A/N: I've never written anything for Star Wars before, but after immersing my self in Rouge One and Jyn x Cassian pain hell, I realized I keenly love pairings with 'they found home in each other'. And I had not seen a fic with that theme for these two, so, overwhelmed by feelings, I decided to write it.
Written listening: Cafe Tabuca by Eres (thanks to a lovely Jyn x Cassian writer)
Warning: Ignores everything post original trilogy.
Leia Organa has a home; great halls that glitter with her laughter, hands that spin her through the air and later guide through the first dances of politics, meadows more vivid than any holorecording can capture.
Her home is land that she would die for.
Until it does, for her.
Han Solo doesn't need a home. He's never had one, and he got by just fine.
Millenium Falcon provides him everything he needs; chance to survive, place to sleep and to mend wounds (physical ones, at least - strong drink can do the rest). Over the years, he and Chewbacca have made it theirs, a familiar back and forth struggle with engine's tricks and repairs where each screw is familiar.
And when he's jumping into Hyperspace, just seconds ahead of some danger, an angry thrill humming in his heart, it's almost like he belongs.
It is enough.
Until it suddenly isn't.
She is a different kind of flame, refined into a dagger that cuts precisely and deeply. She is longing, so tangible he can taste the salt of uncried tears when she thinks no one is around. She is uncharted part of Galaxy, dangerous and wondrous. (He always saw only the danger, not the beauty of wilderness before - but she marks a lot of firsts.) And the day seems empty when he has not been given a chance to mark another star down on the map he is making of her.
Part of her must have died with Alderaan, she thinks. There is hollow in her, with black and charred edges that spread as her anger grows. It will consume her, Leia knows, but it will have to wait until everything is over. When no one else can lose home like she has.
But with time, a new ache blooms in her heart, the one that perhaps saplings suffer when the heady rush of Spring races them to grow faster than they can bear. It is keenest when she is around Luke and Han, a rare smile lured out by their banter and the warmth resonates her fire in softer ways.
She is set to ignore it, knows it will hurt too much if she does not. After all, he is not going to stay (not for her, nor Rebellion and Leia doesn't know what prickles more), he says that again and again, with spite that is keenly familiar.
It is unknown, uneasy feeling, making him doubt, making him stay. Fear dances its cold fingers on the edges of his mind, growing stronger each time he sees her put up another layer of ice. One of these days, she will snuff herself out, and then -
So, he argues. Provokes. Hurts. All of it is mirrored right back at him. Except for that glimpse to assure him that she, too, could find a home with him.
It is ridiculous notion, as much as all that Force nonsense. She is a princess, born to charm among shining pillars (she does it anywhere, no dress could make her more of a captivating fire than she is in frozen depths of Hoth's base), instead of chasing next adventure on a bucket of bolts.
Yet, he starts the cycle each day a new.
She does the only thing she knows - encases the coals in ice coffin. But he keeps finding ways to place warm hands on it, not afraid of frostbite she tries to give him again and again.
He asks her what she is afraid of and reflecting the question has to suffice, because how do you tell someone that you fear the house aching to be built in her heart cannot become home without him? How do you admit to someone his lips light the half-built hearth in its skeleton?
But most importantly, Leia realizes then he doesn't simply see through her disguises and walls, reveling in the vulnerability he uncovers there, he merely sees his doubts and longings reflected in her like a mirror. And perhaps that is the key to the possibility she has been denying so long.
She glows like sun beyond the windowpane, gilding the endless cloud fields. He wants to hold her, as if in that way he could grasp her light, put it in a pocket. To protect it. And to never share with anyone undeserving.
But smoothing lips over her creased brow to calm the uneasy flickering of her shine will also do. And Han realizes then that he has stopped running - running from that hollowness creeping in his spine - it's been replaced with sense of being where he must be.
And even if her worries come true, he will stay. He has fought for less, so he sure as hell will fight for her - his home. Their home.
The Galaxy crashes in as soon as she dares to lay down first bricks on the foundations. It is expected, but shakes her nonetheless. And when he is lowered in carbonite, his last words vibrate through the halls in her heart with finality.
But princess Leia Organa has never known how to give up and back down, even when she has had to pay the highest price for her stubbornness. And though nothing can give her back her old home, now that she has found this new and keenly different one, she will fight the Emperor himself with bare hands if needed to protect it. Him.