Author's Note: This fic is dedicated to JainaDurron, my giftee for the 2017 Han/Leia Secret Santa Exchange! Set in our mutually-beloved Expanded Universe canon and written for Jaina's specific prompt for Recovery-era Han and Leia angst (and little cursing!), this fic deals with the final barrier to our favorite couple's reconciliation.
In case you are unfamiliar with the EU, Recovery is a novella that takes place near the middle of the New Jedi Order series of books. Two decades after the events of Return of the Jedi, Han and Leia are married with three teenage children: Jacen, Jaina and Anakin. The galaxy has been thrust into war with the Yuuzhan Vong, an invading force that has overwhelmed the New Republic. Chewbacca was killed saving the youngest Solo child and Han, grieving, pulled away from his family. He was reunited with Leia and his children on Duro, where Leia was captured and injured before being rescued by Jacen. Troy Denning's Recovery details how the two work to heal Leia's legs and their marriage after a year-long separation.
"Yours" takes place just after Recovery and asserts that Han Solo would never, ever be unfaithful to his wife, as one NJO author postulated. Happy Holidays, JainaDurron! I hope you enjoy!
Han Solo stood at the largest window of his family's penthouse, nose nearly touching the transparisteel, eyeing the angry storm as it blew through Imperial City. The tempest was quite the feat of engineering: no natural meteorology dictated Coruscant's weather. It was programmed by a diligent scientific community sequestered in one of the planet's orbital platforms. Nothing the clouds did was an accident but measured and scheduled for optimum efficiency.
Han marveled at the raging bluster of the storm and how it matched his mood. Dark and violent with torrential effect, the rain hit the window in a quick pit-pit-pat rhythm. Gales of wind tore through the thin spaces between towers, wrenching debris from patios and walkways. Lightning split the darkened sky, followed by deep rolls of thunder muted by the thickness of the transparisteel.
He ran a hand over his face and grimaced as his fingers caught on the two-day old stubble of his jaw. He hadn't felt like making the effort to shave when he awoke this morning. Defensive and angry, he'd felt like the effort was wasted.
Han dropped his chin to his chest, resting his forehead against the transparisteel. The chill against his skin felt good. Calming. The storm raged outside but there was some distance between its fury and his dull anger. His dumb, incoherent confusion. His guilt and shame.
He shook his head, annoyed with himself. He was fine. And, most importantly, she was fine. Leia, both the source and target of his dismal mood. A walking, talking accusation and the sweetest relief for that accusation at the same exact time. Always a contradiction in terms but vividly and wildly so for him after the pain and heartache of the last year.
Leia's recovery from the confrontation at Duro had been slow and steady. Miraculous, her medics had said. The ugly infected purple of Tsavong Lah's amphistaff wounds had faded into a normal blush pink, the vicious scars healing as the bacta treatments on Corellia and the subsequent therapy worked its magic. She could now walk without her support clamps, a recent improvement that had made Han's heart beat with more gusto than it had since before Chewbacca's death. She was stronger, brighter, more brilliant than ever before.
A miracle. His miracle.
But in the darkest, quietest moments of the night, once he applied bacta to the last of the infection on Leia's calves and helped her into bed, the awful images took hold of him in a terrible loop. He saw her unconscious, bleeding, in Jacen's arms. Half-dead. A broken bundle of the woman he loved. Not a fearful nightmare: a damn memory. And his head swam and his vision blurred and a weight sat on his chest that only eased when he turned his head to find her breathing deeply beside him, peaceful and whole.
Last night he woke three times in heartstopping horror, crawling out of his nightmares like he weighed a thousand pounds on a high-gravity planet, nauseous in his fear for her safety. He'd seen every terrible, hated image: Leia's shaved head, dark scarlet staining their son's arms. He felt the low, uneven thrumming of her heart beneath his ear as he strapped her into the Falcon's med bunk and the sting in his eyes as the extent of the damage done to her legs became clear. Her flayed skin, the deep welts and bright lacerations.
It had felt so real, like he'd been transported back in time. It'd taken him a few moments to realize that he'd been dreaming, that the images weren't real. Desperate, he'd reached for her, traced his fingertips down the smooth length of her arm, trying to imbue the reality of her safety into his racing heart.
