Run the Jewels
Wedge Antilles crossed the hangar at a clip, slowing as he approached the battered YT-1300. Wouldn't do to show his haste. It took a Corellian to know, Wedge supposed, which cards to disclose and which to hide. That was doubly true when the person Wedge sought was a fellow Corellian, and the reigning Yavin sabacc champion besides.
An irregular series of sparks issued from the ship's belly, offset by low, cajoling curses. When Wedge whistled a few ironic notes of "Corellia Ho!", the soft scolding and hydro-hissing ceased. A tall man unfolded from under the freighter, bottle slotted between long fingers. Goggles dangled like a youngling's slingshot from the pocket of his trousers.
Han Solo plunked his fuser on a rusted bench. Swiped sweat from his forehead, watched himself scratch at an insect bite under the sleeve of his olive tee-shirt. Wedge waited out this lazy stage business, not so easily thrown as the rookies Solo fleeced of their sabacc credits. And finally Han hooked a thumb in his belt and raised his beer to his lips, peering down the bottle's length with typical wry wariness.
"Antilles." Han anted the first word, stingy as it was.
"Solo. You meet anyone from High Command today?"
"Oh, sure. They just left. Didn't you see 'em?" An oil-grimed hand inclined the Falcon's dingy hull. "Dodonna really appreciates my art collection."
Wedge resisted the languid sarcasm. "Well they're looking for a pilot. Called me in." He scanned Han's impassive face. "They pull your tags, too?"
"I got no tags." Han was almost delighted with his own indignation. "I'm not a listee, remember?" As usual, he made listee sound like fool.
"Okay." Wedge gave a short breath. "You didn't hear this from me. Command wants—"
A klaxon blared shift turnover, sending variant forms milling about the hangar. In the chaos Wedge switched to the language he shared with Han. "...volgoth un Corellisi."
Wedge had often noticed that Han avoided speaking Corellian (except when swearing; Wedge agreed that sometimes kriff couldn't compete with the mighty Corellian fuck). Even when beings all around him lapsed into their own tongues—exhausted, or in their cups; seeking connection to lost homes and pasts—Solo stuck to his Basic. Spoken to a rhythm both clipped and elastic, laced with slang from multiple planets, it seemed to serve him as linguistic alias.
Han hewed yet to his cryptic habit. "Want, huh."
"Fine. Nyiad. That better?"
"Naah. Don't care neither way, me." Han slugged at his generic beer. "S'just, different price codes apply to want and need."
"Funny," Wedge said evenly. "My father used to say a Corellian never turns his back on someone in need."
"Yeah? That's real nice." Han's half-smile flashed hard and merry. "I don't turn my back on anyone. Good way to get bladed."
Wedge bit the side of his tongue. Sometimes, so much life, liberty on the line, it grated him how Han wore his detachment like superiority. Many (...many) recruits found that jaded grin attractive, but to Wedge it seemed tilted toward some secret, bitter joke.
Yet Han bristled at Wedge's visible judgement. Out came the index finger; Wedge made a note to add this sighting to Hobbie's tally on the barracks wall, underpinning some wager with Wes.
"Ahhh, cut the shit, hero. You fly just fine. And you're a listee." Han jerked his thumb back at himself (this gesture, Wes insisted, counted for half marks). "But I didn't sign nowhere, and I don't come free. So why you here, throwin' your job at me?"
Again Wedge scanned the hangar. The new shift had mostly settled in, leaving space for discreet Basic. Still he said it surreptitiously, between his teeth: "It's a partner mission. In Coronet."
Almost imperceptibly, Han stiffened.
"Sure, I could get the..." Even now, Wedge balked at using the galvanizing name aloud. "...the agent through the Imp blockade. Get her planetside. no sweat. Thing is, then...hells, I'm from Gus Treta!" Wedge pointed his own finger. "But you—"
Like sand in a Tatooine chronoglass, Han's irises drained green to ash. Wedge made his point fast: "Valle Coroneti. Estok Coroneti. Yeh?"
The surly-proud curl to Han Solo's lips was answer and warning at once.
