Leia Organa had never been fond of mornings. Those in her orbit had, on occasion, presumed she was a morning person, but just because she'd never run late and wasn't unusually unpleasant early in the day did not mean she enjoyed waking up. It was only her routine, finely honed over years of trial and error, that allowed her to function normally in the morning. And throughout her years traveling aboard The Millennium Falcon, she'd developed a routine on board the freighter same as she had anyplace else.
But today she hadn't been able to follow it. And she felt a little lost.
Her routine aboard the Falcon: wake up, pull on a few layers, brush teeth, wash face, drink caf—was contingent on access to the 'fresher as soon as she woke. But the 'fresher was through the ship's main bunk room; that meant her access was contingent on Han and Chewie being up and visible before she was. When she got out of bed on the first morning of (what she understood would be) a very long trip to see Han's friend Lando, Chewie was in the lounge working at the engineering station. But Han was still in bed.
Leia wasn't sure what to do. That had never happened before. Han was always up before she was. Always. His still being in bed was honestly a little bit confounding.
She did what she could to bide her time— she even tried going back to be— but she wasn't able to settle. Her body wanted to be awake. It was late in the morning and she was ready to go about her day. But she had a routine! And she couldn't manage to function outside it.
She needed to brush her teeth. All other uses for the 'fresher aside, Leia couldn't stand the feeling of being up and about with un-brushed teeth for another minute. She'd just have to deal with the fact Han was asleep.
She could be quiet.
She'd tiptoe into the 'fresher, quietly get her teeth brushed, and sneak back out without disturbing Han. If she could sneak in and out of an Imperial intelligence installation, she could get in and out of the blasted 'fresher!
Walking softly across the deck plates in her stocking feet, Leia slipped through the open door to the darkened bunkroom. Han was sound asleep, curled on his side under a pair of blankets with his head sunk into a flimsy pillow—he'd clearly let her have the nicer one. She slid across the floor and into the fresher, carefully pulling the door closed as she turned on the tap to let the water warm up.
Leia took her time with the necessary ablutions, opting for stealth over speed. She supposed she should be thankful she'd made a habit of keeping a toothbrush, a tube of moisturizer, a bottle of antiperspirant, and a little satchel of cosmetics aboard the Falcon for years now. If she'd had to evacuate so unexpectedly without her necessities, she wasn't sure what she'd have done. It had been hard enough to go an extra hour without her toothbrush—the idea of weeks-to-months was too much to bear.
Turning off the tap and blotting her face dry, Leia slid the door open and moved to tiptoe out of the 'fresher.
"You woke me up," "Han groaned, reaching out his hand to swat at the light control panel. It took him two tries to get the lights on, and even then only the glowstrips activated; one more thing for them to work on fixing during this interminable voyage.
"I was just brushing my teeth," she declared. "I've been awake for over an hour, I was waiting for you to get up so I could come back here, but it was taking too long and I couldn't wait another minute. I really needed to brush my teeth."
"Well, Force forbid my need to get a little shuteye gets in the way of your royal grooming."
"Do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked. It wasn't like she'd awakened particularly early. It was quite late in the morning. He scarcely had room to complain when the ship only had the one 'fresher and it was long past the normal time for him to be up and about.
"No," Han grumbled. "I've got nowhere to be, nothin' on the agenda, no one to tell me what I oughta be doin'. So I thought I'd get to work makin' up for all the sleep I've missed on account of hangin' around your rebellion all these years." Han scowled at Leia as he ripped the blankets off himself and sat up. "But I'm awake now—since your highness had other ideas." He hopped out of the bunk, flinging his blanket at Leia as he brushed past her and into the 'fresher. He pulled the door to and she heard the water running.
But the thing she was most aware of was the blanket in her hand.
It was warm.
Like… unnaturally warm. She wondered for a moment if the blanket was of the self-heating, camping variety, but a quick inspection told her it was just ordinary vellux. She turned her head toward the closed door of the 'fresher before stepping forward and pressing her palm against the leather upholstery of Han's bunk.
That was warm, too—as warm as the blanket.
Dressed only in a wear-worn pair of Han's cut-off lounge pants, a thin undershirt of his he'd loaned her for sleeping, and the thick socks she'd kept aboard the Falcon for years, Leia had been chilly since she'd gotten out from under her own blankets. She was used to hurrying through her morning routine and getting dressed in sterner layers, but Han's unexpected lie-in had put a hitch in her plan, and she'd been dressed like this long enough to get cold.
She couldn't help herself.
