Chapter Twenty:

Han felt like he'd spent the last few days as the ball in a smashball tournament. His joints popped every time he moved and his back was killing him. He wasn't sure if all this pain was from sitting on a cave floor for the better part of a day, sliding on his knees in the corridor when he thought it was Leia lying dead on the floor instead of Ral, or when he'd fallen through a hatch onto his back.

Or, well, actually, Leia had tackled him to the platform, too. It usually took him a few hours to feel pain like this, though. And it had only been thirty minutes since they'd hit the boarding ramp of the Falcon. So he had that additional pain to look forward to in the coming hours.

Han sighed and leaned back in the pilot's chair. He glanced at Chewie, who grinned ferociously. Han couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the smile. It looked equal parts terrifying and ecstatic.

"Well, pal," he said. "Not the worst escape we've ever made."

Not the best, either, Chewie growled. Quite a dramatic scene out there on the platform.

Han waved his hand dismissively. "Write it down for the memoirs."

Chewie huffed again, amused. They settled into a quiet, familiar pattern of running system checks. Twice Han consulted the port displays to make sure Luke was still hanging tight in his X-Wing and not running off.

The rhythm of their system checks calmed Han's anxiety. The emotional cool-down to these little adventures took longer the older he got, particularly when Leia was involved. He'd started to value the therapeutic maintenance of flying. It sorted his brain out. Gave him some time and space. And though they were out of immediate danger, he knew they weren't done with Sluis Van. Not by a long shot. He had to make sure his baby was ready to turn around and dig into the bigger fight, if it came to that.

This was the calm before the storm.

"Hey," Han said after a moment. "In case I forget to say anything later: thank you."

Chewie looked at him, his eyes wide. Of course, he said.

They resumed their silent communion, heads bent down in concentration. A few moments later the hatch hissed open and a slim hand brushed against the nape of Han's neck. He looked up to see Leia standing in the space between the seats, just slightly behind him. She'd changed out of the robes she'd been wearing and into a softer, more spacer-friendly ensemble.

He toggled the lateral burners out of their last system check then turned to look at Leia. "You look a lot more comfortable."

She hummed in response. "Running in those robes was not … ideal."

Han nodded but felt that phantom tug in his chest cavity, the rage he'd felt when he saw her appear in front of him on the landing platform. Relief and anger had swarmed in his gut as she ran toward him, the dark red of her robes whipped into a frenzy all around her. She'd distracted him. All he could think of was the image of the credit-sized blaster bolt between her eyes and the fear that she would be shot dead here, courageous to a fault, too good to doubt herself, just beyond his reach.

Her voice disrupted his thoughts. "Great shooting with the belly gun," she said to Chewie.

The Wookiee grinned again, his smile for her a little softer than his for Han. Thank you for taking him down so I could use it. He shot a hand out and lightly punched Han's arm.

Han grimaced and rubbed the sting away. "I can't read your mind, Furball," he scowled.

But she did, Chewie responded joyfully, standing up and stretching. I am going to check on the Sluissi and get some sand out of my fur. Come get me when we have a destination.

"Copy that," Han said. Leia's hand slipped from his neck as she moved to let Chewie pass. Once he'd closed the hatch, Leia moved to stand in between the seats, then turned to face him and stepped close enough to straddle him in the pilot's chair. Han leaned back and ran his hands up and down her thighs.

"Where are we?" she asked quietly.

He reached above her to flip the inertial compensator down a notch. "Open space outside the system. Luke's off to port."

She nodded. "I'm assuming they're tracking us."

"Probably. Luke says Artoo kept an eye out for the X-Wing while you two were adventuring. The Imps didn't get anywhere near it. If we're sending a transmission to Cracken, we should do it through him."

Leia tilted her head and looked down at her hands. They began at his shirt front, smoothing the fabric against his skin. Up and down she moved her hands, watching his chest rise and fall. Han let her have a moment, feeling like she might need this in the same way he needed their system checks. To process. To decompress.