The gritty inflections lurking under Han's Basic had long told Wedge where the smuggler had come up. Estok was rough. And Han was so tough, so remote, it was easier to imagine him raised by loth-wolves than actual folks. Surely not loved and fed, like Wedge. Or Leia. Or Janson. Or Luke. Or Chewie. Or pretty much anyone they knew.
Wedge had no plans to blab such insights. But when he joined the Rebellion, Wedge swore blood-oath to its success. As he made and lost dear friends in the ranks, this broad allegiance had assumed vital focus, prioritizing his own small group. And no matter what Han Solo liked to project, he had clearly formed certain attachments himself. So, Wedge knew, Han wouldn't hold a grudge for this bruising intrusion. What he wouldn't forgive is if Wedge didn't tell him—
"Like I said." Han's tone was cold-rolled durasteel. "I ain't no fuckin' listee."
It was then, over Han's shoulder, that Wedge caught the telltale flash of white across the hangar. The agent. The attachment. Heading to the sleek cruiser next bay over.
"Alright, alright." Wedge said mildly. "I get it. I guess there's one other Corellian they could send with her. New pilot, real, uh, hotshot—"
Han snorted. "Guy from Shaugh?" His eyebrows gave lofty emphasis to Coronet City's poshest district. "Oh, good. Good fit." Finishing his beer, Han dragged the back of his wrist across his pitying smirk. "Look. I like Carlist, so here's a piece of free advice: Rell's a goof. He'll get your agent busted up in East Coronet."
I call, Wedge thought, his subtle version of the tribal swagger Solo wore brash as his bloodstripes. You cocky son of a bitch.
"Well kest." Wedge jerked his chin at the trim figure in snowy blouse and khaki fatigues, slowing along the Fortunas Rexi. "I sure hope he don't."
Han's stare flared on the small braided woman cordially greeting the Rexi's handsome captain. Bowing at the waist in his coveralls, Prixati Rell hailed her back with flawless etiquette. His Shaughnessi-flavored Basic rich and smooth as blue cream: You honor me with your notice, Your Highness.
Beer bottle met bench with a savage click.
"You heard wrong, Rogue Three," Han snapped. "Command don't run her high-risk." He ticked quick points off on his fingers: "No city. No sneak-jobs, no...no partner shit." His voice took on a kind of brusque plea. "And if they did, she woulda come to—"
"Han. She's going to Coronet."
For the first time in their exchange—maybe for the first time since they'd met—Han looked openly at Wedge, knowledge dawning hot in his wide eyes. Burning away that cool guard of gray, the gold was furious and ardent. Terrified. I knew it, Wedge exhaled inside his own mind, vindicated and relieved to see the feeling Han couldn't hide. I knew it.
Looking back at the pair beside the Rexi, Han folded his arms over his heart, lips rounding before they flattened into a terse line. The hurt and worry were guarded, took a Corellian to spot it. Took Corellian tactics to exploit it.
"Never mind. It'll probably? go fine. Seems like a good fella," Wedge said. "And I mean. Rell can fly."
Han gave a mirthless sound. "Not even in my cargo hold, Antilles."
"He's Coroneti."
"He's from Shaugh." Han bit out the correction.
"Eh. That's good enou—"
"He's from Shaugh!"
Wedge paused to let the color rise in Han's neck.
"He is enlisted, though," Wedge said. "Trained and briefed. So if someone rats 'em out? Boarded at the blockade, say, or stopped by Imp officers in the city..." Wedge shrugged. "It's a paired-up show. So I'm sure Prix can keep her saf—"
Words broke from Han Solo's throat. His native speech hard and dirty as urban duracrete: Mintak Leia. Mi. Mi! Nyot enseft.
A pair of massive brown eyes blinked in Han's direction. The comprehension of the name could almost be read on red-tinted lips, softly parting in shock.