He'd fallen into a fitful sleep and awoke to the sound of Leia's careful footfalls around their bedroom. He could smell the soft scent of her soap in the sheets of their bed, could see the indent of her head in the pillow beside him. But the poor sleep plagued him and the images that haunted him at night arose with him in the morning, stubborn and terrible. Anxiety limned the morning. It left him battered, frustrated and raging like the storm outside the window.
With a rough shake of his head, he stepped away from the transparisteel and glanced at the open living space of their apartment. Warm and familiar but without the barely-controlled chaos of the children, the space felt empty. Too big for just Leia and him. Devoid of the easy affection that had made this home.
He'd forgotten so damn much this past year.
Leia rustled around their kitchen; he could hear the slight hiccup in her step as she traversed the tile. Back and forth, syncopated but sure. He listened carefully, protective instincts flaring. She'd been clear that his hovering was not wanted, that she needed his usual intractability to heal in the same way she needed bacta. Just be normal, she'd said. Stop treating me like an invalid.
He'd tried. He'd made light of the situation, trying to reach some homeostatic normality. But one soft, persistent voice kept whispering in his ear: she wouldn't have been there at all if you hadn't left.
He ignored the voice.
Confident now that she didn't need his help getting her tea, Han ambled to the soft white conform couch, tumbling down into its cushions with a heavy sigh. He'd forgotten how low the thing was. How long had it been since he'd last sat here? Six months? Eight?
Guilt shot down his spine, heavy and dark: a twisting, angry thing. Oh, here was the source of the inner storm. Grim and seductive and self-immolating, it snuck into his bloodstream, penetrated every crevice of his body, head to foot. Hungry. Angry. Heavy.
This is your fault, it whispered. Yours.
"Did you want anything?" Leia asked from the kitchen, her voice calm and low. It cut through the guilt like a blade and he was grateful, so grateful.
"Nah," he said and watched his wife of almost twenty years walk into the room.
Leia was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his life. She'd roll her eyes at him if he told her that, and, damn it, that was part of the attraction. It always had been. Humble and confident, soft and tough, wickedly smart and ruthlessly capable, Leia Organa Solo was the real deal, the kind of woman that deserved the best the galaxy could offer her. Even now, hair short after the decontamination center on Duro, cheekbones too prominent and eyes careful and wary, she radiated control and fire like a sun.
God, he loved her.
Slow but steady, she walked to him, small, yellow mug cradled in both hands. Han pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes, trying for a playful tone. "You're moving awfully fast with hot tea in your hands, sweetheart."
She raised an eyebrow and took her left hand away from the mug with a flourish. "Does this make you nervous?"
He shrugged. "Depends. You gonna juggle lightsabers next?"
Leia made a point of watching him as she sat in a nearby chair, a droll, proud twist to her lips as she settled back. "I was going to wait until after dinner for that," she said, tipping the mug to her lips.
He was glad to see her newfound confidence in her legs. In the beginning, after she'd been stabilized on Corellia and his traitorous cousin had chased them into a hasty retreat, she'd settled into a bland apathy about her recovery, discontent and defeated. He'd been the one to insist she'd walk again. He'd been the one to take her sullen acquiescence and give her hope. In a startling reversal of their entire marriage, he'd been the harbinger of light, the incentive to work.
But time had uncovered Leia's irresistible drive. And now she was shuffling around with scalding tea in one hand and sitting unassisted in a low chair without the leg braces. He could see the healthy pink of her legs between her casual pants and her shoes.
See? he told himself, the storm's dark tendrils rolling back like a tide. She's fine.
"What's on the agenda?" he asked, needing to dampen the sudden urge to wrap her in his arms and not let go.
She eyed him over the rim of her mug. "I was going to make some calls, try and gather support for SELCORE. You don't have to hang around all day for me. I'll be fine."
"I know that," he said. "Maybe I just want to take it easy today."
She sipped her tea and seemed to appraise him, brilliant eyes searching him the way she searched potential allies. Are you friend or foe? they demanded. How much trust can I place in you?
A flicker of annoyance crept into his chest, pertinacious in its strength. She had every right to be suspicious. He knew he shouldn't take offense. But why the hell was she looking at him like that? He'd spent plenty of time at home with her alone before, self-entertaining while she worked. And he'd sat next to her during her bacta treatments, during her therapy, every moment of every day since Duro.
