where he feels like everything is ending.
He staggers for a moment as he secures an arm under her knees and pulls her to his chest. She's tiny and light and there is redness tinted the collar of her white dress and it's his fault.
It's his fault.
/
She's fine. Really she is. And she wishes he would stop asking her every fifteen seconds, and find her some damn pain killers.
"I'm fine. I'm fine," she repeats for the three thousandth time since she woke up twenty minutes ago.
"I didn't even say anything," he says as he turns to rummage through the cabinets in the medbay.
"Well, you were looking at me like you wanted to ask me if I was fine. Again. And I am, so stop worrying about it," she hisses the last words as she feels another dagger of pain shoot up her shoulder. "Find anything yet?"
He shakes his head. "We seem to be out."
"Of course we are."
He turns and folds his arms. "Sweetheart, we may have to do this the old fashioned way."
"I don't like the sound of that at all," she protests as he walks out of the medbay only to return minutes later with a bottle of whiskey.
"Oh, no. Not happening. I'm not letting you get me drunk."
"Would you prefer to be in pain?"
Leia narrows her eyes and shrugs. Ignoring the stab of heat from the wound in her shoulder.
He tries a different approach. "Would you prefer I ask you if you're alright every time you wince like that?"
She's ripped the bottle from his hands before he can even finish the question.
/
She's discovered a great many things while drunk on the Millennium Falcon.
First, that the medbay is very dark and very cold and very much like her cell on the Death Star at night. Second, that her memory is shockingly more clear when under the influence of alcohol and her dreams are therefore far more vivid. Third, that the walk from the medbay to the captains quarters is surprisingly brief. And fourth, that she maybe hates herself a little bit for going to him for comfort.
She also learns that his quarters are incredibly dark and not entirely free of obstacles.
There is a solid thud. "Ow! Gods damn it."
"Leia?" His voice is bleary and, damn him, just the slightest bit amused.
"Sorry. You don't mind if I...stay in here do you?"
"'Course not."
"It's fucking freezing in the medbay," she murmurs in excuse as she slips in next to him.
/
Its quiet for a while, but he can tell she's not sleeping. It's not the first time they've fallen asleep in this bed together (not touching, always a polite distance) and he can tell by her breathing that she's still awake. He might as well say something.
"Leia?"
"Hmm?"
"You're not going to remember much of this in the morning, are you?"
"Depends," she slurs, reaching over the edge of the bed to grasp the neck of the bottle and hold it up. The amber liquid sloshes in the bottom. "How much would you remember if you'd had..." she squints at the bottle. "However much I've had?"
"Enough that I might be able to find my clothes in the morning but probably not where I'd parked my ship, but my tolerance is higher."
"Of course you assume you'd be without clothing," she groans.
He smirks. "How's your arm?"
"I don't feel anything," she murmurs. "Wasn't that the idea?"
"Yeah, well. You will in the morning, princess."
"I don't doubt it."
"But you aren't going to remember a damn thing."
"Good," she snorts. "This certainly isn't very royal of me."
"I guess," he rubs a hand over the back of his neck. "Aw, fuck it. Leia, can I tell you something?"
If she was surprised (pleasantly or otherwise) that he'd used her name, she didn't show it. "I suppose so."
"I was worried about you today."
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye and smirks. "That's all you had to say? I know that, laserbrain."
"I worry about you a lot." He's not sure why he's telling her this. If he wants her to understand the reason why he's leaving, why he has to leave, maybe he should tell her when she's sober. But this feels safer somehow.
"Yes, well. Don't."
He laughs. "I'm trying not to, your highness. Believe me I am."
"Well then," she places a hand on his arm and he can smell the whiskey on her breath. "Try harder."
"I'm sorry," he says quietly.
"Don't be. For what?"
"That bounty hunter was my fault. He could have killed you."
She's much closer to him now, half propped up on her good arm. "It wasn't your fault," she says gently and he looks away.
His next words come out a whisper. "Sometimes I think I'd die for you and it scares the shit out of me."
"Hmph," she slumps back onto the other side of the bed and seems to puzzle over this for a minute. "Well," she concludes, looking across the bed at him. "That can't be good."
"Yeah, I know."
"No, really. That's fucking terrible."
He barks a laugh. "Why's that?"
"Because," she breaths, her brown eyes reflective in the dim light. "We're doomed, flyboy. The both of us. We're doomed."
She turns away onto her side, cradling the bottle of whiskey, before he can ask her any questions. Her head is starting to ache.
Because we're doomed.
She supposes that might have been beautiful, even poetic. They did say dying stars burned the brightest. But she was a politician not a poet and she knew that stars were just bundles and of gas and heat and rock, certainly nothing to wax rhapsodic about.
Still, she dreams of Alderaan as it was and not as it had been. She dreams of a striking display of colors exploding against the darkness of deep space. She dreams of beauty in destruction and she wakes up in his arms.
She leaves before morning with her head pounding and sparks still dancing in her eyes.
fin.