It wasn't the first time Leia and Han had run a mission together alone. It wasn't the second or third time, either. It wasn't even the first time they'd gone undercover as a couple. In fact, if she were inclined to dwell on it—which she was not—she might have acknowledged how naturally she and Han assumed the role, how easily they worked together, and how even among High Command it had seemingly become routine, expected, anticipated: she and Han, a team.
Partners.
Leia had always been stern with herself, before. On missions there could be no allowances for distractions or dalliances, nothing that could possibly draw her attention away from her duty. No matter how electric it felt when they were undercover, introducing herself as his wife. No matter how wracked with longing she was, lying beside him in the shared hotel beds, those whispered goodnights; respectable amount of space between them like some charade, some act they put on to fool themselves. And no matter how insistent the voice in her head was—the one that whispered, when they were working together, battling together, back to back, side by side—the voice that said, with eerie certainty and with ferocious want: 'mine'—no matter all that, Leia had always resisted.
But this time?
This time Leia couldn't help it anymore. They were on Corellia, their mission objective had been completed, and it was Yuletide. They were wandering together through a busy spaceport market, winding their way slowly back to the Falcon. Under ordinary circumstances she would have insisted on immediate departure, but as she and Han walked close, familiar…? The open-air marketplace was cold, their breath rising in the air before them, and Han had tucked her beneath his arm—close enough to feel his heat, to be moved by his easy gait. Enveloped. And after all, they were undercover as lovers, so it was only right, wasn't it, that he should hold her against him, to stave off the chill? That she should slip her arm around his waist, beneath his open jacket, her glove-less fingers splayed over the firm muscle she could feel under his clothes? And strung over their heads, all around the market—a latticework that crossed from stall to stall—garlands of Corellian pine were strung, and in her every breath was the cold winter smell of impending snow that used to make her so homesick she couldn't bear it, but was made sweet now by the fragrant pine, and by the clean smell of the man walking pressed against her.
"You, uh, want a drink?" Han asked, jerking his thumb at a nearby stand. No, she should have said. We should go back to the ship, she should have said. As on their every mission, she should have prioritized the rebellion above all else. But this time within her bloomed a sudden defiance. Why shouldn't she indulge, just once? How much of her young life must she sacrifice? Not just her planet, her people, the endless hours of her days, but her joy, too? Leia had started to feel that she was pawning off pieces of herself, trading it in—how much of her could she deplete? Could she survive on one hour fewer of sleep? Two hours fewer? Time spent at her post drawn longer and longer? Could she endure, passing up the invitations to the Falcon, the lunches in the mess hall with Luke—all the more energy spent in labor against the Empire? Could she forgo attachment—keep everyone at arms' length, all the clearer her head when she needed to make hard decisions? All the less time spent grieving when lives were lost?
Leia had never questioned this necessary pillaging of herself—anything to defeat the Empire, anything to avenge Alderaan. But now she wanted to dig in her feet, to kick and scream. Why shouldn't she steal just one scant hour, just one, to drink hot chocolate with Han, to browse the stalls at the market? Somewhere inside her, perhaps the same voice that hissed the ferocious mine, begged plaintively: don't I deserve this, after everything?
She met Han's eye, and allowed herself a selfishness at once vindictive and freeing.
"I thought this was hot chocolate," she choked a few minutes later, after Han had procured them both styroplast cups full of a hot, aromatic drink.
"'S mostly whiskey," he shrugged gruffly, one hand shoved deep into his coat pocket, the other fretting at the peeling styroplast lid. Self-conscious, Leia realized with a shock. Since when was Han Solo self-conscious? But then as he watched her sip, as they roamed together beneath the twinkling lights overhead, as she stopped and admired some of the carved wooden ornaments for sale, Leia felt it herself.
Tentative. Nervous. What was it about the winter holiday that suddenly made her feel naked? Maybe because the atmosphere was so blatantly romantic, as the snow began to fall. Maybe because they'd spent the previous three days in such close quarters, posing as newlyweds, sharing tender touches that she thought were maybe only partially staged for their roles. Maybe because, on some deep level, they were both aware, as they passed couples kissing under the thistletoe above, that the thought of slipping into one of those little alcoves, shielded on either side by the sheltering pines, to embrace at last—to taste the whiskey-laced cocoa on each other's lips and tongues, and caress beneath their winter coats—was so tantalizing and enflaming they didn't even feel the winter chill.
Han peered at the display of ornaments, gesturing at one that depicted a taun-taun surrounded by silver stars.