Finally, her hands swept up to his shoulders and to either side of his face. His eyes met hers and he sat still, waiting. She breathed deeply twice before she traced her index finger along his hairline. Then she looked at him again. "Are you okay?" she said.

Her eyes were fluid, shifting, looking at a thousand different things at once. He had the oddest desire to make her stop wandering. "Better now," he breathed. "Are you okay?"

She pursed her lips. Her eyes grew even heavier, fuller. She was about to cry, he suddenly realized. He snaked his hands from her thighs to her back and pulled her to him, tucking her head into his neck.

"I didn't know what I would find when I came back," she said. He barely heard her. Her voice sounded so small.

Han nodded and kissed the top of her head. "I know."

"You could have been dead and I wouldn't have known. They could have killed you and left nothing to trace."

"I'm fine, Leia," he said.

"This time," she hissed, sitting up to look him in the eye again. "This time you're fine."

"Hey," he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. "It's going to take a lot more than that to get rid of me, Sweetheart."

Her face made a slow progression through anger, and pain, and relief. It occurred to him that the only time he'd truly felt helpless since they left Coruscant was in this moment. He couldn't do anything to bring her defenses back up. Early on, he'd mistaken those shields for aristocratic apathy, but he'd been so wrong. Part of what made Leia fierce was her tendency to feel everything so deeply. She was extremely empathetic, more than Luke, more than anyone he'd ever known. She held so much pain behind those shields, trapped in a giant heart with too much room for everybody else.

Her distress now humbled him.

She dropped her eyes and tried to compose herself. When she looked back up a familiar spark illuminated her eyes. "I didn't go to Cracken first."

His fingers were playing near the waistband of her pants, sliding across the skin on her lower back. "I wasn't sure you would." He sighed. "Let me guess: you tried the council."

"They rejected my request."

Han tilted his head back and stared at the edge of the viewport above them. "Not really a surprise."

Leia leaned in, ran her lips under his jaw. Not a kiss, not an incendiary motion. Just comfort. "No. But you were right." She sat back and grabbed his hands in hers. "I had too much faith in them."

He swallowed. He didn't like being right this time. "It's not a bad thing to have some faith."

She shook her head. "No. It isn't. But that was too much faith."

Han didn't have a reply for her. He had never had her blind assurance that the council knew best. He hadn't had it for High Command either. He'd had faith in the leadership because Leia was there, everyone's conscience, making sure the little guy still landed on top. His faith was in her, not her compatriots, and certainly not in the establishment. But no matter what type of system, no matter how honest it's foundation, someone would always be worse off. That's how the galaxy worked. Speaking as an orphan from a fully governed planetary system, he could testify to the failures of the system.

What he loved most about Leia was that she made him believe in good again. It was easy to get jaded while working on the wrong side of the law, and he'd done enough in his life to know not to have blind faith in people. But Leia - and Luke, too, he admitted - they were good. The definition of it, really. Fundamentally good.

And while he knew this day would come sooner or later, he was a little crestfallen. As seasoned as she was, as confident and battle-tested, she was just now confronting the dilemma inherent in winning a just war: who do you fight when there is no clear enemy anymore? And for Leia it went even deeper than that: what do you do when the just war you fought turned you into a warrior?

That odd combination of world-wary soldier and political idealist had to crumble at some point. He just hadn't thought it would be today.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it.

She sighed. "That's not the worst of it, either. To get Cracken's help, I had to sign a commission."

No. He sat up straight. "Tell me you didn't."

"I did," she said, but rolled her eyes. "Don't give me that look. I know what I'm doing."

"I'm glad one of us does," he muttered. "Leia, the man is a snake. We can't trust him - "

The barest hint of a smile appeared on her lips. "Trust me," she said, kissing him softly.

She broke the kiss and sat back in his lap, giving him space. But he didn't want space. He'd had enough space already. He leaned forward, sliding his hands to her hips, craning his neck to kiss her again. He wasn't thinking of sex, not yet. He was thinking of making that tiny simile on her face grow.

But she put a finger to his lips.

