Hello loyal readers. If you have waited all this time or been on alert for updates - thank you! I've been directing a play, and all energy gets hurled into the show. You might want to refresh previous chapters because it's been well over 5 months for some of you and the timelines of this story shuffle around a bit. So - on with the next chapter with more to come soon. I promise!
Han andthen Leia's POV to reward your patience….
"You mean, to get out of here, I have to crawl through THAT?" Leia gaped with sheer horror at the mouth of the tunnel that vanished into the twisted darkness.
Han sighed for what seemed like the millionth time since this all began. Not a good start.
With wonderful timing, the ceiling groaned yet again and let loose another juddering crack. Sprinkles of snow settled on their heads like confetti. Han and Leia jointly absorbed the silence in its wake, which settled like a dead weight between them.
Han tilted a lip up.
"It could be worse."
"Worse?" Her dilated pupils and rising inflection stated that nothing could possibly be worse.
"Well yeah. The other option is to live here. But hey… I'm game if you are. I like to sleep on the left."
She didn't even bother to give him the eyebrow in reply. This was a bad sign. Her chest began to rise and fall swiftly.
"Han, I can't go into that." She pointed a very wobbly hand towards the offending hole.
"Sure you can."
"No, I really mean it. I can't."
Well aware that the princess was on the verge of panic, her inhalations becoming shorter and sharper by the second, Han rapidly weighed up his options. This is what he wanted to avoid all along.
Lately, he suspected something was seriously askew with Leia. Apart from the usual arguing, he'd been intently scrutinizing her for several days now. After carefully adding up the evidence, he concluded that the princess spent a hell of a lot of her time and energy screening something she perceived to be a shameful shortcoming.
Surreptitiously backing out of the crowded control room before calling an order from the doorway, refusing to travel in anything less than a 10 man transporter shuttle, and never, ever allowing herself to be left alone in the narrow service lift. Echo Base must be her worst nightmare – an interminable hot spot of pocket-sized and enclosed spaces.
He assumed it had to do with her incarceration on the Death Star and the torture she dauntlessly endured in the stark and clinical terror of the interior of cell 118. Gods damn the Empire to hell. The bastards.
Han struggled to find the words to help her. To get her moving. But time was ticking far too quickly. The crypt like sanctuary of the crevasse they were huddled in didn't sound like it would last much longer. And there was only one way to leave. Han mentally grimaced. Never tell me the odds.
Knocking her out wouldn't work. Anything could happen shuffling their way through what was the equivalent of 50 metres of slushy service pipe and he needed her conscious just in case.
He couldn't very well tie her up and pull her screaming, scratching, tooth and nail to safety could he? She was a small but tough little thing and the entire tunnel would probably collapse down on them if he did. Han didn't relish the thought. Besides, he couldn't imagine breaking the carefully erected barricades of Leia's poise. Part of him would also break if he did that. No, she had to do this herself.
Han uncurled a cold hand and gently grasped Leia's chin, turning her face towards his. But her eyes remained transfixed on the object of her mounting dread. She was beginning to hyperventilate.
"Hey sweetheart. Look at me"
"No. No. I can't. Don't ask me to do this…"
"Leia - Come on. It's all right - "
She jerked her face away from his hand.
"No. I won't. No - please!"
"Hey hey… Calm down."
"Get away from me."
Blank eyes reflected another time and place. Small hands were raised in meagre protection as she backed away.
"Hey - What's going on?"
He made a monumental mistake of reaching out to her and she violently flinched, warding off an invisible nemesis.
"It hurts. It hurts - "
"What hurts?"
"I won't tell you anything!"
"Leia honey stop-"
"I won't! I said no! No, no, no!"
"Leia - stop! It's Han. Look at me!"
Leia's suddenly sucked in a short breath and somehow snapped herself back from the thick mist of her delirium. His apprehension eased somewhat as she scanned her surroundings and they slowly became lucid. Her befuddled expression flicked up and found his.
"Han?"
"I'm here."
She let out a soft cry, immediately pressing her fingers across her mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to smother it.
In the rare moments when Leia forgot she was a Princess and the robes of ceremony, decorum and self-discipline were ruthlessly stripped away; Han was reminded quite sharply that she was just a girl. A girl who needed him from time to time.
"Where did you go?" he whispered.
