Author's Note: Sorry for late update. Okay, I ain't even gonna lie, there's significant fluff and adult content ahead in these chapters. I promise the show hasn't gone full-smut now—there's still plot to be worked through yet!—but these two demanded a bit of a honeymoon after all the torture I've put them through. Hope you don't mind too much.
I continue to be endlessly moved, inspired and delighted by your consistent, generous, and thoughtful support. And now: on with the soap. Xo!
(Message to LoveThis, who asked me a question in a review but I can't seem to answer you directly: sorry about that! I made Han younger in this universe because I wanted him to feel a part of the rock 'n' roll, hot rods pop youth culture of the 1950s. I also felt an older Earth Han could be constrained by more rigid gender roles than a younger man [although I'm sure I'm already taking some liberties there—but Han's never had a "traditional family" anyway, so I see some leeway for originality and openness in him about gender and marriage attitudes]. Plus, very young Harrison Ford in "American Graffiti" is dreamy and a major aesthetic inspiration here. Anyway, doesn't bother me at all that canon Han is 30-ish—fits there somehow. Hope that answers your interesting question. Thanks for all your support and interest, LT, you've been such a wonderful participant in all this!)
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In the Falcon's tiny shower, Han scrubbed away airplane engine grease. The shower, never really hot, was outright chilly on the last day of September—he really had to rig that big cabin tub with a showerhead—but still Han grinned madly under a sheet of Ivory suds, shaking his head at himself. Han knew he was an acutely gifted driver, but he'd almost gone off the road a couple of times, this first morning as a married man, thinking of her: Leia, the new reality of her. Of them. He couldn't stop seeing how she looked in his arms, ecstatic and transported. And how Han had felt, too, he...he...hell, he wasn't really a word guy, but he knew that it—sex had never been like that, before: it had never been like that, he hadn't been prepared for that.
In fact Han felt a thin but persistent fear, underneath all the thrills of the last two days, that none of this was real at all. There was no wondrous discovery of Leia, no there was no new job—he was going to wake, any second, in a cramped Corell Home bunk, or in Korea, or in his shabby furnished apartment in Baltimore, or in Millie by the side of the road, on his way out of New Hope. Somewhere, somehow, Han felt, some part of him remained alone, or would be returned to aloneness. Banished. It was stupid, even faithless, to doubt his luck, Han knew that, but still his mind-voice sent up persistent, vigilant alarms: Too good, Solo. Too good.
Han hurried in the shower not because he was cold, but because the only thing that could cure his fear was Leia.
Wearing just his unbelted blue bloodstripes and humming "Get a Job," Han left the Falcon. Damp skin of his torso prickling in the brisk air, he ran around the cabin and cleared the three porch steps in one long leap, impatiently brushing his bare soles against the boards to loosen any gravel before he went inside. At this time of day, early afternoon, Leia was usually at her Formica table-desk, scribbling notes and listening to the radio. But now the cabin was so quiet inside that the ticking of the pale-pink kitchen clock seemed intrusive. Was Leia napping? She didn't, normally, but they hadn't slept much last night, and Han had, after all, playfully ordered her to stay in bed.
Maybe she had.
Blood surging, Han took the stairs two at a time. He stopped at the top as though he'd been hit. Leia was asleep on her side on the tidily made bed, in an ingot of sunshine from the window. The newspaper had drifted to the wooden floor, her notebook was under her hand, and a pencil was tucked into her loose hair. Leia wore one of Han's clean white undershirts—on her tiny form, it was almost a little shift—and the red cardigan sweater he'd bought her. One slim leg was bent over the other, knee pulled almost to her ribs. Leia was posed so like she had been the first time Han ever saw her that all he could do was resume his stance from Starwood, too: stopped in time in a doorway, staring at her. But now his view of Leia was overlaid with such precious, intimate new data that Han audibly swallowed to review it.
He walked quietly into the room on his bare feet and knelt beside the bed, content to look. Leia's sleeping expression alternated between perfect peace and a concentration so endearingly serious it made Han smile. Up this close, he could see that Leia's pert nose was sprinkled with freckles, like cinnamon on milk; her lips were still kiss-swollen and slightly parted. Her spectacular hair had dried wavy and wild after never having been braided for bed, after having his hands in it all night, and it pulled threads of red from the dense gold light. Gently Han plucked the pencil from behind her ear and set it on the bedside table, next to the ticking Timex clock. He extended an index finger to stroke a russet strand. Ah, Leia. Leia. His girl. His wife.
