Everything You Once Loved Remains
Many moons will light up the way,
As sure as night will follow day;
And everything you once loved remains
Unbroken.
- "Unbroken" by Birdy.
To be fair, this was not due to ignorance. Leia had seen her piece of the galaxy, traveling far and wide on either political or military business — and under considerably dire circumstances, she'd learned to adapt to new cultures overnight. Whether bunking with kind strangers or holing up in cellars, she'd experienced numerous lenses of life. She'd lived on sparse, unfamiliar supplies, and frequently eaten foods she couldn't identify; she'd learned songs in new languages and lost at many new children's games; and ultimately, she'd lived many lives beyond that of a princess. She prided herself on puzzling through the complex cultural gaps which otherwise would have bound her politics… and her survival.
"Fuck," she muttered through gritted teeth, pressing down on her bent fingernail. Glancing pain rang through her nail, while the rakes in her hair remained perfect.
No cultural experience could have prepared her for these goddamn pins.
The shower water hissed in her ear now, its allure lost on her — now more of a taunt than anything else. She'd started the water with every intention of entering, but she was nowhere close to releasing her hair from their ornate prison, and Han…
"Chewie, would you just- could you back the fuck off for a second, you think? Sheez, I can lay down by mys- I got it, I got it…"
Han wasn't much closer, either.
She'd only been so preemptive so that by the time she got him over to the shower, the water would be next to boiling. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine getting him in. The activities of the past hour had been nothing but scavenging the ship for blankets and occasionally dumping out a bucket.
Something fell over in the bedroom. Leia would have taken a peek outside, but she'd just made some headway on a pin.
"Not in a million kriffin' years would I let you- Chewie, would you get outta here so I can change? I said get outta here!"
Chewie replied with something Leia could not quite translate, but the tone of voice was unquestionably chastising. Naturally, this did not yield any good result.
"Now, you listen to me, pal — the only one here who needs babysitting is the dumbass flying my ship! Why don't you go see if he n…"
Just as Leia had loosed the first of many large pins, Han filled the air with the music of dry heaving, which only provoked more argument from Chewie. Something else, smaller, was audibly shoved onto the floor. Leia tugged harder on the next gold entrapment.
She wasn't so eager to open the door and face him yet. Han was in an inordinate amount of pain and disorientation, to be sure. Something about space travel, or the cooler temperature of the Falcon, was throwing his internal temperature into mayhem — the nausea and vertigo left him unfit to carry himself from room to room. He was trying to be gracious through the pain, surely…
"Did you hear what I said?" Han shouted, muffled through the door, punctuated by hitching breath. "Did you- are you hearing me? Get your ass up to the cockpit and stop treating- no, I don't need your help, okay? Just fuck off!"
Maybe he was beyond grace.
Leia had dropped a total of four pins into the sink before deciding to intervene. She opened the 'fresher door, releasing a breath of steam into the captain's quarters. Han was leaned halfway over the edge of the bed, near to his bucket, forehead shiny and brow furrowed. Chewie stood at the foot of the bed with a fresh shirt in hand. He didn't look too pleased, either.
"I've got the shower running," Leia informed them both, though her eyes landed on Han. He remained in his soaked undershirt, and now clung to the sheets with one hand, visibly shivering. When he saw her, he swallowed hard — no more harsh words to come, it seemed.
Although he was being a pain in the ass, she found she had no harsh words, either.
Exhaling, she let go of the doorway. "You'll feel better when you're clean," she insisted during her approach. To Chewie, she added, "I've got him. You can go."
Chewie sniffed. "He's being belligerent. I think I should stay."
"I'm not being belli-"
"I think it'd be better if you le-"
"-'m in kriffin' hell, here!" Han finished, and swiped a hand across his forehead. Chewie sent him a look.
"Chewie," Leia said, retrieving his attention. She lowered her chin certainly. "We're fine here."
This was a definitive enough statement that although Chewie was poised to argue, he did, with deliberation, reduce himself to a sour expression. He threw a paw at her in exasperation and made for the door.
"Hey," Han added before he left. "Hey, make sure Lando isn't tryn'a fix anything, all right? He's not as smart as he-"
"He managed to fix the hyperdrive-"
"-he- hey, I had her halfway there! Tell him-"
The door was shut between them, and Leia breathed a sigh of relief. She'd much underestimated the term "belligerent." Even after Chewie had gone, Han finished his sentence under his breath.
The room quiet now save for the sound of water wasting, Leia remembered the task at hand and turned back toward him. He was sweatier now, if imaginable — his face red from the exertion of the fight, now leaned over the side of the bed with both arms clutched around him. Damp pieces of hair visibly shook as he struggled to remain still, while shivers wracked his body. Even in this weakened state, his muscles were tense, and his face attempted to intimidate. He was bitterly angry that he felt so ill. She could feel it radiating off him.