He knew he'd messed up. He knew that. What mattered was that he was here now. Now, when she needed him most.
"What's with the third degree?" he asked, bitter anger creeping into his tone.
Leia paused and set her tea on the low table in front of her. With a grimace, she leaned back and crossed her legs. "Han, you just offered to sit here all afternoon while I work. You have to admit that's not your usual preference."
Solid raps against his meager emotional defenses: rain hitting the transparisteel of their window. He felt like he was flying the Falcon over a hurricane, his ship gliding smoothly over a deep, angry roll of clouds. He could see the storm, see the damage it was about to do to the land beneath but he couldn't stop it. The unfairness of natural tragedy, the cold scientific ruthlessness of the Coruscant storm. He couldn't prevent the quick anger, the violent defensiveness. He was above it, witnessing it, condemning it even as he watched it unfurl.
"Well," he said, motioning to the window behind him, "it's not like I could go anywhere else."
Quiet. Awkward quiet, as the storm raged outside.
The past few weeks had been ... good. He'd been her caretaker, and she'd told him she forgave him for his absence the past year. But it was starting to feel like an empty pledge, like her forgiveness was bestowed upon him like a knighthood, a kindness for his efforts to help her regain the use of her legs. A transaction. A smile for services delivered. The slip of her hand in his like a handshake, not like a woman who loved her husband the way he loved her.
They hadn't fought—not really, not even jokingly—since he'd decided to stop coddling her at the rundown Cinnabar Moon Retreat. Their words were polite and their tones were civil.
And that was devastating. It was devastating because this was a return to their transactional relationship from before the flight to Bespin, in which they spun headfirst into heartache but found truth before their plunge. The subsequent years of companionship, of friendship and care, of raising three children together and managing the terrific pressure of her position within the New Republic … none of that was present here. Like a switch, they'd gone back decades to the most fruitless and awful days of their acquaintance.
This is what you told yourself you wanted, the dark voice whispered. You wanted freedom? Here it is.
No, this isn't what he'd wanted. He didn't want a life without her. Never had. That's not what the past year had been about for him. In every seedy cantina, in every Vong-held world, in every corner of the galaxy, he'd been Han Solo, father of three and devoted husband.
Always.
But his family was inextricably linked with Chewie and Chewie was gone. Dust. Ripped apart by a falling moon. For months it had been more than he could take, looking at the faces of the people who had only come into his life because his Wookiee co-pilot had forged him into someone worth loving, someone who deserved the people he now called his family. His best friend, his confidante. The one who'd encouraged him to believe that a beautiful princess could find anything worthwhile in a criminal. The one who'd been there for the good and the bad, had seen the best and the worst of him.
The one who had died to save his youngest child.
The guilt had been stubborn. Recalcitrant. Pervasive. He couldn't escape it; it had burrowed beneath his skin like a parasite and infested his entire world. At first he blamed the setting. The apartment, the starkest symbol of his stable family life. He'd needed to leave. He'd needed a drink. And then when he'd realized alcohol hadn't quite done the job—that the guilt hadn't subsided with cheap Corellian ale or the strongest whiskey he could find: volume and vintage insufficient to block it all out—he'd turned to his other escape. He'd needed to fly.
He'd done what he thought he needed to do to survive his grief. Leia had thrown herself into work when she'd lost her entire planet; he'd done the same thing. He was a pilot and pilots flew. He had wanted to find Chewie in the wild beyond.
But Chewie wasn't out there; he was here. He was loyalty, patience, goodness. Honor. Family. And it had taken Han far too long to realize that.
It's not like I could go anywhere else, he'd said.
Like he'd been doing for months?
Frustrated with himself, he backtracked. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean that."
Leia didn't look at him, picking at the fabric of the chair arm. When she next spoke, her voice was kind, supportive. "Is something bothering you?"
Was something bothering him? He had an angry, bitter, dark storm raging inside his chest and he didn't know why. He'd been tackling it all day. Was there a reason he kept returning to it? Kept circling the storm below him, inside him, outside the apartment?
"I'm thinking about Chewie," he admitted.
Her face softened, her suspicion dropping like a stone. "Oh," she said. Her hand twitched in her lap, like she wanted to reach out and touch him. "Good things or bad things?"