Leia scrambled up in to Han's still-warm bunk and cocooned herself in the tangle of his warm blankets, nuzzling her head into his pillow. She'd just stay here for a minute, she reasoned; warm herself up a little and then bug out before Han was finished in the 'fresher. She figured she had at least five minutes while he tended to his morning routine.
She figured wrong. No sooner had she settled herself into the blissful warmth of Han's bunk than the door to the 'fresher slid back open.
Who takes less than two minutes in the refresher in the morning?
"Hey?" Han exclaimed, "what's goin' on?"
"I was cold," Leia admitted.
"That's my bunk!"
"I know it's your bunk, but you got out of it and I was cold, and it was warm. I thought you'd be in the 'fresher for longer—I didn't think you'd mind. Are you mad?"
"No, Leia," he said, "I'm not mad. I don't care if you use my bunk when I'm not in it—never have, but it's an awful strange thing to be about to get into my own bed only to find it's already occupied."
"But you just got up," she argued. "Who gets up and brushes their teeth and then gets back into bed?"
"You're lookin' at him, sweetheart," Han said then, narrowing his eyes at her before bounding forward and landing on the bunk beside her. Leia was so stunned at his having done this she loosened her grip on the blankets enough that he had an easy time grabbing them out of her hands. He slid under the covers beside her, his much-longer legs kicking the far ends out from under Leia's scrunched-up feet.
"Hey!" she protested, "What're you doing?"
"Getting back into my bunk."
"But I'm in it already," she said, "at least give me a chance to get up first." Leia made no move to get up. She was caught off guard by how much warmer the bunk had gotten now that he was in it, and she realized she was in no real hurry to leave.
"Why're you mad?" he asked, "it's my bunk. I can get it in if I want to."
"I'm not mad," she said, "but my feet are cold, and you moved the blankets."
"What do you think made the blankets warm in the first place?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her. Leia rolled her eyes as Han reached down beneath the covers and took hold of her feet. "Well there's your problem," he said, "you've got socks on."
"Because my feet are cold."
"Nah, nah, princess," Han countered, tugging at the toes of her socks, "you've got it all wrong. Socks are all fine and good if you're tryin' to keep your toes warm, but once you're already chilled, bare skin's the only way to go." He finished pulling off her socks and pressed the balls of her feet against his flannel-clad thighs, covering them with his hands. His body was warm, and the thin fabric of his trousers felt soft and comfortable beneath her toes.
"If it was anything other than my socks, I'd think you were putting me on," she said. Han chuckled, tilting his head forward on the pillow to lean his forehead against hers.
"You know somebody probably lost a bet just now," he joked.
"You think?" Leia asked.
"Sure," Han replied taking his hands from the tops of her feet and moving to take hold of her toes. "You know the gossip around base."
"Don't remind me."
"But think about it. Word gets back to the guys that I had you in my bunk and pulled off somethin' you were wearin…' and then they find out it was first thing in the morning, you were only up here 'cause you were cold, and all I took off you was your socks, and…."
"Yeah, I think they'd be pretty mad," she allowed, chuckling. "But you were right," she added, "my toes are warmer. Thank you."
"Got any other chilly princess parts?" he asked. Leia chuckled.
"So you'll have a better story for the guys when we get back to base?" she asked.
"Nothin' like that," he said back, letting go of her toes and moving to take her hands. "Just that I want you to be comfortable. Let me have a cup of caf and I'll see what I can do about the enviro controls. I bet I could bring it up a few degrees in that forward hold where you've got your bunk."
"Will that hurt our chances of getting where we're going?" she asked. "If it's going to be a drain on fuel or,"
"Nah, sweetheart," he interrupted, "nothin' like that. I promise I won't do anything that puts us in any danger. The whole reason I ran back into that base was to get you safely to your rendezvous point. We may be going the long way around, but I'm not about to do anything that might keep me from getting' you back to your people alive and in one piece."
"Okay," she agreed.
"And I'll keep you warm until we get there," he added. Leia nodded, curling up tighter and snaking her head into the crook of his neck.
"Will you get mad if I fall asleep?" she asked, stifling a yawn, amazed at how comfortable she felt lying beside Han in his bunk beneath his blankets. This was the warmest she'd been in months. Yesterday they'd agreed to stop pretending there wasn't chemistry between them and relax; Leia couldn't imagine being more relaxed than this. If he didn't mind her curling up beside him in his bunk, and he wasn't going to tease her for it later, then she was going to take full advantage.
"Not at all," he said, "remember, I was about to go back to sleep myself."
"Okay," she whispered drowsily, "as long as you're not mad."