The 'fresher got heavy use on their last day. Han first, because they were due in and he wanted to be in the cockpit early. Then Chewie.
"Take as long as you like," she heard Han tell him. "Just leave some hot water for the Princess, alright?"
From the bunk, Leia heard Chewie singing. A Wookiee love song. The sounds were growls. She saw now, after all this time, that it was sensual. She understood every word.
Your teeth take aim. You bite my neck.
Your teeth so sharp. You take my heart.
No blood, no blood.
Wookiees loved weird, Leia thought, and she drew her legs up, sighing into the sheet. A quick fantasy rose: just get fuel, leave.
She enjoyed it for a minute, but she knew that couldn't be. For one, they needed food.
A stop- for anything, anywhere- broke the spell.
She did miss a good, hot meal. That was the other restriction Han lifted, that they could eat double what they had been. But all they had left was ration bars, so no one took him up on it.
Han certainly knew his ship. "We're coming in under," he had beamed at her from under his beard, impressed with his own calculations. "We did good."
Yes, they had, she thought, and gave credit not just to him for setting out a strict standard of living so the ship could bring them safely out of the nothingness of the Anoat System, but to each of them for living through it.
And screaming, she annotated, and laughing, and loving.
The harsh wind of the dryer started up, and Leia rolled over onto her back. Chewie probably set it on extra hot, a luxury since Han forbid any excess drain on the batteries, and they all used a small cloth to dry themselves.
She wondered if he would like her to trim his beard one last time. Appear with the snippers, opening and closing them coquettishly, purr at him, "Care to banish the scruff?"
She stretched in the bunk through to her toes, the memory stirring her. She could feel the heat of him, sitting in the engineering station chair because she needed access to his face, his shoulders relaxed because he trusted her, but still. His eyes on her while hers only met his fleetingly, staying on her task, his face. Bringing the cool metal of the snippers to the coarse hair on his face, hesitating before snapping the blades closed.
The parts of his face she enjoyed up close, his brows, his lashes, his eyes. The evenness, the smooth roughness of his face under her palms. Starting with small, warm kisses to his brow, down to his temple, over to the soft spot of cheek below the eye. To his mouth, and she barely heard the clang of the snippers fall to the floor as she couldn't get close enough, climbing into his lap, her hands sifting through his hair, sighing.
Chewie interrupted her thoughts. "When all hell breaks loose, Chief, it's best to get there first," he called through the door, and Leia put the sheet over her face.
The sheets of the bunk in the captain's quarters were cleaned, and Leia took extra care to make sure they were tucked in crisp and smooth. It was important to her that the Falcon was presentable when they landed. Han had told her about his friend Lando. He described him as an elegant dandy, and Leia would not tolerate an aspersion against a ship he once owned, because that was an aspersion against Han Solo.
Leia rubbed the blanket with a fond smile. Beautiful work, she noted of her handiwork, and her smile grew wistful. Beautiful work described the whole trip. What a lucky thing, she thought suddenly, to know something before hindsight. To already know that this was a best time of her life. Worth it, she decided. Tragedy behind her, and frightening uncertainty ahead, but in between, this lull, this... she had no other word for it. All the things they did without, and yet all the things she was given.
Han was in the cockpit, leaning over the nav'puter. He wore his jacket, just as she had donned her snow suit, and with a gulp she saw his beard was gone, his cheeks once again pink and fresh-scrubbed.
"I brought 3PO back online," he told her with a glance. "Seems a bit confused. You might wanna talk to him. What's the matter?"
"Your- you shaved," Leia said, fighting unexpected tears. She almost didn't recognize him. The three years he spent clean-shaven, hers-but-not-hers, fighting and hidden- was he back?
"I'm sorry," she waved a hand at his chest as he put his own on the small of her back and drew her against him. "I'm not saying it was fun but I don't want-" now he hugged her head to his chest, and she closed her eyes, knowing she needed to remember this. "I already don't like your friend," she said into his shirt, and he laughed, and took a slow breath; a grateful one, as Leia interpreted it when lying with him in the bunk, and he held her tight.
He kissed her hair. "I know," he said quietly.
Han put his hands on Leia's shoulders and gently pushed. "Tell you what," he said with a sad smile, and moved to take his seat, "I'll grow a beard again. You name the day," he said.
Leia only nodded. She could name the day he came back safe from Jabba, as was his hope; she could make him promise when the war was won. The beautiful skyline of Cloud City emerged through thick, pastel clouds, and Leia wasn't sure those days would come.