"I'm sorry."
The words sounded so fragile.
"Don't be."
Her bottom lip trembled. Han silently cursed the Empire once more as glassy tears finally welled up and she began to break under the strain of holding on for so long.
Decorum be damned.
Leia's throat was on fire from holding back the aching tears. She gulped coarsely, desperately trying to stem the dam from bursting, but she knew it hopeless with Han looking at her with such naked concern. She glanced down and away. It was too much. She was red raw and there was nowhere to hide. She heard a muttered cuss word and a cautious hand wrapped around her upper arm.
"Come here."
Just as the tears spilled over her cheeks, Leia felt herself tip forward into warm, solid arms. As she was unapologetically pulled across his lap, they slid slowly to firmly encircle her waist and shoulders, as her body was pressed snug against the masculine plains of a broad and muscular chest. The top of her head was tucked neatly under a lightly whiskered chin.
Of their own accord, Leia's eyes slid shut and clutching in both fists the soft material of the shirt revealed under the unzipped part of his snowsuit, she let out a keening wail.
A puff of air brushed across her ear as a low voice murmured, "That's it. Let it out. You'll be okay. It's okay" and he began to slowly rock her.
One large hand stretched up and smoothed over the lines of her back. Up, down and across. The other deftly cupped the back of her head as a vagrant thumb performed its own dance along the hairline of her neck.
Long, leisurely caresses, as if he had the whole night to wait for her to calm. Stinging tears now freely poured out and dampened the front of the shirt and deep slit of skin it exposed as his voice continued to roll over and through her in waves.
"It's okay. Shhh. I'm here. Shhh. "
The soothing and tender stranger again. No innuendo. No bravado. He was simply pacifying a frightened soul. She had never felt so safe and she couldn't resist rubbing a wet cheek against the heat that radiated from his skin. His heartbeat, so strong and deep and the minor abrasiveness of the light spray of hair crinkling against her face were deliciously comforting. She was drifting in the sensation and the awful ache she had been enduring for so long began to subside.
The small part of 'Everyday Leia' that wasn't dormant, realised that she should be outraged that Han could be perceived as taking liberties – and that she was wallowing in them, but she was so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of standing on her own. Tired of being scared but brave and always saying and doing what was right. THIS was right. This was what she needed.
In defiance, Leia screwed her eyes tighter and burrowed herself closer into his chest, clasping her own arms around the glorious cocoon of his body. She took a long, luxuriating and cleansing breath as his hands continued to hypnotise with their rhythmical stroking and latent heat. She swore she could feel it through the layers of her snowsuit.
He smelled so good. A unique aroma she always associated with Han – faintly of soap, but mainly Falcon engine grease, the leather of his weathered gun belt and boots and an undefinable salty male muskiness she was yet to name.
Her breathing slowed to match his and the hot tears gradually, finally stopped. The pain was gone and her whole world was still at last. Completely drained, Leia sniffed quietly and then, to her utter mortification - loudly hiccupped.
Han's body shook slightly and there was a muffled chuckle that reverberated through his torso.
Modesty reluctantly crept back with reality. The darkness refused to mask her growing sense of propriety. How could she face him after such a display? She practically – no not practically – she actually succumbed to a rip roaring meltdown and then willingly fell into the arms of the man she had bullied and sparred with since they arrived on Hoth. Cried like a child. And liked it.
Leia released what she hoped was an imperceptible groan. It was done and there was no use putting off the inevitable, so she leaned back a tad and peeked up. Han gazed back, his hands finally still and resting on her waist. The obligatory renegade lip was still on duty, but it failed to conceal the kindliness in his eyes that started all of this.
"Better?"
"Yes."
Inexplicably, in the space it took to say those two words, Leia realised she felt no shame or embarrassment. It was then that she knew what she had to do.
Pulling away gently, she carefully untangled her limbs from Hans and created the required distance, mindful that he was quietly watching as she put the familiar layers back on, one by one, her strength returning, flooding back into her.
After wiping her face clear, adjusting the zipper of her snowsuit, and tucking an errant strand of hair behind an ear, there was just one more thing to do.
Pushing her shoulders back and tipping her chin up regally, Leia looked Han right the eye. Her voice clear and unwavering -
"I'm ready Captain."
Thanks for reading. TBC…