Author's Note: Thought of this while studying. :) Review!
Book Under Pillow
Back at Academy on Alderaan (before, of course, it was destroyed), Leia was always the apple of her teachers' eyes and the subject of envy and awe of her fellow peers. And no, it wasn't because she was the planet's residing monarch. In fact, her royal status had very little to do with her reputation - many of the people at Academy came from powerful, well to-do families.
Princess Leia Organa had the reputation among students about being the girl involved with everything yet still managing to get top marks in every class. How she did it, none knew. Several roomates reported her studying for the final exams only for around an hour before turning in for the night, and waking up looking refreshed and happy and ready for everything (yes, there was a time where Leia slept, and woke up refreshed and happy and ready for almost everything).
But Leia had a secret.
Yes, she would review everything once then turn in, leaving her roomates confused and worried at their terminals. But, as she crawled into bed, she would sneak her datapads for their respective tests under her pillow, and somehow, she didn't know how, everything in them would seep their way into her brain overnight. It was miraculous.
Leia remembered this for some reason, all the while cursing the Emperor and Vader for everything they destroyed (now Luke had a prosthetic right hand as well as the other thing). The curses she used in her brain - silently, she wouldn't dare say them out loud - were those that would make Han very proud. After all, it's difficult to not, considering everything she's been through in the past few days (and weeks, and years), added with a few weeks in confinement with a Corellian would sum up to a very hard curser indeed. But she was too dignified for that, to resistant (still, influence is influence).
…
He was gone, now. Trapped, blinded, immobilized in his own agony. Frozen in time, to be sold and killed by a gangster on the Outer Rim. She let her eyes trail over his cabin, and she could somehow feel him lingering there; a presense that was the shadiest ghost. She slowly walked over to the closet, pulling out one of his shirt, and studying it.
It was long (it would most likely reach her knees if she cared to try it on), and white, and stained. His work shirt (he was always in it, he was forever working). Leia brought it to her cheek, closing her eyes, and she could smell his distinct scent; the sweat and soap and aftershave. That man, the incorrigable, arrogant, smirking, impossibly egotistical man. That she had somehow fallen for in the past month (three years).
She looked at the bed. She's slept in that bed. The Captain's bed. She's waken up next to the captain; it was empty now. If she slept in it, it would still be empty. But she crossed the room with shirt in hand, clambered under the covers, and lay in the middle (no one was there to share it with her, after all).
Leia tucked the shirt under the pillow, and lay her head softly upon it. Perhaps, if she slept, a little bit of him would seep into her overnight.