Written in response to the weekly fanfiction prompt from fanfiction-friends on deviantart, where this is also cross posted. I suppose if you really wanted this could take place during the Bespin trip, but up to the reader.
"What are you doing?" Leia asked as Han lifted the floorboard to reveal an empty space with four walls made of nothing but walls of panels that were presumably important.
"Fixing my ship." He replied, not looking at her, but instead sliding down into the hole and beginning to unplug all the wires he could. "Something isn't right and those meddling workers redid my wiring, so now I need to try and fix it."
"Wouldn't you just be better off buying a new ship? All you ever do is repair this old piece of ju-"
"Don't you dare call the Millennium Falcon a piece of junk, your highness. And even if I could buy a new ship I wouldn't because I've already invested so much time into this one."
The wires Han pulled out were bundled in his hand so thick his fingers were barely touching.
"Well what are you supposed to be fixing? This seems sort of counterproductive."
"You sure do make a lot of criticisms. Go make yourself useful." Han complained, turning to look up at the short Princess. Leia crossed her arms across her chest and stuck out one hip.
"Fine."
A few hours later, Han was still in the floor, now trying to put the wires back where they belonged. His muttering to himself had really begun to drive Leia crazy, who was watching observantly from the holo-chess table. She had finished the inventory of the ship's supplies a while ago, and had found nothing else to do but to watch Han's eventual descent into insanity. It was entertaining her for now, to say the least, but she could do without the muttering.
He reminded her of when her father used to do puzzles after a hard day's work. Leia would come into the study, usually with her arms full of homework she needed to do. She'd set up on the desk next to her father, who would have some sort of holopuzzle open on the desk, moving pieces around with his finger. One time she asked him why he did puzzles, especially since his job was basically one giant, unsolvable puzzle.
Her father that night, looked down at her with a soft gaze, his fingers slowly ceasing movement as he thought about his answer.
"Well I suppose I do puzzles because I know there's a right answer in the end."
Leia never really understood what he meant by that, never thought any deeper than a shallow level on it because she just never really thought it held meaning. She knew a bit about what her father did, but she was a child and therefore never told explicitly what all his duties involved. It wasn't really until she had to deal with the destruction of Alderaan did she truly comprehend why her father would find solace in puzzles.
Because sometimes things happen that don't have a happy ending, or can't be solved without hurting someone else. Puzzles always had a proper solution though, there was never any grey area.
Leia found herself watching Han and wondering if he did this to his ship and himself because he knew eventually there was a right answer. He had spent so long looking for something that had right and wrong answers that he eventually had to create his own way to make himself feel ethically sound in what he did. If only someone told him that he was on the right side, that he didn't have to do this because he was already doing the right thing.
In that moment, Leia found herself with more love and respect for Han Solo than she ever thought she had before. Until he started talking loudly again.
"Hey do you want to stop staring into space like that and actually make yourself useful?"