He made an effort not to hide behind sarcasm. "Both. Woke up angry that he wasn't here to help. And then I was thinking about how he would take all the credit for us getting back together. Woulda banged my head into the hull before I even left. Woulda prevented the whole thing, if he'd been here."
Han chuckled and thought about how smug the Wookiee would have been, how unceasingly proud of himself that his memory had inspired his reckless human friend to return to his family. Circular logic, of course: Chewie's death was the reason Han had left in the first place.
When his mirth died down, he looked to Leia and realized she hadn't been laughing with him. Her eyes had fallen somewhere below his knees and her lips were set into a thin line. His chest felt as if a hole had torn through his flesh and ripped his lungs out of his rib cage.
"Leia?" he asked.
Her eyes met his. She waved her hand and tried to look amused, but Han had loved this woman long enough to know when she was trying to lie to him. Her eyes were large, deep, unsure. He could read the months of loneliness there in the brown and his stomach dropped through the tear in his chest, too.
Han scooted forward, to the edge of the couch. "Hey," he said. "I didn't mean to—"
"No, please. I'm glad you're talking about him," she said. "You should talk about him more often. I like it when you do."
He narrowed his eyes at her polite tone. "Then why are you looking at me like that?"
The tight lines of her face, the paled sweep of her cheekbone, the hand still picking at the armrest. Something he'd said, something he'd done or insinuated, had thrown her into a dark place of her own. Maybe not a storm: maybe a prison. Maybe a cold medcenter bunk.
Leia was quiet. Then she straightened her spine and looked directly at him, like she was confronting an adversary in one of her political negotiations. The posture unnerved him.
"It was the getting back together part," she said.
He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again. "What do you mean?"
Leia took a deep breath but never broke his gaze. Committed. Unbreakable. "How not-together were we, Han?"
Dead silence between them as he gaped at her, the rain lashing the window and the boom of thunder audible even through the transparisteel. The storm seemed to have plenty to say in response to that question. But Han couldn't find a single word in Basic or Corellian or Huttese or any number of languages to answer her.
"We haven't really talked about that," she said into the quiet. "We've been focused on my legs, and then Viqi Shesh, and everything has been really good lately—"
He nodded, still mute, trying to gather words.
"—but at some point we're going to have to …" Leia looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.
And her voice, tearing his world apart. "A year is a long time."
The storm took him quickly, rage erupting from every dark niche and buried suspicion he'd tried to suppress. Bluster and pain rammed against his better nature, recriminations and angry, bitter jealousy twisting his stomach into knots. The storm had been building all day and here, now, this was consuming him whole.
Leia. With someone else. Anyone else. But one name came right to the fore, immediate, so plausible that it made him sick.
"Isolder," he spat.
The fair Prince of Hapes, Leia's one-time suitor: the man the galaxy had wanted her to marry. Han's exact opposite in station and wealth. Han was thrown back in time, years rolling back with the seconds, and he was losing the woman he loved to a man with whom he couldn't compete, with whom he didn't know how to compete.
The storm now had a name, had a face, and the anger was so dark, so bitter, that Han realized this wasn't just a moment of jealous accusation: this was a deep, dark fear he'd harbored for months now, since he'd caught them together in the holos. She'd claimed it was promotional, that Hapes had come to help with the Vong. But that was logic, and logic had no place here.
This is what you wanted, isn't it? Freedom?
Han's anger burned bright, eclipsed everything except the hateful voice, urging him on.
It's your fault.
But Leia looked startled. "Isolder?" she repeated. "What about him?"
Han licked his lips, suddenly unable to look at her. Of course it'd been Isolder. The man was a living, breathing reminder of what Han had never been able to give Leia Organa: a people to call her own. And that was … was that even a betrayal? If he'd been on the other side of the galaxy from her? If he'd fled his family in a cloud of grief so strong it had skewed his priorities?
Oh, but his anger hadn't abated. Where Leia's anger focused into a narrow point, his flared into a supernova, consuming everything in his path. Unable to handle the velocity of his thoughts, he stood and paced, refusing to look at her. He couldn't get hold of himself: he was angry at her, at himself, at Chewie, at Luke for letting this happen—but then again, what the hell did Luke have to do with anything?—everything splintered, fractured into millions of pieces and he couldn't grasp them, couldn't hold onto them.