"I want to run something by you," she said, cocking an eyebrow. "Something I've been thinking about since we went to Coruscant."

"Kiss me again," he said, to counter-offer.

Leia gave him a wary look and then leaned down to kiss him again. Her lips were soft, sweet. He let her lead him, keeping his hands on her hips and resisting the urge to run his tongue over hers. She pulled back but kept her lips close to his. She whispered in a deep, throaty voice: "Marry me."

He jerked and his head hit the back of his chair with a soft thump. Leia opened her eyes and stared at him like she was daring him to react but he couldn't help it. He gaped at her. "What? Now?"

Her faint smile almost distracted him. Almost. "We are going to have to land somewhere and gather all our data together. We need somewhere safe, secure, where we can disable the tracking devices on the Falcon. We need somewhere to hide the Sluissi. And we need to stay relatively close by in case our next assignment is back on Sluis Van. Cracken may want to attack, or capture a mole miner, or try and find Thrawn again - "

"Mole miner?"

She waved off his question. "And it occurs to me that this, now, would be about us."

He remembered those words. Her argument about putting off their wedding. The minute we can do this and have it be about us is the minute I'll start planning it.

That had been her stance before they'd left Coruscant. He wasn't sure when the switch happened. "Why the change of heart?"

Leia's smile grew. "If this disaster of a mission has taught me anything, it's that I don't want to waste any more time. I have no idea who I am anymore, but I know who you are. And I know what I want."

Had that been the problem all along? That she hadn't known who she was?

It put her reticence in perspective. He'd been under the impression that she wasn't sure of them or their ability to navigate their relationship in the volatile clutches of a pandemonious galaxy. And that had, frankly, scared the shit out of him, because as he had told her: they were the only part of his life that made any sense to him.

"You're the same person you always were," he said. "You're the same person I've always known. Doesn't matter where you hasn't changed."

She nodded. "Yes, but I've been assuming the person you know is the same person I was on Alderaan. The consummate professional diplomat." She sighed. "I don't think that's true anymore. You didn't know her. You've only known the me without a people. You've only known the me with a blaster."

He sat back. She looked at him quietly for a moment. When he didn't say anything, she tilted her head. "Does that … I know it doesn't make sense - "

"It does," he interrupted. He reached up and fingered the braid that snaked over her shoulder. "I just don't know why you think this you is any less important than that you."

" I - " she began, then paused. She frowned. "I don't know."

"People change, Leia," he said. "They change because they have to. Luke changed because he had to be somebody different to take down Vader. Would you tell Luke that him changing was a bad thing?"

"No," she said.

"I changed because suddenly I was in a galaxy where people cared about me. You, and Luke and Lando and those damn droids. You saved me when you didn't have to. Would you tell me that me changing was a bad thing?"

Leia closed her eyes and shook her head.

"So why the hell is it a bad thing that you changed?" he asked.

She was quiet. He let her have her moment, processing something that had obviously been eating her alive for awhile now. He hadn't realized how much she'd been doubting herself; if he'd had any idea that this was the reason for her hesitancy to marry him, he would have called her out on it months ago. How long had she been feeling this way?

Knowing Leia, probably years.

Finally she looked back at him and gave him a watery smile. "I think Sluis Van made you smarter," she said.

He nodded good-naturedly. "Probably."

She watched her hand press against his face, her eyes focused on her fingers caressing his cheek. When she looked up at him, she was wearing her old indomitable expression again. "I still want to marry you," she said.

The utter conviction in her voice was like a song, but he had to check one last thing. "You're sure it's not because of what just happened?" The cessation of action, the let down of a mission? The fear that she'd come back to Sluis Van and never find him?

Relief made people do crazy things.

"Han," she said seriously, then smiled at him. Her full wattage smile, burning at a thousand degrees, brighter than any number of suns he'd seen in his life. "I want this. Whoever I am, I want this."

He was a little dazzled, he couldn't deny it. "You're sure?"

Smile still in place, she nodded.

"Well, alright," he said, thinking hard. "Then there's only one place we should go."