When he returned to himself, when he met her gaze, Han's own eyes closed in instinctive failure. But when he opened them on Leia Organa it was with as much seething defiance as Han could muster. Smuggler and princess stared at one another, complex communication firing along invisible channels. Something between them crackling so it seemed the industrial lamps in the rafters flickered. Until, without another word or look to anyone—no gesture, no expression in any tongue—Han Solo spun and stalked up the ramp into the Millennium Falcon.
But the man with the urchin accent and no attachments left the main hatch cycled open.
And it was with his own measure of Corellian self-congratulation that Wedge Antilles thought: So much for not turning your back, Slick.
XXXXXXXXX
Han was starved, but too mad to make supper, even with the cooker working, now. Yeah: in the hours, plural, that he'd awaited an audience with Her Spyness, Han rewired an entire appliance. When he'd been sure that Leia was hot on his heels, Han wriggled under the galley counter like a mechie beneath a speeder, seeking the strategic advantage of occupation. The replacement filaments clamped in his lips were sharp, but Han kept his mouth viciously shut as he should have in the first damn place. If he severed his tongue on a wire, well, at least he wouldn't talk when the little commando showed up.
But she didn't. Even with Han so showily distracted—even with the ramp left down, the main entry open to the outside—chrono past nine!—Leia Organa did not arrive.
So here Han was, ten after ten in this backwater jungle night. Dropping onto the acceleration couch, shoving a ration bar into the idiot noise-hole in his face. He slung a long leg up onto the dejarik table, stretched the other one under. Hair damp from the 'fresher, Han wore gray sleep pants and a tee-shirt Chewie caught from a cannon at a Taris swoop-race. The pants were ripped at the outer seam; the shirt was purple, tight, and printed with an unidentifiable yellow mascot. Ugly as the third hell, but who was gonna see this getup tonight? Chewie had gone off scouting a new base with Luke and Janson, some sithforsaken frozen planet.
Sullenly chewing his last bite, Han glared at the blanket folded neatly on the seat. Thinking of the night Leia and Luke showed up, a little lit from one of Janson's homebrew parties, wanting to learn sabacc. Month or so after the Death Star, that: Han planning to leave for Tattooine, just hadn't told anyone yet. The kid held drink surprisingly well, but bombed out quick—you're a helluva shot, kid, but you can't bluff for shit—and headed back to the barracks. Chewie, an early riser, took his sickening bark tea to his hammock.
Her Highness, though. Her Highness stuck around. And Han...alright, couldn't believe his luck, even with its proof fanned in his fingers, manifested in shifting flasks and sabers. Since she'd blasted a hole in a chute and ordered him through, he was uncomfortably aware that the Rebel Princess intrigued him. The whole galaxy knew, and Han did too, that she was smart, beautiful, bereaved, brave. But over that card game, indecently late and newly alone, she became Leia, unsettlingly fast study. Leia, ruthless, playful, witty. Leia: drink-flushed and frowning with a focus Han found startlingly sexy, staying again and again for one more hand.
When Han came back from a futile dig through the pantry for a bag of the puffcorn snacks she liked, there she was curled up on the curved seat. Rosy cheek to rounded knees.
And Leia looked not quite cold, not on this humid moon, but so unshielded in sleep that Han felt intrusive in his own damn ship! He stopped, hand rising to the back of his neck, other braced at his narrow hip. His impulse was to pick Leia up, carry her to the berth with the attached sleepsack that trundled from beneath his own bunk. But then he thought, hells, how would that be for her? Waking tipsy in a big man's grip, halfway to his cabin...creep city.
So Han fetched his spacer's jacket from the locker. Shrugged out of his vest, emptied ninety metal whatnots from its ninety damn pockets, and eased that under her braided temple. As he bent to gentle the jacket over her shoulders, Leia nestled in, mumbled thngyou. Han smiled faintly at her manners; was this the same girl who was all barbed verve over her relentless losses at Corellian Gambit? He'd been unsure about showing her no quarter, but instinct told him she'd demand it. So Han slapped down the win, again and again. A rare full grin bursting from him when Leia laughed in outraged abandon: Oh fasten your shirt, you gloating bandit.
As he straightened, Han was not truly aware of his growing attraction, affection, respect. He knew only odd constriction in his chest, heavy enough that he coughed softly into his fist as he went off to his own bunk.