And the worst part of it was that he couldn't blame her. He'd left. He'd abandoned her. The love of his life, the mother of his children. And he'd walked away from everything.
"Sit down."
Her voice was tight, angry. Durasteel. Utility and command. He just stared at her, unable to think, unable to understand or see or do anything. When had he stood up? He couldn't remember.
"No," he finally said.
She rolled her eyes at him. "Have you finished? Or would you like another minute to entertain your own juvenile jealousies?"
Han planted his hands on his hips. "It ain't juvenile."
Leia simply raised her eyebrows and waited.
"Fine," he said, running a hand over his mouth and collapsing onto the couch again. "Did you sleep with him?"
"Of course not," she said. Power and confidence laced her words; Han wondered how she could possibly be so calm at a time like this. "Why would I do that?"
"A year is a long time," he quoted back to her. "Seems like a pretty clear statement to me."
"It wasn't a statement. It was a question for you."
He was lost. "Me?"
"You," she affirmed. "I was entirely faithful, Han. Were you?"
He blinked. The sheer ridiculousness of it, the absolute lunacy. He wanted to laugh.
It made no sense to him. Any smart gambler worth her credits would give Leia odds on this one. Out of the two of them, Leia was the clear catch. There were millions of hims out there. There was only one Leia. Time and distance, age and injury: nothing would entice him to stray. Whatever his past, whatever his faults, his commitment to her was duracrete. A year of grief and wayward paths couldn't sever that connection.
He exhaled, feeling the storm break apart in his chest. Not gone, not entirely, but its whiplash ferocity simmered and then cooled.
He knew Leia well enough to know that if she was asking him, if she was worried about his fidelity, there was zero chance that she herself had strayed. Honest to a fault, beautifully good, Leia wasn't the kind of person to accuse if she herself was guilty. He had no doubts. None. Not anymore.
His mouth tilted up in a small grin, optimistic now. This was an easy answer to give. In this, he was blameless.
"Leia," he said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "You know me better than that."
She pursed her lips. "I thought I did. I want to think I do."
"You do."
"Then answer the question."
Han opened his hands, the embers of annoyance flaring back to life. "Of course I was. I have never cheated on you."
He'd had opportunities. In the cantinas, in the spacer bars, off-planet, at refueling stations. Women and men and gender-fluid beings and Twi'leks and even a particularly persistent furry biped that he couldn't identify. A few had known who he was—starstruck civilians desperate for the war the galaxy had already won—but for the majority he was simply a spacer, a reserved pilot, someone who might be down for the quick release and a bit of fun.
He'd used the lines he'd been using for years, the ones he'd developed during that seemingly endless waiting game between Yavin and Hoth. Resolute and sure: the old no thanks and a confident smile. He wasn't in the game. Period. The minute he'd kissed Leia on the Falcon all those years ago, he'd been completely changed. A total job: brand new. Hers.
She licked her lips and looked to the side, not meeting his eyes. "Okay," she said, nodding. "Thank you."
He thought his stomach couldn't drop further. He thought his heart was secure from the depth of this pain. But her uncertainty in him cut through skin and muscle and into bone. "You don't believe me," he said.
She took a deep breath and met his eyes. "No."
Fracture, the splintering of any faith he might have had that the last few weeks had been enough to erase the sins of the past year. This is your fault, he thought into the storm, hollow and torn. Yours.
Her no echoed through his skull like the whine of blaster fire. In the background the rain lashed the window, ferocious: hitting its stride. His inner storm didn't have the same sort of energy as the one outside. As it raged, he felt hollow. Almost used, like she'd suddenly discarded all his effort of the past few weeks.
"Is that what's been bothering you?" he asked. His brain summoned images of her wariness, skittishness, how they hadn't resumed their intimate relationship despite assurances that they could without risking her health. The chaste kisses. The fleeting touches.
His accusation about Isolder had been quick fire, combustible but unacknowledged until set ablaze. Hers was a simmer, a low bubbling beneath the surface of their reconciliation.
"I don't know," she said, eyeing him. "I've been afraid to ask."
He laughed without humor. "Sure," he said. "Hard to bring up cheating when you can't walk."