Kashyyyk was a beautiful world: verdant and teeming with enormous flora. To Leia the giant forest felt protective, shielding. Whereas Endor's forests had felt ominous, like it hid dangerous secrets from her, Kashyyyk felt open, trustworthy.

She conceded that her perceptions were biased: she'd fought a battle on Endor. She'd only spent time on Kashyyyk since its liberation. And her time during previous visits had mostly consisted of Malla's exuberant delight that "their human cub had found a worthwhile mate". It was a nice respite from the constant veiled judgment she received on Coruscant.

She'd been back three times since her initial visit. It had been a safe haven for the crew of the Millennium Falcon through the years and Leia, as Han's worthwhile mate, had been welcomed back each time with open arms. Malla was a kind being, fiercely protective and assertive when it came to Han's well-being, and she had obviously adopted him as her cub long ago.

Leia smiled fondly and turned to watch Chewie lead Lumpawaroo around the base of their hometree. She'd lasted all of an hour in the chaos of the exuberant welcome before slipping out to arrange the data package for Cracken. She could still hear the happy mix of Basic and Shryiiwook as it filtered down to where she sat on a relatively small Wroshyr root. The wind was picking up, just a slight breeze now, but Han had warned her that even slight windstorms tended to be dangerous for humans on this planet. The detruis that rained from above on an arboreus world was too unpredictable; according to Han, he'd seen a human knocked to his death by an erstwhile tree limb on more than one occasion.

She kicked her feet idly. Even a small Wroshyr root was too high for her to sit and still reach the forest floor. This gargantuan world made her feel like a child.

They hadn't yet sent the data to Cracken. She wanted just a few minutes here first to organize her thoughts. She'd been ruthless about forcing everyone aboard the Falcon and an amused X-Wing pilot to make reports during the flight to Kashyyyk, except, of course, for the hatchlings. And now she was staring at a great pool of data without a clear idea of how to begin analyzing it.

Leia sighed and dropped her head back to stare at the trees above her.

She was also reconciling herself with the awful feeling of having sent a subordinate to her death. This wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, either. But the deep ache in her stomach - the guilt - was not something to which one became accustomed. No matter how she tried to rationalize it, Ral's death was her responsibility. That Han had been unable to retrieve her body was also weighing heavily on her.

And then, too, she was contemplating Han's comments about the necessity of her change during the Rebellion. The way he had described it made it sound more like evolution than an unfortunate result of warfare.

Her brain was not big enough to hold all these thoughts at one time.

"Can't even take a moment, huh?" she heard Han say. His voice carried on the breeze. She turned to smile at him as he sauntered over and dropped to sit next to her on the massive root, matching her pose. He reached across and grabbed one of the three datapads stacked beside her. "It's gonna get bad out here soon."

She nodded but refocused on the datapad on her lap. "I can't shut my brain off," she said.

"That's what whiskey is for," he said. Leia chuckled but didn't reply. "Hey, looks like a party."

She looked up to see her brother walking over to where she and Han sat, a familiar exasperated expression on his face. "Wookiee cubs are too interested in lightsabers," he said, sitting on Leia's other sides and picking up the last two datapads. "Loss of limb doesn't seem to be a big deterrent around here."

"The current elder lost a hand in a Clone Wars battle," Han said. "Cubs have a little hero worship, that's all. Any of 'em ask about your hand?"

Luke leaned over Leia and stared at Han in disbelief. "You told them about my hand?"

"Just a little," Han said. "Maybe."

Luke groaned but looked back at the datapads. "Have you found anything, Leia?"

She'd been listening peripherally to their conversation, amused but not fully engaged. "Well, there's a lot of little somethings."

"Just not a big something," Han said.

She shook her head. They had weeks' worth of observations and no underlying understanding of what the mole miners were being used for. At the very least she was happy to have confirmation of Thrawn's identity through both the footage of Ral's death and the head khedive's testimony that they'd quickly recorded en route to Kashyyyk.

It wasn't Thrawn strapped to a gurney, but it was as good an identification as one could expect considering the circumstances.