A month later, on a supply run to the Rhinnal textile market (well after he'd been expected by a desert Hutt), Han slowed at a weaver's table, spotting a deep green shimmersilk-yarn blanket. Handling the weave carefully to keep from snagging it on his roughened hands, Han froze at the handwritten Aurebesh label: Soft and warm as a lover's whisper.
Your lady will adore it, the weaver coaxed.
Who says it's for a lady? Han shot back, prickly with what he didn't know was panic. A guy gets cold in space.
Bet you heat a bunk just fine, Corellisi. Her violet eyes stroked the identifying stripes up Han's thighs.
...well. Normally, Han would've followed the weaver wherever she had in mind. Game for something mutually enjoyed, then mutually left behind. But this time, Han surprised himself by smiling an easy decline as he paid for the blanket, no haggling, even. Loping off Han did not allow himself reflection about what it meant, this strangeness in himself, this mingled extravagance and sexual stringency.
On the return trip Han tried to blend the costly purchase in with his beloved, beat-up ship. Chewie tilted his head, watching Han launch random tosses of blanket at couch, aiming for a nonchalant effect. Growling just hope I don't make one outta you, pal, when Chewie teased, Which creature do you seek to catch in this net?
Wookie mockery, impulsive celibacy, gangster chit set back sixty peggats? Worth it, to Han. All worth it when, back on base, Leia and Luke came aboard as had become their habit, to welcome him...home? and Leia exclaimed over the luxurious blanket. Yeah, had that kickin' around. Han said, rifling the cupboard for glasses. Thought you. Someone! might wanna. Use. Wincing even as he talked, as he couldn't stop. Ain't new. Old thing, old...thing,
Watching Leia gracefully arrange the wrap over her bare shoulders, Han swallowed hard. Warmed by the pleasure and surprise, the—the reassessment in huge brown eyes even as he avoided two pairs of bemused blue. Don't lookit me like that. See how nice you think I am after a few hands of sabacc.
Han tossed the crumpled ration wrapper at the blanket. Past time to quit this shit. Clearly Leia, no matter what Han lately...hoped, could care less about his dopey ass. Or couldn't care less. However the stupid Basic saying went; the closest concept in Corellian was who gives a fuck. Han snorted balefully. Should've yelled that at Antilles in the hangar. Damn sight better than Take Leia myself. Me. Me! No one else.
He let his head fall to the back of the couch, glowering at the ceiling panels. By now Han knew it was Leia, the thought of Leia, that had made him refuse the weaver's proposition. Leia who made him accept one last run, again and again, Hutt debt be damned. Leia who kept Han out of friendly beds at familiar ports where he'd often spent friendly time. Thoughts of Leia keeping him way too occupied when he was alone.
But Leia did not think of him.
No, she did not think of him. Even when High Command issued a damned Venn diagram of a mission plan stamped Han Solo at its center—Corellian.- pilot.- partner, Leia did not—
Footsteps tripped light and quick up the ramp.
"Han?"
Han's eyes widened, green-gold, on the woman before him in the main hold. Leia's face was clean of makeup, braids knotted at the back of her neck. She still wore her blouse and fatigue trousers. A large, stuffed satchel was slung across her torso.
She said, "Aren't you ready to go?"
His lips opened in a fat, indignant O.
"To bed, yeah," Han said, devoid of innuendo.
"Ah." Leia's eyes fell on the misshapen yellow animal emblazoned on Han's chest. Her pink lips twitched. "What is that?" she asked, her voice low and droll. "A loth-cat?"
"It's what I sleep in." Han dropped his leg from table to floor. "Because it's late. Late."
"Sorry, no sleep yet. They've given us clearance."
"Whoa. Whaaa..." Han held up a palm. "Who—"
"Perhaps you are an owl, little friend?" Leia sweetly asked the creature on Han's shirt.
"Your friend," Han jabbed his finger either into the mascot's snout or his own chest, "is honored with your notice, Your Highness."