Han's coarse fingertip snagged slightly on Leia's hair. Those unbelievable lashes fluttered apart, and Han saw himself reflected in drowsy brown eyes. Han gave her a contrite wince, but couldn't bring himself to be too sorry for waking Leia when her face opened into a brilliant smile that made Han feel like the embodiment of all wonderful surprises. He felt his own smile beaming back. With a hand on his whiskered cheek Leia drew Han close, into a sleepy kiss. "H'lo, Sweetheart," Han murmured against her lips, resting his own hand lightly on her hip. His eyes swept over her; he gave a little groan. "Now, what have we here...heeeyyyy." Han's eyes lit up with impish inspiration. "Listen: a guy can whistle at his missus, right?"
Leia blinked down at herself. "In this?"
Raising his eyebrows enough to rumple his forehead, Han nodded, his gaze following his fingertips' glide into the pronounced dip of Leia's waist, then back up over the swell of her hip in an easy circuit, the hem of the undershirt riding slightly up with each pass. He gave a whistle, not wolfish; just one low, venerating note. "Uh, yes, Princess, in this."
"I just put this on because I hand-washed my wedding suit and the shirt I borrowed from you, um...last night." Glancing at him, Leia blushed, then looked away. "I didn't see any point to making more laundry by getting properly dressed."
"Oh, I agree," Han sighed happily, letting his gaze roam. Leia wasn't wearing a brassiere, and it wasn't exactly this fact—though it wasn't not that fact, either, God she was beautiful, beautiful—that inflamed Han so much as what the lack of that garment signified. An expectant relaxation, almost an acknowledgement of his specialized knowledge. Han's chest expanded with a tender, lustful pride—not boastful, not even exactly possessive, he felt too stunned, too grateful for that. He had access to Leia in a way no one did, no one had; and it wasn't merely sex he meant or prized, or her private loveliness, but her trust. Of course, Han was beginning to understand, these new feelings were all enmeshed: love, hunger, gratitude, hope. It was as if another binding was twining around his heart, this one lush and soft and welcoming and close as Leia's body, as Leia's eyes. This new confinement moved with Han, it grew with him; somehow he believed its warmth would support and accommodate every evolution.
But there was that fear, still. That small, mean chill at the back of Han's neck: was this real? Permanent? Did this mean to Leia what it meant to him? She'd said she loved him, he felt her love for him, yet they'd never deeply discussed their emotional terms, even now—and now there was so much at stake, for him at least. So much to lose. To evade these thoughts, Han tried to concentrate on fact: Leia was real, here, now, in the sunlight. His sight testified to the truth of Leia, his fingertips declared her heat, and in her eyes was a radiance that he could almost feel on his skin—a glow that felt meant for him, singular to him. But Han couldn't see her heart. He couldn't see her mind, and Han's own trust was hard to engage. Rusted shut. Would she always make him this nervous? Again Han let his palm swoop over Leia's hip, and now along her bare thigh, to her knee, then back up. Touch helped. Touching her sped his heart past the point of faltering. Han completed this loop several times as he watched Leia's natural alertness return to her eyes.
She rose on an elbow, looking over her notebook. "Mon Mothma called and asked if I could ghostwrite the etiquette advice when I start work this week—I was reading the column, I must have fallen asleep..." Leia looked at Han, the last of her sleepiness burning off in her unstoppable curiosity. "Wait! Han! What happened with your..."
Still kneeling on the floor, Han angled in and took her mouth, hot and open and urgent. With a trill of startled pleasure, Leia sank a hand in his damp hair and received him.
"Loved planes since I can remember, Princess," Han mumbled against Leia's lips. "Tore pictures'a planes outta the paper." He slid his hand under the hem of the long shirt to cup Leia's round bottom, speaking between kisses. "Fighters, bombers, cargo, little prop numbers. The other guys in the home had Betty Grable pinups, man, Rita Hayworth; and me? Gimme Bell 'n' Beechcraft." The neck of his undershirt was so loose on Leia that Han easily freed her breasts and he drew back to look. Breathing hard, Leia studied Han in return. His thick hair retained a summer lightness and this close she could see the dark bronze of his eyelashes, his nascent whiskers, track his eyes' change from green to gold. Slowly Han shook his head, incredulous, gaze moving between her eyes and chest. Moving in to nuzzle her ear, her neck, ridged thumbs bringing her nipples to peaks, Han's voice was so low, so confiding that Leia held her whimpers, held her breath: "Guy named Doc saw me in the race, owns an air delivery outfit. Wants me to apprentice as his Cessna mechanic. He's gotta 190, a 195—hell," Han's lips travelled along her clavicles, "I'd do it for free, I'd pay Doc to let me and here he's gonna give me six per sixty, few times a week." Still those thumbs moved, palms weighing, stroking. His voice dropped to a register that made Leia shiver. "I spent today workin' on planes, Sweetheart..." Pulling back again Han searched her eyes, his own eyes bright with craving, avidity, a sliver of wariness. "...dream come true, and all I thought about, Leia, the whole fuckin' time? Was you."