Leia pressed her lips together, holding her words back since they could not serve him now. She reached a hand down into his hair, cold fingers stretching out and settling on his heated skin. His back caved slightly; his knees opened and allowed her to step closer. She moved further down his neck and grazed lines along the slope of his shoulder — either comforting or annoying or at best ineffective, but something other than words…
His head leaned against her arm, though he wouldn't look up at her. She frowned at the feeling of his pulsing temples.
"You shouldn't fight him," she mumbled, fingers gliding up to his jaw and brushing at the wet strands of hair. His face hid behind his hands, but she could sense he was listening. "He's been… in a different kind of pain."
"I don't need anyone helping me change." Han huffed into his palms. "I'm fine. I just need to get…"
His voice reached a weak point, and he stopped there, before she could hear it. He turned his face into her hand and sighed his punctuation.
Though this brief intimacy seemed to relax him, the burn of his fever concerned her. "You're getting too hot," she whispered to herself, feeling around his forehead.
"Thanks," he muttered. Leia quirked an eyebrow, surprised that she hadn't expected it.
Reaching her conclusion, she pulled her hand back to see him. "I'll turn down the water. You need to cool down."
"Oh kriff, no, Leia. I'm freezing!"
"I'm sure you feel that way," Leia dismissed, and took his hands in hers. He may have been resistant in spirit, but physically, he was no challenge — she peeled him off the bed. "We have to lower your temperature."
"Oh, of course," Han agreed with a grimace as she eased him to his feet. "'r else I'd start to feel bad."
She locked her knees under the pressure of his imbalance, and guided him toward the 'fresher door. "Or you'd become delusional — but that's seeming more and more like a lateral move to me."
He huffed his annoyance, head tossing back to give a smart response — but he knocked his head on the doorway, which shut him up instantaneously. Leia confined her amusement to a smirk, and gave his hair a gentle toss.
Once she'd managed to deliver him to the 'fresher, he slumped his way to a seated position with a thud. Freed from his weight, she did, despite all protest, lower the water temperature. Obviously he wasn't too bothered; his pants had already hit the floor.
"It's fuckin' hot in here," Han said through a shallow breath. She turned back to the sink in time to catch the bewildered — or nauseated — expression on his face as he tugged on his shirt.
"I told you," Leia reminded him. She wiped thick condensation off the mirror, enough to spot the remaining pins where they upheld a sad half-style. Sand itched under her bare feet as Han undressed beside her. She grimaced.
"…all this damn… sand," Han grumbled, voice just rising over the whisper of the water. In the corner of her eye, she watched him shake easily a pocketful of sand out of his shirt. "Makes everything feel about two times shittier than I already d…"
Leia tugged the last pin out of her hair, leaving only a few hundred tangles in its wake — but relief abounded when her hair freely fell to her back, the tension released from her scalp, like some grand emancipation. Her fingers ran a victory lap through her hair, a sigh finding a natural place there.
Somewhere between herself and her reflection, then, she noticed Han's eyes on her. She glanced at him sideways, challenging expression at the ready — prepared to reprimand him for ogling her when he ought to be in the shower, making use of the water they'd been wasting…
When she did catch him in the act, though, he wasn't quick to look away. In fact, his stare intensified, and not on her body. He was fixated on her hair, and then, her face — her eyes, more specifically. It was as though he'd just realized she was in the room.
"What?" she asked. The longer he looked at her, her breaths became nervous, and shallow.
He eyed her for another moment before seemingly coming to his senses. "Nothing," he assured her, averting his eyes.
Leia kept forgetting that he could see her now.
When they'd first boarded the Falcon, Leia hadn't had to worry about how she must have looked. Han was either bleary-eyed from dehydration or half-asleep — but now, he seemed to have a better grasp of consciousness. He was really seeing her.
Turning toward the mirror, Leia peered through the fog to get a better image of herself. She was a bit sunburned from the speeder ride, but that seemed to be a badge of effort for the lot of them. Her body was completely covered by Alliance garb, from elbows to ankles. She'd made sure of that.
In her peripheral vision, Han hobbled into the shower and slid the door halfway shut — an invitation, she knew.
Not only could he see her now. He was going to see her naked.
This was hardly the first time they'd been naked together, of course, but it felt more treacherous today. She had yet to survey the damage, herself. She really didn't know what her body looked like right now. What she was imagining didn't look good, though.
So with a deep breath, Leia tugged her shirt up and over her head in one swift motion. And she stopped there to assess.
Even through the cloudy mirror, the burned skin along her bra-line glowed with pride. The needlepoint masterpiece along her arms and neck had begun to heal since Bespin, though not by much. But this was nothing compared to the sight beneath her bra. The metal of the damned bikini had combined with the warmth of three suns to leave a masterpiece of welts over her skin. Her shoulders sank at the image.
She knew what to expect, then, as she removed the rest of her clothing. Identical burns and chafes marked her hips, stinging when air brushed against her skin. She bit her lip, turning and twisting in order to find some angle that didn't look disgusting.
He was going to see her naked, and she looked like this. She felt indecent.