"Well, three heads are better than one," Han continued. He looked right at her. "Thrawn is building mole miners on Sluis Van."

"It's easy and cheap." Luke said. "All he had to do was hold the hatchlings for ransom and the head khedive would order someone - "

"Sctolvtz," Han supplied.

"You get that name right but you keep mispronouncing M'ylish?" Luke shook his head. "Someone like Sctolvtz to hide the details of the durasteel shipments from the local government."

"And then kill him when we started snooping around," Han said.

"There's something about the droids, too," Leia added. "Selective memory wipes. The interdiction over Coruscant had the same experience as we did in the docking bay. Droids who should know things that don't know things."

"And Ral's footage has a bunch of droids in the vault," Luke said.

"I'm pretty sure Thrawn killed Teradoc at some point," Han added. "Most of the Imps we saw on Sluis Van didn't feel like they were super loyal. They were probably just former Teradoc people scared into service for Thrawn."

"I felt that, too," Luke chimed in. "One of the mole miners escaped. Don't forget that."

Leia dropped her datapad in her lap. "And Thrawn launched the Clawcraft as a diversion. Which means he was watching us."

Han looked at her warily. "He's not the only one. Cracken bugged the hotel room."

Leia caught Luke's mouth drop open. "I know," she answered. "I … can't think about that right now."

The trio slipped into silence, consumed by their own thoughts. Leia was focusing on the next logical step: sending the data package to Cracken. She knew it was inevitable, but something about putting their hard work into that man's hands seemed dirty to her. She was used to making her own decisions; answering to someone she didn't trust rankled every single nerve she had.

But this was the game they were playing. And she had to play by Cracken's rules. For now.

"Okay," she said, folding her hands in her lap and nodding. "I guess it's time."

Sending the data package was even less satisfying than she had imagined. Cracken himself didn't answer their communique, and they ended up directing the data into a secure NRI catch-and-grab file system with a special tag denoting its urgency. The aide they spoke with insisted that the data drop was safer if it went directly to NRI servers and not simply to Cracken's personal folder.

Leia was disconcerted that Cracken wasn't taking her calls, though. That was unsettling.

The call with the aide ended and with the data uploaded, they really had nothing else to do but wait for Cracken's orders.

She smiled and looked at Han, animatedly talking to Luke about the caves under the khedive residence. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that Cracken couldn't immediately order them offworld. They could play nice for the moment and further their own agenda. She patted Artoo and moved towards her boys, slipping an arm through Han's elbow and deciding, for the moment, to ignore all her responsibilities. After the last few weeks that they'd had, she felt they deserved it.

Like anything else about their relationship, Han and Leia's wedding was a short resolution for a long build-up. They'd fought for years before admitting what they felt. Then they were suddenly together, the velocity on the switch between antagonists to lovers so quick it confused everyone else around them. Then they were engaged and time stretched forlornly ahead of them without a clear wedding date, a run-on sentence without punctuation.

To Luke, this sudden elopement felt very characteristic.

There were few witnesses to the event: himself, Chewie, Malla, and Chieftain Ovarra, who conducted the ceremony. Leia wore a simple blue dress that she'd had Winter smuggle out of their apartment while Leia herself had gone to Cracken for help in rescuing Han.

When Han had found out that little tidbit, he'd kicked Luke out of the Falcon and rushed Leia off in the direction of their cabin so quickly that Luke was left a little dazed.

Luke himself thought Leia's forethought was quite adorable, but he'd never admit that. Particularly after he'd had to spend the rest of the evening being fussed over by Malla.

The ceremony was short. Luke understood exactly one third of it; Ovarra had spoken Shryiiwook, but near the middle Han spoke Corellian and Leia Alderaanian. He meant to ask them what they said, though to be honest, it didn't really matter. Whatever they said, it seemed short, sweet, and loving, and that was all that he could really hope for.

Afterwards they had a small dinner. It was surreal, because he'd always imagined that Leia's wedding would be an enormous affair, with caterers and impeccable flower arrangements. He'd been to a few weddings growing up, and if Tatooine ceremonies were that grand, he could only imagine the wedding the crowned princess of Alderaan should have had.