She winced, put a hand to her temple and Han cursed his undisciplined mouth. "Look, just drop it. We don't need to do this now," Leia said.
Drop it? He wanted to shake her. Drop it and pretend all was fine while she assumed he'd lied to her, that he would ever—could ever—sleep with someone else? "No. Because I didn't cheat."
"Han—"
"Why is it of course I didn't with you, but it's of course you did with me?" he said, frustrated. The volume of his voice rose; he tried to control it but struggled. "Doesn't that sound crazy to you?"
He was ramping up. He tried to dampen the rage, the hopeless fury, but couldn't seem to grasp his control. He hadn't done anything wrong! He'd been faithful. He'd made mistakes and he would try his best to make amends for those, but he wasn't going to let her think that he'd ever, ever ….
She was the only star in his sky, his prime vector, the most powerful force for good that he'd ever known. How could he possibly want anyone else?
He stopped.
"Force," he murmured, then spoke louder, more intentional. He had an idea, and it was probably crazy but—"Luke is able to read minds, right?"
Leia narrowed her eyes, furrowed her brow. "Not exactly. It's more complicated than that."
But Han was undeterred. All he needed was a plan. Action. Solutions. "Right, but he can tell when someone's lying?"
He'd seen his brother-in-law do it, seen him pull access codes from a Remnant officer's head. He'd seen Luke wave a hand and make someone forget he'd seen them. And if Luke could do it—
Leia was already shaking her head. "I'm no Jedi."
"You do it with the kids," he insisted. "You can tell where they are when they're nearby. You could tell the twins were lying that one time on Yavin."
Now that he had a plan, even a half-cocked one, he found a deep reserve of energy, a sense of purpose. He refused to let his wife believe he'd failed her so completely. He couldn't make her forget the pain of the last year, but he could damn well make sure she knew that he'd been true to her.
"Communicating with other Force-sensitives is different," she said, still skeptical. "Your mind is harder to access. More opaque."
For a moment he faltered. Like a persistent itch, his discomfort with the whole idea of the Force slipped beneath his skin. He may have come to accept the role it played in his family's life, but it was still deeply disconcerting to have an extra pillar to their existence that he could neither see nor touch. But he'd seen the effects. He could deny its reality all he wanted but it still moved the pieces of the universe around him. His kids could tap into it. Any desire to write it off as parlor tricks or misdirection had been lost the day he'd seen his infant children move objects across the room without touching them.
And then, too, his question had a deeper quality to it. If Leia had ever listened in on him, it was a violation of trust, something that he was intrinsically, biologically, against. His mind was the only thing he'd had to his name as a child on the streets of Corellia. He'd been abused, manipulated, lied to, starved, beaten. He could trust no one, could let no one take advantage of him. It'd been a matter of life and death.
But his mind, his memories, his dreams of flight: those were his own. And to let someone else in ….
Trust: the exact problem that he was trying to solve. A quagmire of issues, stacked against them. Like quicksand: one meter up, two meters down. Even if she could somehow glean his honesty, it was still an uncomfortable level of transparency. He'd thought some terrible things in the past year. He'd thought some terrible things today. What would she hear accidentally? What images, what memories would she find if he opened himself up like this? This could do far more damage than good.
But wasn't he the one who had created this situation in the first place?
Blast it. He would do whatever it took to convince her.
"Have you heard me before?" he asked.
She shifted in her chair, uncomfortable. "Not on purpose. I wouldn't do that to you. Ever."
"But you've done it? On accident?"
She didn't answer but her expression confirmed it for him. Idly he wondered when. Leia was strictly in her own control. Always. Fiercely independent, sure, but also leashed tight to her personal standards of right and wrong, of decency. Part of her princess training, he was sure, and useful in her many roles in the Alliance: spy, commander, negotiator. Not a hair out of place, not a step out of line.
Except with him.
He paused.
Except with him.
With a heavy thunk, Han's heart leapt into gear. He stood, feet slipping against the polished wood of the floor—because even in a desperate scramble to maintain life in the galaxy as they knew it, the cleaning droids did their monotonous work—and walked the few steps to where Leia sat. Without a word, he held out his hand for her to take. She stared at it for a long moment, so long that he feared she would reject him. He had no idea how to verbalize what he wanted her to do, what gross breach of privacy he was asking from her.
