Originally posted on Tumblr for Scoundress Saturday, with "Leather and Lace" by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley as the inspiration.

Stay with Me, Stay

I have to find a way to stay.

It wasn't the first time he'd had this thought; it had rustled through the back of Han's mind a thousand times over the last three years. At first it had been an unformed sort of pull, an instinct: stick around for a bit. Seeing as how his instincts had generally served him pretty well up until that point, he had. The Rebellion had needed good contractors, especially ones who knew how to get supplies from under the Empire's nose, who knew Imperial procedures well enough to get around them, and he could get steady work with them. That's what he'd told Chewie, steady work.

And as they'd taken on more of that steady work, there'd been more reasons to stay. But Han knew that getting too comfortable was a bad idea in their line of work, which is why he'd regularly turned down what he'd referred to as Leia's sales pitch. "Sorry, Your Worship," he'd said more than once when she'd tried to convince him to enlist. "Still a free agent, and I like it that way."

Chewie'd heard him say that and had scoffed: Free agent, my ass. Fortunately, Leia's Shryiiwook wasn't quite as good then as it was now.

A lock of hair had fallen over her right eye. Han gently smoothed it away, taking care not to wake her. He'd comforted her through a nightmare a bit ago; before tonight, she hadn't had one in weeks. Not since the first week of this trip, before they'd started sharing a bunk.

Normally she didn't like to be touched after a nightmare, but tonight she'd kept touching him, as if she were trying to convince herself he was real. "'M here," he'd assured her, holding her gently. "'M not going anywhere." Those words must have been some kind of magic, because soon after she finally relaxed and went back to sleep.

Han, on the other hand, was wide awake.

You want to stay because of the way you feel about her, Chewie had accused him, back on Hoth. Actually, it had been less of an accusation, and more of a confirmation, now that Han thought about it. And hell if it wasn't the Gods' honest truth. I love her.

If there was one thing to be thankful for, in this whole blasted Hoth evacuation, Imperial pursuit, broken hyperdrive mess, it was that they'd had time for him to finally tell her that.

And saying it hadn't been like he'd ever pictured, or feared. He'd always thought it would be that last confession, something he'd blurt out as their ship went down in a hail of Imperial fire, or a desperate plea he'd be unable to hold back as he headed out the door forever.

But no, Gods no. The first time had been in a quiet moment, when the feeling had just bubbled up so much he'd had to put it to words: "Min larel, Leia. I love you." And then after that, it had come out in a thousand different tones, like a song he couldn't help singing every time it got into his head: I love you, I love you, I love you….

Though she hadn't yet said it herself in words, he could feel her singing the song back to him in everything she did. Her other words, her looks, her laugh—Gods, he loved that laugh—her kiss, her touch… He knew that she loved him, as crazy as that sounded even to him. He didn't need to hear her say it anymore.

But sometimes he still wanted to. Even now, he resisted the impulse to wake her, to see her deep brown eyes on him again, to ask her: Could you ever love a man like me?

He'd always known it would be this way, somehow. That if she'd let him in, he'd never be able to leave.

I wish I could say the words.

It made Leia feel so weak, sometimes, that she couldn't. That one phrase—words that had been singing in her since well before that kiss in the circuitry bay, words that floated to the tip of her tongue every night—could break her.

Words were Leia's thing. They were what she did. And she wielded them like no other. She wore them into battle, along with her Alliance-issue boots and her red lipstick. She used them to comfort her people, connect with her friends. She gave speeches, briefed troops, bargained for resources, negotiated with allies.

Even as a prisoner on the Death Star, her words had never failed her. Precise and perfect, a sniper's shot of an insult for Tarkin and Vader even as they discussed her death sentence. They'd thought her a fragile little thing, ready to break after hours of torture. I'm stronger than you know, she'd thought.

Prove it, the words in her head had mocked her, her world exploding behind her eyelids every night.

And she had. She had proven it. Until Han.

She'd had plenty of words for Han, before. Insufferable. Infuriating. Stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder. But two phrases had turned out to be sticking points:

I need you to stay.
and later,
I love you.

By some miracle of mechanical failure and luck and her own self-destructive tendencies, they'd been trapped together on this ship, crawling towards Bespin. By some other kind of miracle, she'd managed to say the first phrase, or some variation of it, and was delighted to learn that he'd needed her just as much.

"What were we waiting for?" she'd asked Han early on in this strange courtship.

"I have no idea," he'd responded, kissing her again.

And not long after, he'd said the words. Those words. He said them, and something told her This is real, and she did everything she could to say them back, short of actually uttering them. And they were happy, though she hardly dared to say that.

The nightmare had been different tonight. This one wasn't about exploding planets. Just a thick mist, a strange golden light, and the horror of Vader's mechanical breathing, as Han was wrenched from her arms and disappeared. She ran through a maze of corridors searching for him, meeting dead end after dead end, hearing his screaming from behind a door, the way she could sometimes hear herself in those Death Star dreams.

He's gone. He's gone. He's gone and I never told him.

Then she was back in their bunk on the Falcon, and he was gently shaking her awake, no longer screaming, no longer far away. She couldn't tell what was dream and what was reality for a moment, and she needed his face, his touch, his voice. She needed him.

"'M right here. 'M not going anywhere," he said, over and over, and she had never been more relieved in her life. His arms were around her, gently, and she pulled him closer and let his touch lull her back to sleep.

Somehow she knew she was dreaming again, but she had left the nightmare world this time. Now she was walking through the streets of a forgotten city, or the forgotten part of a city. The kind of place the Empire liked to pretend never existed, or only existed because of the depravity of its residents. You see what happens, when you let chaos take over, they'd sneered. Her well-meaning humanitarian colleagues from the Senate were often not much better, treating areas like the slums of Coronet City like some kind of poverty pornography, a spectacle of pity.

Coronet City, she thought. Where Han grew up.

She turned to find him leaning in a doorway, watching her. "Hey, Sweetheart," he said, smiling. "Found your mountains for you."

She followed him inside, and suddenly the air was cool and crisp, and a picnic was laid out on the grassy mountainside, the city of Aldera visible in the distance. Home.

Then she looked up, and Han was looking at her in the moonlight, the way he had on Ord Mantell, before everything had gone bad.

"Could you ever love a man like me?" he asked, the slums of Coronet City still behind him.

In her dreams, she drew his lips to hers, then found her words again. "I could. I do."