Motives

"Hold my calls and cancel my one o'clock." ~Leia Organa

Chapter 24

Coruscant, the next day

"Don't look at me like that. Haven't you ever seen a sick man before?" The President snapped at Han from across his small desk. "What? Did you think I was lying when I said I was feeling ill?"

Han hadn't realized that he was staring. Orakzai looked awful, as old as Han had ever seen him look. "Sorry," Han mumbled.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure," Orakzai grumbled. "As I was saying: the conference is in two days. Only the President can sit as the human representative of Corellia. These papers will grant you all rights and privileges of the President's office."

Han couldn't help the wave of nervous energy that passed through his body. Even if it was just a temporary thing, becoming the President of Corellia for just one day, one meeting, was a little much to take in. "There's gotta be someone else-"

"No," Orakzai cut his words short. "You're here. You've been in on all the goings on here. It would take too long to get anyone else up to speed." The President eyed Han for a long moment then snapped, "Straighten up and do your duty, soldier."

Orakzai had ended his rant with is old commander's voice and Han was a little bit ashamed at how easily it had him about to say 'yes,sir' in an almost involuntary response. It was bad enough that his spine stiffened up and he had gone into his old military posture so it was all that he could do to keep his lips clamped shut. The small room was crowded with witnesses. Something that was fairly common during a meeting with the President but now took on an entirely different feel.

"Sign here," Orakzai directed, deflecting any further protests before they could even be broached. "Beneath my signature and on every page thereafter."

Han capitulated without further complaint, bending down to begin signing his name when he commented, "Why's your signature so long?"

The President coughed. "We all can't have three and four letter names," he snapped again. "Now stop asking questions and just do as your told."


It took four hours to sign and file all the correct paperwork, but when Han stepped out of Orakzai's small, personal office, he was for all intents and purposes President of Corellia. He stood by himself in the waiting room, staring at the multiple screens of surveillance and news vids. The feelings that had come over him were difficult to describe. He felt all at once overwhelmed and proud and scared-as-hell and more than just a little bit angry. This wasn't what he had signed up for. All this responsibility, all this change. First a father (and a husband), then a politician and now this.

His conversation with Eliza the night before had been emotional and painful and he had had enough of those types of talks recently to last a lifetime. He wondered when the end would be in sight? When all of his sacrifice would bring dividends of happiness instead of more and more pain? There was only so much a man could do, so much he could take. He began to wonder where it had just started to get out of hand. Trying to back through every step taken and every decision made only made his head scream in a pang of protest that shot right through is eye sockets. He could 'if' this situation to death, he knew. If he had never gone to Corellia, if he had known Eliza wasn't really his, if he hadn't married Sasha, if Leia hadn't...

He found it hard on his heart to blame Leia for all of this. She had only tried to do what was best for him and decisions made after that couldn't all be traced back to her. The thing that drove his anger the most was how far apart this had driven them. He should've discussed his plans to marry Sasha with Leia before he had done it, more than the perfunctory holo call that he had given her. If he had done that, then maybe. He knew that their relationship deserved more, she deserved more and perhaps they would've been able to work through all of this differently if...

Then, as if in response to his thoughts, a familiar face caught his attention on one of the small vid screens. It was Leia. He walked closer to the monitor and pressed on the toggle that would switch the audio to that feed.

"…of Alderaan with Valwynn K'ntarr of the Rydonni Systems. It's no secret that the Rydonnis are actively pursuing a marital contract with one of the Royal Houses after falling from grace under the apparent backroom deals they had brokered with the Empire. Our sources say that-"

Han listened to the words while on the screen shaky images of Leia exiting a holocab with a man, dining with the same man and sitting across a table from him as the reporter spoke of marriages and Royal Houses.

Han took two involuntary steps backwards as if pushed by some invisible force. It was at that moment that everything crashed down around him. He had known that his hold on his own sanity had been precarious at best in these last few months and days. The emotional turmoil of dealing with his daughter and her paternity and her dying mother and Orakzai's unrelenting deluge of paperwork and responsibilities. It all had to take its toll eventually and here it was staring him right in the face: the final blow.

He could not lose Leia. In all of this and through all of this the thought of some day being with her had been enough to keep him going. He never felt as if he had the right to give Leia any kind of promises but he always assumed that she knew that they were there: unspoken, yet understood. She just always knew everything, didn't she? But he hadn't spoken to her about their future, hadn't made sure that she was still 'on the hook'. Mostly because he didn't feel as if he had any right to keep her there. It was better to pretend they were on the same page then actually take stock of the situation and find out that they weren't. Or was it?