And then Leia set her hand in his.
She didn't ask where he was leading her, didn't question him when he left his vest on the bed, when he deposited his shirt on the floor of the fresher, when he stood naked in the shower with water streaming down the long planes of his torso and legs. With an encouraging look, he waited for her to undress. A sense of unreality swept over him as he watched her remove her loose blouse and trousers, confoundment as he realized that she didn't hesitate. Such a clear display of what marriage did to two people, of what loving someone for so long could make intimate but not sexual.
He helped her through the fresher barricade, the enviro-web that contained the water spray, and as her feet settled on the slick floor, he kept his hands on her waist, ready to catch her if she became too weak. This was nothing new: helping her navigate the perils of everyday life on uncertain legs had been his sole focus the past few weeks.
But he wasn't here for utility: he was here to solve a problem.
"It was in here," he stated, sure. "When you did whatever you did in my head. To hear me."
Her eyes rose to his, taking in his expression. "Yes. It was in here."
He remembered it with stark clarity, in bold colors and clear light. A good moment, a random moment, from a few years back. A formal event they'd had to attend when the kids were at the academy and Chewie had been visiting Kashyyyk. A night alone. A beautiful black dress that he couldn't stop touching, her hair in an elaborate chignon that tumbled down her shoulders once he'd gotten her into the fresher. A moment out of time, deeply intimate, so wonderfully satisfying that it ranked near the top of his favorite memories in a marriage filled with such highlights.
His throat closed up, a cascade of precious intimacies falling around him like the rain outside, and Han realized that all their work could disintegrate right here if he didn't do this right.
"Does it happen … a lot?" he asked, grasping for words, feeling suddenly awkward about their intimate life in a way he hadn't felt since its inception.
She shook her head. "No, not often."
That was a relief. A lifetime of independence had built a tough armor. He wasn't ready to know that she could hear him all the time, whenever she wanted. He was still his own person. He chose to trust her. As difficult as it was for him to be communicative—by nature he was stoic and by experience he played it close to the chest—he wanted his moments of openness to mean something. When he made the effort, he wanted her to know it was a choice, his choice, to have faith in her. Even for something against which every cell in his body rebelled.
And so he made an extraordinary choice.
"Can you do it again? Now?"
In any other situation her expression would have garnered a quip from him. But he was serious, deadly serious, and there was no room for ill-timed, snide comments.
"I've never tried. Your thoughts are not mine to know."
He nodded, encouraging, listening, warmth blooming in his chest.
"But sometimes you whisper to me," she continued. "Just fractals of emotions. I don't think it's me hearing you so much as it's you projecting what you're feeling."
He doubted that. He'd never heard any whispers and he sure as hell wasn't focusing on much whispering when it came to Leia and sex. But this was her world. His opinion didn't matter in the realm of Jedi and telepathy; his perception of the laws of the universe wasn't necessarily true when it came to this mumbo-jumbo.
"Try," he urged.
She stared at him, eyes wide and mouth downturned. Her reticence both humbled and annoyed him: was she trying to respect his privacy or was she worried that this was all an elaborate ploy to lie to her?
No, he knew her better than that. And she knew him better than that.
He squeezed her hips and brought her body closer to his. "Please," he murmured into the small space between them. "Try."
For me, he thought but couldn't say. For us.
She closed her eyes and Han caught his breath, a spike of adrenaline running down his spine. Cynical, hardened Han Solo, allowing someone else to invade his thoughts? Insanity. Complete insanity.
She reached her hands up to hold the sides of his head, fingers sweeping through the hair at his temples. With a gentle pressure she brought him closer to her and he wrapped his hands around her hips to clasp at her lower back. He could feel her chest rise and fall against the skin of his stomach, feel her breath against the hair on his chest. The water streamed against his back, shielding her body, but the mist dampened the ends of her hair. It stuck to her cheek, a dark contrast against her light skin.
For a moment all he heard was the steady pat of the water against the tile of the fresher. He held perfectly still, unsure how to assist her, wondering if he had made a colossal mistake in asking her to do this.
Then a low murmur. "You keep pushing me out," she said. "This isn't going to work."
Pushing her out? He was only standing here and trying not to panic about his unconscious thoughts, the things he could help thinking: what if I jump off this building? What if I steered this speeder into that wall? Or worse, the thoughts he never acted on, that horrified him and that might make her recoil in disgust.