"Fuck…"
Leia looked over toward the voice inside the shower, followed by the sound of heavier breaths. She swiftly opened the shower door, peeking in.
Han was on his feet, without help — a good sign, she might've thought, if he weren't bent over against the shower wall, knees shaking beneath his weight alone. As he found a tentative balance, his back arched, elongating and highlighting a familiar series of dark scars along his spine…
Her expression fell. She shut the door behind her.
Easing up behind him, Leia first located the soap — gripped tightly in between his hand and his thigh — and reached down to sneak it from his hand. Her other hand settled on his bare back, rubbing a soothing line up to his shoulder and back down. His tight muscles softened at her touch.
For once, he didn't fight her.
So she ran with the good luck and began to wash his back, her hands hesitant at first but quickly becoming comfortable. His body seemed to relax, for the first time in hours — as if these simple ministrations could take away all nausea and ache and disorientation. She worked down from his shoulders, gliding along to his lower back. All the while, her eyes followed the trail of his spine.
She counted sixteen probe scars from top to bottom, bluish and larger than her own. They'd been inserted more clumsily his time around, but then, he'd been fighting more. He'd been screaming more. Leia had enough experience to be able to dissociate, but he… he never stopped feeling things.
Her jaw trembled.
"'m sorry."
Leia snapped back to motion, before even realizing that he was speaking to her. "For what?" she asked. Her fingertips ghosted just beside his spine, suds softening the image…
"For yelling," he muttered, straightening up halfway. Leia gently took his hand and started up his arm; he looked away from her. "For fighting — I…"
She paused, listening as his voice drifted away. He wiped the water from his face anxiously, as if the rest of the words wouldn't come out at all.
Leia stopped, then, to reach her arms around his waist carefully. Her chest rested against his back, and her cheek came to follow. "You're in pain," she said, as if to convince him of that. "You've been through something terrible."
Funnily enough, those were the same things she'd been telling herself for the past six months. Gods knew she'd lashed out a few times after she'd lost him.
Her eyes returned to his spine. Her jaw trembled.
"You cold?" he asked suddenly. "I can turn it up."
Leia tried to force her jaw still, but it wouldn't comply. "I'm fine," she said, and turned her head, forehead resting in the center of his back. Her arms tightened around his midriff for comfort.
She'd almost lost him.
It should have relieved her, to be with him now, safe. After months of fearing he was out of reach, or dead, this moment should have been happy. She shouldn't have been on the verge of tears. She shouldn't have been taking shaky breaths of soap scent and praying to the gods that she wasn't about to wake up…
"You were right," Han announced, edging off the wall to turn toward her. "I think I'm feeling a little be-"
Leia's arms fell to her sides, then, allowing him to turn around. This happened to leave her bareness in perfect view, and when Han did turn, he froze. And she froze with him.
His sleepy eyes widened, the thought stopped at once.
Leia was filled with fear.
"Oh," Han breathed, and she could hear it in his voice. She could see it in his eyes — the shock, and the anger, and the distaste. She could feel his gaze every time it shifted from her face to her body, and how heavy it became, and how lustless it was. She could taste the impending rage like salt in the air.
Humiliated, she lowered her gaze. She couldn't bear to see him looking at her the same way Luke had looked at her when he'd first entered the palace. She couldn't bear to be tragic.
Suddenly, he stepped toward her, and Leia caught her breath. She opened her mouth to tell him not to be angry, to tell him that it was all right, but…
His hands hesitantly reached her ribs, making a slow path upward. Her jaw trembled; she watched with cloudy eyes as his fingertips grazed her breasts gently, just barely making contact. He stared down at her body studiously; she watched his eyes, breaths shallow.
Han was cautious as he went, ghosting over the red welts with featherlight touches. His thumbs brushed over the paler skin, sending shivers up her back. His gaze was colored with a mixture of guilt and... admiration. There was no disgust.
"I'm sorry," Han muttered a second time, his voice thick with emotion. He met her eyes sadly. "I'm sorry this happened."
She wanted to say that she was sorry, too. She wanted to apologize for letting it happen — for letting them take him away from her — for taking so long to find him and bring him home. She wanted to say something, anything...
Her jaw began to tremble, and for a moment, there was an unspoken communication between them — some silent conversation between their eyes. Before she could even start to cry, Han leaned down and caught her up in a tight embrace.
A sob caught in her throat, and many seconds passed before it finally ground its way out of her, painful and guttural. At the mere sound, Han's arms forcefully pulled her closer. His whole body shivered; he pressed his lips into her hair and took a sharp breath, as though he were physically hurting.
Leia wanted to get a word out between the frequent sobs wracking her body. She wanted to explain herself. She wanted him to know that she was crying for all of it just now — for the torture, and for thinking he was dead, and for loving him so, so much more than she ever intended…
But after all the hell they'd been through, all she found herself capable of doing was holding him.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Star Wars. I almost don't even want to take ownership for this.
Thanks for reading my shipper garbage. Leave a comment if you feel like brightening my day. If not, it's chill.