Leia smiled down at Han with a tolerance made more infuriating by the rarity of her height advantage. Then she turned, neatly looping her satchel over her head to one shoulder, and headed for the cockpit.
Han sat gobsmacked. When he'd been fixing the cooker, waiting on her, he'd pictured Leia surprised by his public outburst. Probably pissed. Confused—she'd have gleaned her own name, yes, and the gist of his insistence. But she was royalty. There was no way she knew Olys Corellisi, especially not his harsh urban dialect. He'd expected her to demand explanation. What Han hadn't imagined, not at all, was this—what the hell was this...giddiness?
Han shot to his feet, went after her. Stopped halfway with a half-curse, turned back to punch the code that closed and locked the ramp. Then strode to the cockpit, indignation redoubled by his detour.
"Not so fast, Your Worsh—"
Leia swivelled in the captain's seat to greet him, one soft boot swinging above the floorplates, other knee bent near her chest. One arm cocked on the armrest, the other curled at her cheek; tip of her smallest finger clamped between her teeth.
All in a punched rush, Han let out the breath he'd drawn to holler at her with. Leia was that gorgeous, there, fresh-faced and impish and in his chair in the shapely flesh as she so often appeared in his recent dreams.
"Let's get going, Flyboy."
Han slapped the high arch of the hatchway with both palms. Leaning into the cockpit, he croaked, "Who d'you think you are?"
Those big eyes danced. "Your mission leader."
"My...? That wasn't my offer!"
"Your offer? It sounded to me like an order."
"You don't know your Corellian, Sweetheart."
Her impossible fringe of lashes flickered. "My Corellian?"
Han blinked. In Leia's face, was that...uncertainty? hope?
Before Han could react, Leia stood straight. Cool command snapping into place over any softness, quick and opaque as shielding plates.
"I can't pay you." Her tone of unmistakable provocation.
Immediately Han remembered the shame that had engulfed him the last time she said something similar in this spot. That is what you'll receive. This time the hot wave he felt was outrage. The gall of her, talking a year later like he was some damn bounty hunter. When these milk runs paid a fraction of what Han cleared hustling spice—not that anyone knew Han's cut except Rieekan, sworn to secrecy. Han correlated payment with respect, couldn't let it get out he was charging a pittance. Shit, not even that; when you factored in the rate of gangster interest, Han was dangerously overdrawn at the Bank of Rancor. Yeah, he raided Rebel wages at sabacc, but hey, a guy needed a hobby, right? He ran cheap jobs fast and tight, he helped out mechanically around the hangar, ate mostly his own rations, and none of this, none of this had lifted him into the black, in the ledger of Leia Organa's judgement?
"So ask your Corellian." Han lashed back. "Ain't Rell free?"
Resting one knee in Chewie's copilot's chair, Leia reached for her satchel, withdrawing her datapad from a nest of meticulously rolled garments. "Prixati is Corellian, yes. And he flies very well..."
"Well bully for Prixie." Han stepped hard into the cockpit, claimed his own seat with surly weight. "Easy to learn on dad's fancy starliner—"
"...but you," Leia continued, sitting on her knees, eyes on her illuminated screen, "fly marvellously."
Han's mouth closed, then fell open. "Repeat that."
"You're the best pilot on base," Leia said, her gaze rising to his. So economically honest that Han didn't know if he was touched or irritated as he waited in embarrassing hunger for her elaboration.
"...alright," he said at last. "If I'm the best around—and I am!—how'd I end up understudy to Antilles and Rell?"
She looked back at her pad. "Mission planning is not entirely about your ego, Captain."
Han's brow lowered like clouds: Captain. It rankled, now. The formal remove of it, where Flyboy and Hotshot simmered, even when her underlying heat was anger. Sith it all, now Han felt foolish; always extending himself to Leia, then retracting, burned.
Doing it to her in return. "My ego? Listen, Princess. My ego ain't any more plugged into this show than the rest of me."
"Well, there's your answer," Leia retorted, head jerking up.
Han goggled theatrically around the cockpit. "Thank kest. I been lookin' everywh—"
"Do you know what Prixati Rell has that you don't?"
