Tash'Tay Drops
Part 1
Their love was still new, but newer still was their sharing of a room.
He was sure that Leia's request of a cabin with a double bunk had quickly circulated around the Command ship, by the looks he had caught on his way to their official residence tonight. Once upon a time, he would have bragged to death about it. Last night though, when the Princess and he had walked with their arms around each other's waist – well, his waist and her shoulders, really - from the cafeteria level to their brand new shared quarters, he had barely noticed if they had crossed paths with someone.
Last night, ten seconds after they had closed the hatch, belts and pins and clothes were flying all over the place and later there had only been time to drop asleep from exhaustion. In fact, that had happened the last three nights, at least.
Today he had been deterred by the armament inventory Dodonna had been nagging him about, but it was at last finished. His boots pounded rhythmically on the metal deck as he approached the hatch at the end of the corridor. His room.
Their room.
The concept was still so new he was having difficulties to wrap his mind around it. The Falcon had been his home for over ten years and before, he had never really had a place he could call that way. And he suddenly felt torn, because he had realized that 'home' was now the place where Leia was. The old bucket of bolts was still his kingdom, and he could always share it with her, but it would never be the same.
There was a new addition by the door, next to the opening pad. The little programmable screen had two lines of text on it. "H.R.H. Leia Organa", one of them said. The other was even more disturbing: "Gr. Han Solo", it read. Sweet Corellian stars.
In spite of it all, a lopsided grin spread through his face as he pressed the pad.
"Sweetheart, I'm home," he announced.
"I'm here," her voice called from the bedroom. Well, not really a bedroom, but more like a separated space cloistered from the entrance by the fresher module.
"Really," he observed innocently, undoing his blaster belt and hanging it on the racket by the hatch. "And what are you exactly doing there, Princess?" His jacket landed over the only chair.
"What do you suppose I'm doing here on our bed, General?" She asked sultrily.
His eyebrows shot up and other parts of his anatomy did as well, and he marveled that she could do that to him with just a few words. But he decided to play the game for a few more seconds. "Well, I don't know," he said while stepping into the fresher and folding his shirt's sleeves up to wash his hands. "But I can imagine a lot..."
"Then why don't you come out and find out?" Slim arms reached around his torso to place a hairbrush on the shelf over the sink.
"Hey," Han greeted, turning around and capturing her in his embrace.
"Hey," Leia mimicked throatily, stretching on her toes to kiss him.
He flexed his knees to level themselves a little, but after a while he decided that the edge of the basin sinking in his kidneys was not that comfortable. So he simply lifted her up and after two steps, collapsed with her on the bunk. He proceeded then to kiss her with all he had got, which was quite a bit.
Nevertheless he found himself quickly with his back on the mattress, half straddled by Leia who suddenly went very still, inhaling deeply as she lowered her face to his chest.
Her hair was all soft and sparkly ringlets, free at last from the tight coils that had bounded them through the day. The collar of her shirt was open, just one button too many, as if she had started to undress and then changed her mind. Her eyes were closed, her face almost transfixed by a soft absent smile as her fingers played with and then opened his shirt. Again, she breathed deeply. Something half forgotten tugged at the back of his mind, but it was totally erased when she opened her big dark eyes to look at him blushing, slightly embarrassed.
"You think it's nice to con me into bed like this?" He asked smugly.
Leia Organa bit her bottom lip and shrugged. "Well, you were the one who claimed to be nice, General, not me..."
He was sinking slowly through warm, happy, contented and relaxed waters when Leia asked something he could not quite catch.
"Uh?"
"Have you eaten?" She repeated.
One hazel eye opened enough to peek at her. "Haven't I eaten enough?" He asked innocently.
Against all odds, the naked woman in his bed reddened violently. "That's not what I meant..."
From the pillow up splayed a cheeky half smile. "Gotcha!"
"What!" She screeched indignant, while sneaking a quick hand under the covers.
"No, no, no, no tickling, you know what happened last time..." He menaced waving his finger and taking advantage of his longer arms.