But Luke was looking at Leia now. And she simply radiated joy.

Luke kept getting the image of a bubble adrift on the wind, a little escape in the middle of turmoil. And he liked that image. It made sense to him. For the two strongest people he knew, it seemed only fitting. Chaos surrounded Han and Leia. It always had. It probably always would. But he only saw the bubble and felt the peace from them both as the festivities concluded. And if that's all the Force was going to show him about the subject, then so be it. Han was happy. Leia was happy.

Luke found peace in that.

Day three of their trip to Kashyyyk found Han and Leia ensconced in their cabin aboard the Falcon. Leia's blue dress had been thrown onto the foot of the bunk hours ago but had since slipped to the floor. If she bothered to turn her head to look, she would see an uninterrupted pathway of hairpins lying on the floor from hatch to bunk. Halfway through the path, Han's semi-formal military jacket lay completely forgotten. Shoes littered the deck plates, four corners of a disastrous scene centered completely around the bunk.

But Leia didn't have any desire to turn her head. She had much better sights to behold.

Like the weirdly erotic sight of Han's hand smoothing across her naked waist, the glint of a titanium band catching the light.

She could stare at that forever.

"You're killing me, Princess," Han growled into her ear from behind her.

She ran her tongue over her lips and slowly turned her head until she could see his face. She waited until he looked down at her, until she could see the flecks of brown in his eyes. And she said, in the lowest voice she could muster: "Then you shouldn't have put me in charge."

The sound he made was so distressed it made Leia smile. Han dropped his head to her shoulder and she turned her focus forward again. She eyed that ring on his hand, felt him breathe harshly against her shoulder, and then slid her left hand over his. She pressed her ring against its twin and thought she might melt there on the spot.

That ring -

"Leia," he groaned again and she decided she'd teased him enough. She lifted up, using her legs folded on either side of his thighs, and then slid back down on him. And oh god but the way he felt inside her was superlative. There weren't words for this addiction. The healthiest drug she'd ever known, and fuck she'd never build a tolerance for it -

His other hand slid to her left breast and she dropped her head back against his chest. She couldn't see him, not really, his head was leaning against hers and her best view was of his throat. Leia watched him swallow as she began a long, slow circle of her hips. The exquisite pressure tore her stomach to shreds. She felt her control slipping away, her need for orgasm so strong that she abandoned his purposeful torture.

"Fuck," he muttered against her forehead and moved his hand from her breast, trailing down slowly. She pushed her tempo faster, looking down to watch his fingers play expertly over her clit. Han's breath was hot in her ear and he kept repeating that same beautiful word, over and over. Fuck … fuck … fuck …

Her orgasm tore through her just before he reached his, and she was instantly grateful that his arm was so secure around her waist because she was in serious danger of pitching forward onto the deck plates. As it was, it took her a moment to calm down. She felt more than heard Han's heavy breathing against her shoulder; her ears were full of her own racing heartbeat.

The first thing she noticed was the tingling in her legs. She pushed back against his chest wordlessly, hoping experienced, worldly Han Solo would realize her dilemma. He took her hint and fell back against the sheets; she rearranged herself to lie on her back next to him, mirrored poses, their legs dangling off the bunk.

She breathed and stared at the ceiling until her eyes drifted closed and she felt Han's hand reach over and take hers. She hummed and rolled to face him, opening her eyes to take him in. Their clasped hands were wedged between their chests and Leia could feel the imprint of that incredible ring of his against her skin.

"I know we're gonna have to leave this cabin soon," Han said, "but it's going to be very tough."

Leia nodded and dropped her head to his chest. There was a lot they still had to do, but for now this was all she could have ever wanted. She closed her eyes and fell asleep quickly, the word husband a wonderful lullaby in her ears.

Thanks again to HoldoutTrout for her great commentary and read-through. I can't change Lumpawaroo's name, dear. I'm sorry. I would if I could. -KR