That he might be this close to losing her. That she might, as he had done, get married to someone else. Well, wasn't that sweet justice if he had ever heard of it? He curled his hands into fists and then cursed. Justice or no, turnabout is fairplay, or not, this entire situation was unacceptable to Han Solo. He had done everything that he was supposed to do and he had sat back and taken more than he ever thought he could have, but this…this was too much.


When he stormed into her office she knew that she had made a big mistake. He looked like a man on fire. There was no other way to describe the expression on his face. There had already been several calls and inquiries, her perfectly executed media frenzy was in full force. There was no doubt that was why he was here. She went to stand to greet him, her shaky legs barely supporting her as she pushed herself up with her hands on her desk.

"Han, I-," she started but he held his hand up to stop her.

"Call your secretary," he said, his voice was cold and hard. "Tell her to hold all of your calls and cancel all of your meetings. And then lock that door."

Leia watched him for a moment, taking in his words as she moved her hand slowly over to her comm. She pressed the button, her secretary's voice flooding the room in answer. "Hold all my calls," Leia said without preamble. "And cancel my one o'clock."

They both stood looking at each other while her secretary responded, sounding somewhat bewildered but nonetheless obedient. Leia lifted her finger off of the call button and brought it over to the edge of her console where the door locking mechanism was. She slowly, almost as if in slow motion, depressed the button causing the door to slide shut and the lock to engage with an audible click.

Han walked over to her, taking his time as he did so. She stepped out from behind her desk to meet him halfway. She knew that it was wrong not to tell him, not to prepare him, to warn him, but some part of her liked that this had made him come to her. That the thought of losing her had put that look on his face. Too much recently had seemed to be wrong with them, should she feel guilty for this heated, silent exchange of want that was radiating between the two of them now? If she should, then may she be damned, because she missed this and she was tired of pretending that she didn't.

He stood in front of her and stared at her for a moment. Then he lifted one hand and traced the outline of her body from neck to shoulder and down one arm with the backs of his fingers facing her body but never quite making contact as he did so. It was as if he were silently stating the fact that he had no right to touch her no matter how much he dearly wanted to and the moment was so exquisite, so powerful that Leia closed her eyes at the phantom touches his hands left in their wake. They were fueled and painted in with the memories of their every joining. But the memories were not enough. She felt a sharp pang of need for his touch, for his fingers to travel and close that short distance between them. The urge to press her body into his hovering hand swelled within her but she suppressed it. Something inside of her told her that he needed her to be strong, that he needed this confession without words to pass between them like this. His desire, her want and the invisible barrier that stood between the two.

"Did you let him touch you?"

His voice was soft and the way he asked seemed to forgive, in advance, any transgressions she might admit to at this moment. She opened her eyes to look at him and found that his eyes were traveling over her body, much like his hand had just done, possessing but not touching. Memorizing and studying - knowing but not revealing. And she replied softly, "No."

She heard the soft release of his breath, saw some tension drain from his shoulders at her answer. Then he clenched his jaw and looked up to her, the sudden reconnection of their gazes shocking in its nakedness and he asked, "Did you want him to touch you?"

She didn't have to think long to answer this one and the word spilled out of her mouth in a breathy whisper, "No."

He didn't smile, didn't react in any way except to lean down towards her, his face so close that his breath moved the small downy hair on her upper lip. Close but still no contact. Her entire body shivered, tiny bumps rising on chilled skin. It was…torture and exhilaration all rolled into one glorious emotion as he whispered, "Do you want me to touch you?"

She closed her eyes on a sharp intact of breath. The question not as simple as it sounded. He was married. That could not be ignored. Something inside of her knew that it was wrong to want him when he was legally bound to another, no matter what the circumstances may be. Something inside of her knew that he came to her in what could best be described as a jealous fit of rage and that this could very well lead to something that they both might regret.

It had never been discussed between them, but she thinks on some level that they have remained faithful to his inconvenient marriage not for its sake but for their own. It has been her opinion that they did not want to, for lack of a better term, mar the sanctity of their own union by breaking the sanctity of another. Somewhere deep down she thinks that they were both in fact being faithful to each other and not Han to his false wife. Neither one of them wanting this beautiful thing between them to be transformed into some dirty little secret to be hidden and admitted only by guilty glances from across boardrooms. They knew and felt, instinctively that that alone was worth the wait, the struggle, the pain: to know that what they share is, was and would always be fundamentally right.

She knows that what they have is too good for something like this. Some early afternoon tryst up against the desk in her office while they both deny the existence of what has happened in the last few months and the distance it has placed between them. But as she opened her eyes to look at him, as all of those thoughts went surely and swiftly through her clear mind, she really couldn't do anything else but reply, "Yes."