Han dropped his head almost fiercely to her nipple. The wet-sharp pull, the good sting of his whiskers made Leia heave a shuddering sigh. He tugged off her sweater, tossed it to the floor. Gathering the hem of his undershirt and bidding her sit upright, Han peeled that from her, too. From his knees, Han looked at Leia perched on the edge of the bed, gorgeous ivory and rose-gold in the setting of her backlit hair, bare breasts rising and falling with her breath, and a primal fear rose along with his primal want. He loved a woman—this woman, Leia Organa (Solo?) more than airplanes and what did this mean? Planes were God to Han, God. They always had been. Han felt a creeping superstition, heard that perturbed voice again: too good. Han's fingers looped into the sides of Leia's underwear and he pulled them off, parting her knees. She gasped—he knew it was abrupt, but Han was driven to counter his mind's contribution of unease—match it, surpass it, consume it in devotion.
In what seemed like one motion Han slung Leia's legs over his shoulders and brought his mouth to her, hot and enveloping and precise all at once. A sound wrenched from Leia's chest; she reeled, her fingers raking into his hair for purchase, but as he found her with his tongue she almost collapsed back onto the mattress, catching her weight on her elbows in shock. Han felt a tiny foot seize against his spine and growled with satisfaction.
"What's that, Miss Etiquette?" Han asked, voice muffled. "Mindin' them Ps and Qs?"
Leia moaned an unidentifiable half-word.
"No Ps or Qs in that sound, Princess..." Han gave a soft, slightly crazed laugh and paused to look at her, his hair mussed, expression adoring and diabolical. "Is that mostly Ms, you figure? A couple Ns? Gonna hafta hear it again." He adjusted the angle of his fingers, brought his lips and tongue back to her. Leia made another low, wild sound. "Oh, yeah, that's the one," Han said, against her.
Falling completely to her back, Leia turned her face into her raised arm. She tried to speak to Han, her hands knotting in the quilt, feet flexing uncontrollably against his shoulder blades, but she could shape only the beginning of the word before dissolving into exhalation. "Was that an H? Was that my name? Say it again for me, Princess." Han's own voice was unsteady now, undercutting the tease with a streak of need. He wasn't smiling anymore, eyes deeply lidded and hazy-hot. "Ah, Leia, say it again..."
One large hand at her hip kept her snug and close so he could feel her, really feel when it got too much and when it did, when Leia's muscles locked and her breaths came thin and quick, Han rose and several things seemed to happen at once: as Han hungrily kissed her, he unbuttoned his fly and Leia used her feet to push his pants down his thighs; he caught one of her bent knees in the crook of his arm and Leia hooked her other knee at his waist and pulled him as he pressed, hissing, inside. Han didn't want to push her so fast—this was only her second time, but he couldn't help his size and his instinctive stroke was whole and sure and Leia's eyes flew wide, she cried out even as Han groaned a helpless Leia, Christ, her fingernails spearing his one braced wrist.
"Sweetheart," Han choked. "Is this—am I—?"
"Han." Leia breathed the syllable in vehement assent, her head falling back against the sunlit quilt and so like sunlight he moved over her warm and slow and strong. As she whimpered and clutched at and surrounded him, Han veered between the earthy and the exalted, one minute muttering sweetly filthy oaths into Leia's shoulder, her mouth, her hair, the next lost in desire so abandoned and importuning it was almost prayer. The crest of each thrust became sustained, an exchange of insistence and promise, a spending of themselves in tender negotiation until at last Leia gave a little chain of cries, nonsensical, musical—oh I'm, I'm—passed into Han's mouth with her urgent kiss where they became his own sounds, raw and awed. For a long, agonized moment Han teetered at some zenith and then he was blissfully erased, gone, yet somehow with Leia, bound up in Leia. Lost, found.
They didn't speak after, just gasped, kissed, petted, soothing one another towards afternoon sleep. Leia fell away first, leaving Han drifting in their mystery, watching prismatic motes of dust, softly buffeted by her breaths against his chest. He was no longer aware of any lack of faith—not consciously, at least, not here, safe, in Leia's embrace. Maybe the trick was, Han thought dimly, just before he, too, slept—maybe the trick was to leave anxiety unexpressed: just let it pass, like this, into irresistible rest.