"A plum stuck in his gob?" Han said, meanly mouthing around Rell's posh vowels.
"Commitment. Rell has commitment." Leia's knuckles paled on her datapad. "Yes, Han, you're the best pilot. You're extremely smart, tough, yes! Brave. A natural leader. If you think I didn't say all of that in the mission briefing..."
She shook her head in pained amazement. Han's brows knit in vexation. He didn't want his virtues enumerated after all, if it hurt her.
"But you don't care," Leia went on. "Wedge cares. Rell cares. But I can't pay you enough to care; I can't convince you to care; I can't make you belie—" She choked on a small, bleak laugh; closed her eyes. "Oh, I've tried."
"Leia. I—"
She said it so quietly, without opening her eyes: "You said you'd take me. You, Han, and no one else."
"Fuckin' Antilles," Han finally said. "He's translating, now?"
"Actually," Leia gave the ghost of a smile. "Threepio." She opened her eyes, merciless and level. "Is it accurate?"
"...yeah." Han looked away first, fiddling with the ripped side-seam on his pants. "See, Coronet, it can get." He scowled as some crucial thread unravelled in his fingers, nearly baring his thigh. All gods, he felt exposed enough as it was. "Look, what gives, huh? Thought the brass had you planted!"
Leia's smile faded. Han bit his cheek; he hadn't mentioned her quartermaster position to be nasty. In fact Leia's straight-backed acceptance of Dodonna's assignment struck Han as...defiant. Dignified; anyone with eyes could see she wanted to be out in the field. But Leia refused to whine, there were no demands for royal favor, no political parrying. Day after day, from his work on the Falcon's roof, Han watched Leia hoist boxes that near outweighed her. Tracked her moving efficiently around base delivering supplies herself, all smiles and first names and graciousness.
Some new recruits would never guess that Princess Leia was more than beautiful, tragic ambassador.
But by night, hours after her shift had ended, Leia sat on the Falcon wrapped in the green blanket, kaffe-wired to her datapad. Scribbling strategy and analyzing maps as Han tinkered with some part, as Chewie and Luke watched holoflicks—all staying up in unspoken accord with her.
High Command might not've slung blaster bolts alongside Leia, or tumbled with her into a trash compactor, but that was no excuse for grounding Leia as a soldier. They knew of her lethal aptitudes, knew she'd withstood the Empire's torture. Resisted Darth Vader! Damn sure knew it was her world was gone from the cosmos like a punched-out molar.
It was her score to settle, and they damn well shoulda let her.
Now Han cut his eyes to Leia's face. She'd never spoken of frustration, exhaustion. But gauging her up close, he saw the difference between warehouse and mission. Something vital in her, to her had been missing, these last few months. Because eighteen hells, Leia looked alive, tonight. Vivid. Spirited, rather than dutiful.
Free.
Han blew out a breath, folding his arms across the...owl? lothcat? at his chest. "I'll need a bottle of whiskey. You and the kid been drinkin' me outta—"
Leia's eyes flared with triumph, with something that made her drop her stare, made her bite her smile almost shyly. "Done."
"The good stuff, mind, no passin' off any of Janson's fermented vines—"
"I know what you like."
She didn't say it coyly. Leia said it with real familiarity, her eyes warm on him. And there it was again, that rogue pressure in Han's chest; by now he knew it was desire far more faceted and lasting than lust.
He cleared his throat. "What's the job?"
Leia leaned forward on her knees. Leaned forward in the co-pilot's seat, overextended for her height, a defiance of balance that only added to her spark. Ah all the gods, I know what you like. This was Leia, the Leia Han somehow always knew, Leia as she was in truth: intense, joyful, brilliant, unstoppable. If she'd stapled flimsi contract to his forehead in that moment, Han would open a vein to sign it.
Across the console she leaned close, closer; he leaned to meet her.
With Leia's face near enough to kiss came her smile like the sun, two suns at once. Her nose almost to his, as though even here, they could be overheard. Leia whispered it to him:
"Power. Gem."