Leia couldn't remember anything that happened after that, but she woke pinned under Han's unconscious body. Her thoughts felt thick and blurry. Han… something's happened. What happened? Her right arm hurt. It hurt a lot. She tried to focus, work out what she was doing, but her sight clouded and she fell back into darkness.

"Princess. Hey. Hey, your highness! Leia! Wake up! Oh, hell… you have to be OK…" She could just barely hear Han's voice over the ringing in her ears. He sounded far away, but she could feel a hand on her shoulder, grip almost too tight for comfort. He shook her gently, and a stab of pain shot from Leia's fingers to her neck. She took a sharp breath and managed to speak. "I'm alright."

The princess's voice was strained and clearly in pain. Leia was tiny, lying under a dusting of fallen ice with her dark hair spilling from its braids. It made a splash of dark colour across the floor. In the inky gloom, it looked far too much like blood. Han breathed a sigh of relief as she spoke, but didn't relax. "No, you're not. What is it?"

"Nothing. I'm fine." Her voice was shaking, and when Han took his hand from her shoulder, that tiny, abrupt gasp gave it away.

"Your arm. Stay still—it's hurt, maybe broken."

"I know," she spat and sat up.

Leia still hadn't opened her eyes, trying to hide the fact that they were watering with pain. It hurt. It hurt so much. But she'd had worse. At least, she'd had worse once, and she'd managed not to give any information away. This time, though, the pain was real. It wasn't just the interrogator droid playing with her mind, trying to convince her how much it hurt. This time, she actually was injured, and who knew how badly.

If you hadn't been watching carefully, you might not have noticed how much pain Leia was in. Her breathing was too fast, not quite regular, and her jaw was tense, but her face was still as stone and she didn't make a sound.

She supported her broken arm, holding it still against her chest with a shaking hand. Han noticed that her nails were bitten right down to the quick. She took a couple of deep breaths before saying "I think it's my shoulder—my collarbone maybe. Do you have something I can use as a bandage?"

Leia gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the dizziness that seemed to blur everything except the pain in her arm. Han passed her a black bandanna, and she folded it into a sling to support her arm. "Tie it," she ordered him. He knotted it behind her with gloved hands brushing the back of her neck.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Han asked. When she didn't answer straight away he spoke louder. "Are you—"

"No. I heard you the first time."

Silence fell, and Leia looked around. They were in a small, triangular cave, high enough on one side for her to stand comfortably with the roof sloping down to meet the ground at the other wall. It was maybe two metres long and wide enough to fit the two of them side by side. "How did this happen?"

"One of the support beams is stuck in the ice, and the tarpaulin tore and got stuck as well. I dragged you in here, but I got hit with a piece of snow, or rock, or something."

"You saved my life."

"I saved both our lives." Han surprised her with his flat tone. "For now."

"What do you mean?" She had an awful feeling she knew exactly what he meant.

"Unless someone finds us soon, we'll run out of air."

"No, we won't." It was dark in the cave, but not pitch black—Leia could look around, but the light had a filtered quality to it as if it had been reflected many times, and had to shine through some thick cloth like— "The tarpaulin! The light's shining through a hole in the ice, reflecting around a bit, and coming through the tarpaulin. That means air is too." She felt a sense of joy disproportionate to what she'd discovered, and grinned. Her arm still hurt, but the pain was beginning to fade.

"Good, but it also means our body heat won't warm up this space."

Leia half-laughed. She suddenly felt very, very unsteady, and she was starting to shake. Her arms and legs felt weak and quivery. Han swore under his breath.

"Leia, you're going into shock."

"No, I'm—alright, I am." She looked at her broken arm. "Help me with my belt?"

"What!?"

"Loosen any possibly restrictive clothing, it's part of the treatment for—oh." Heat spread down from her ears, around her neck and up to her cheeks.

"S-sure." Han swallowed. "OK." He moved to kneel right next to Leia. Carefully, he undid her belt and loosened it by one clip. He re-fastened it, trying (and failing) to keep his mind blank, something difficult when he could sense Leia's breathing, too fast to be normal, and feel her breath on the back of his neck.

With Han's hair almost brushing her chin, Leia was having trouble keeping her thoughts straight, although hopefully, that was from shock or a concussion. Something—anything—other than Han's nearness and his hands at her waist. Her heart was racing, and her stomach seemed to have jumped up to her chest.

"You're shaking," Han said, looking up. They were almost eye-to-eye now, with only a few inches of space between them.

"It's not from shock," she said without thinking.

"Isn't it? Why are you shaking then?" asked Han, apparently innocent. "Is it the same reason your breathing's irregular?"

"My breathing is not irregular. It's fine, and this is not the time to be… to be…" Leia searched desperately for a word. The ringing in her ears was back, and she was finding it hard to concentrate.

"To be what, princess?"

"To be… Han!" She threw both hands up in exasperation—or tried to. Her whole right side flared with pain and she doubled over, gasping.

"Leia!"