But.
"Try again," he encouraged.
She shook her head. "I'm not experienced enough and you're too you. You aren't the most loquacious of men."
"Loquacious," he repeated, rolling it across his lips. "Sounds like something I don't wanna be."
Her lips turned up in a small, quick smile, the first he'd seen since they'd begun this conversation. "You don't. But it's making you really hard for me to hear."
"Okay. So what do I do?"
She shrugged. "Find some glitterstim or ask a real Jedi," she said. "Short of that, I have no idea."
"Really," he said, sliding his hands from her back to the sides of her arms. He waited for her to find his eyes, to see what he was about to do.
And then he kissed her. Warm, soft, comfortable, the slightest brush against her lips. Water sprayed everywhere. Her lips tasted like mint from her tea but also an indelible, unforgettable taste that was pure Leia. Sweet, patient touches, unfathomably soft considering the weight of the moment. The best kind of familiar, the kind that knew all and accepted all.
Her hands remained at the sides of his head but her shoulders relaxed and she stepped into him, their knees touching and her skin warm against his.
He disengaged but didn't step away. He kissed her forehead, lips lingering on her skin. "Again," he said. "Please."
Leia nodded and Han closed his eyes, focusing on her hands and the softness of her skin against his fingers. He didn't know how to help her; the extent of his understanding about what he was asking her to do was that she could do it. She was every bit as capable as Luke for this kind of thing and she'd passed that potential to their children. She had the power, had the innate empathy.
But if it was as she said, that it was more about him whispering to her and less about her listening in ….
Desperate, he let himself feel.
The dire loss of his best friend. The consuming ache of feeling his family was vulnerable in a way it hadn't been before. How he couldn't look at their faces without seeing them dead, how he'd struggled to accept that death had finally come for his small corner of the galaxy. The shame of inaction, the terror of wrong action. The longing for what had been and the dark understanding that it could never be the same again. Desperate desire for the woman he loved, parsecs away, fighting her own battles.
The people in the bars. The women with dark, smoky voices offering momentary escape from his own self-loathing. The men with admiring eyes, married themselves, whispering that she would never know. The people he'd turned down, not because their offers weren't tempting but because—
"I'm yours," he said with complete conviction, absolute truth, total clarity. "Always have been. Always will be. And I need you to know that."
She exhaled and froze for an eternity. No sound, no movement for the space of innumerable heartbeats. He felt like he was hanging on a precipice, tipped to the edge, staring at an abyss below him.
Then her palms left the sides of his head, her fingers smoothed through his hair strand by strand. Soft, calm sweeps of her hands, strokes like the power of flight, warmth like a fire. Han opened his eyes, squinting into the low light filtering through the fresher barricade. He blinked and her face came into focus: first her eyes, then her hair, then her lips.
And with one look, he knew she understood.
"Han," she said and pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around his torso and tucking her nose into his chest. The maw in Han's chest closed, sewn together with one utterance of his name. It had been so long since she'd shown this much need, since she'd openly embraced him with all the care and adoration that he knew she felt.
The relief was visceral, real. He felt it run through him head to toe, from him to her and back to him. Sweet and good, warm. Everything he hadn't known they'd needed.
Like taking off a mask or a cloak, the bitterness and hurt dropped to their feet and Han realized that he hadn't been alone in the cyclonic chaos of the past few weeks.
"I heard you," Leia whispered.
He pulled away enough to see her lovely face, the features he adored, the eyes she'd given their daughter and the lips she'd given their youngest son, and smiled an echo of his lopsided grin.
"Do you believe me now?" he asked.
She nodded and smiled up at him. "I believe you. I'm sorry that I didn't before—"
"I didn't give you much to believe in," he interrupted, tired of this back and forth. "And I jumped all over you when I thought you'd slept with Isolder."
Leia huffed a laugh. "You did. And I didn't."
"I know. He'd be terrible anyway," Han asserted. "You have better taste than that."
She laughed again, light peals of happiness that echoed around the fresher. "My taste notwithstanding, I do love you. And I'm yours, too."
I'd do anything for you, he thought, just in case she was still listening.
And then he pulled her close, pressed his lips to her temple and felt relief swallow him whole.