Leia started a squeaking retreat, dragging out all the bedclothes in her haste and knocking out half the objects on the only bed table.
He landed on her, trapping the struggling Princess with the sheets. "Shhh, they're gonna think I'm abusing of you or something..."
A less than royal snort left the bulk and then a heartfelt laugh. That went on, and on, and on. Han Solo felt for Leia's face and uncovered it. "Are you laughing at me?" He asked to the woman trapped under him, which resulted in a renewed explosion of laughter.
"You look funny up there..!"
"Oh, yeah?" He leaned down to whisper in her ear. "You went all motherly on me..."
"I did not!"
"You asked me if I was hungry... Now I got TWO mothers, you an' Chewie!"
"I'll better not be your mother, Solo..."
"OK, ok, you're so right," he conceded. "Wifely? You went all wifely on me."
Her face went suddenly serious. "Maybe," she sighed, turning her face from him. "Maybe."
"Hey," he said softly, leaning on his side to follow her. "I love it," he brushed his lips to hers. "I love you."
"'Love you too, nerfherder," she agreed, opening herself to him.
"Now," he continued after the long kiss, "can we get up this floor and back in bed? My butt's freezing..."
"We cannot let that happen, can we Han?"
She was doing it again, for kriff sake. He could not win even one mock fight. He used to do it, when they were not together. Anyway, who wants to win, he asked rhetorically.
"Let's get this stuff up the floor and us back where we belong, Sweetheart," he said releasing her.
He set himself to redo the bed while Princess Leia lifted the things that littered the carpet.
"I had thirty five pins here, now I can find only thirty one..." She complained. "Didn't any get snagged to the coverlet? Wait, here they are..." She placed the last pins in the tin can and closed it with tender care, putting it away then in a drawer.
"Wait, wait, wait... What have you there?" Han, who had all ready gotten in bed, asked.
"Nothing..."
He scooted closer to her side of the bed, opened the drawer and took out the rounded tin can. There was a bunch of flowers in vivid colors carved on the lid, big letters spelling Tash'Tay Drops and smaller ones boasting Over 500 standard years in Coruscant.
"Give me that..." She demanded, trying to snatch it out of his hands. He moved it out of her reach.
"It's the same?"
The Princess nodded.
"You kept it..."
She nodded again.
"And the one from Ord Mantell?"
She shook her head. "I had to pack the strictly necessary when we left Hoth and at the time..." She grimaced remembering how angry she had been at him at the time.
He smiled tenderly, brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek. Those were painful memories for both of them. "How did this one get into your sack?"
She lifted her eyes to him and answered honestly. "I didn't do the packing."
He kissed her brow and then steered his attention back to the box. Opening it, he revealed a bunch of pins for her hair and a very distinctive smell reached his nose.
"It still smells like tay," he noted. Again, something tugged at the back of his mind but before he could focus on it, the voice of the Princess distracted him.
"Yes."
"I think I have something to add here..." He said leaving the warm of their bed to reach their shared closet. From between the few sets Leia possessed, he extracted his latest spacer's vest, the one that did 'clash' – in Leia's words – with his brand new Alliance uniform. He slipped something out of one of the smallest pockets. "I think these belong here," Han said, dropping two pins into the still opened can.
"Those are mine," she realized. The design was one done exclusively for her back in her days as a Senator in Coruscant. She still owned a few, but she had to replace most of them over the years with ordinary ones. "Where did you find them?"
"The Falcon... After Yavin..." He seemed very interested in the coverlet's design. "I was gonna to give them back to you but I kept forgetting it..."
Was that a blush in Han cheeks? Han never blushed, Leia realized. "After Yavin?" She managed to ask. "But that was... Oh..."
"Let's get in bed, I'm tired." He sentenced.
After a few moments, they were comfortably set to fall asleep. "Lights off," he ordered the computer.
There were silent for a few minutes and then the Princess talked softly. "I love you," she said.
"I know," he whispered back, almost asleep.