"Can't shake 'em," he said grimly, though he flashed Leia a lopsided grin that made something flutter in her abdomen.
She smirked back over the lid of her drink, trying her best to ignore how very handsome he was, in the falling snow, hazel eyes very green, face as earnest as she'd ever seen it.
"Shake them? I rather thought they were growing on you, Hotshot. I've heard you talking to Berta."
Han cast her a look that was outrageously skeptical for someone who had just the week before fed Berta the taun-taun kibble out of his own hand, muttering gruffly that You ain't so bad under the smell, are ya? How 'bout next time you don't throw me, huh? How 'bout that?
"Me? Talking to one of those snow munchers? You got an over-active imagination, Sweetheart."
She laughed and shook her head.
"Mm, imagining things, am I? Well then I must be imagining quite a bit."
Han paused with his drink raised halfway to his lips and stared at her, looking startled. Leia blinked, wondering what she'd said that could have taken the unshakable captain of the Millennium Falcon by such surprise—
"An ornament for your beautiful lady, esteemed sir?"
Second nature, their body language shifted, Han lifting his arm around her shoulders as Leia melted into his side, their undercover identities still crucial until they got back to the ship. While the stall's owner watched them hopefully, Leia suppressed a shiver, trying not to let it show on her face how the pad of Han's thumb rubbing gently over the back of her neck was making her knees weak.
"Ah, no thanks pal, me 'n the missus don't got a tree."
The man didn't miss a beat.
"Ah, my ornaments may be displayed all year round—tree or no tree!—authentic Corellian souvenirs! Crafted from only the finest Corellian materials—no imports! Perhaps a dazzling star for your lifemate's dazzling smile—?"
Han sighed like a long-suffering husband, made a show of looking to Leia for approval.
"We'll take the taun-taun," he said.
"Ah, excellent choice!"
"The things I do for you, dear," he stage-whispered as he dug out some credits. But while she knew he meant it as part of their cover, Leia took it to heart. The things he did for her? Diving in front of blaster bolts to protect her? Bringing her caf to the command center? Calling her on her bad moments but never holding them against her—treating her like a person when to everyone else she was just a princess, a commander, a martyr, and nothing else? Never a woman, never, except, it seemed, to him...
As Han paid for the ugly taun-taun ornament, Leia wound her arm around his waist.
"I'm a lucky girl," she whispered.
Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Han's throat work as he swallowed.
"What are the stars for?" She asked curiously as they continued on their way, gift-wrapped taun-taun ornament swinging innocently to and fro within the bag looped over her arm. It bore emblazoned stars, and there were several stalls selling giant illuminated stars made of glass, and stars hung overhead, and stars on most of the holiday cards they passed.
Han squeezed her hand.
"They're for the goddess of death."
"Excuse me?"
"'S a Corellian legend," he shrugged. "Supposedly the goddess of death rules the world for half the year and the god of the sun's in charge for the other half. Sun god rules in summer and Venna—goddess of death—runs the show in winter. Yule's the longest night of the year when Venna is at her most powerful and the stars shine their brightest. But she's supposed to be real vain. So everyone honors Venna by plastering her stars all over the place. It's why we put a star at the top of our trees—to kiss up, like—and ask her for a kind second half of the winter."
"That sounds very Corellian."
"What, no goddess of death in your traditions?"
For some reason the fact that he asked—that he didn't shy away from the topic of Alderaan's holiday customs—filled Leia's chest with warmth instead of the cold grief she had expected. It was like Han refused to walk on eggshells specifically because he knew she wouldn't have wanted him to.
She took a deep breath, remembering.
"Not quite. But we did have a tree. It was traditional to decorate it with lights and crystal ornaments—usually shaped like icicles. And the Midwinter log, of course. It was burned on Midwinter's Eve. My parents and I used to sing carols and drink hot chocolate while we sat around the hearth…" she heard her voice trail off as she succumbed, despite her best efforts, to throbbing sadness.
"We got carols, too," Han grimaced after a moment, jerking his head in the direction of the rowdy crowd of Corellians nearby who seemed to be singing a Yuletide song rife with sexual innuendo.
"A favorite of yours?" Leia asked, smiling at him—certainly not, she knew—but Han appeared abruptly uncomfortable, and at once she sensed that none of this was a favorite of Han's—realized he must never have had a tree, or the garlands of pine, or the shimmering stars… He shrugged and pointed her in the direction of a vendor selling candy with a mutter about getting some sweets for Luke, but Leia could not banish the terrible loneliness she felt on his behalf. Perhaps she had been robbed of her home and her cultural traditions, but Han had, too, in a different way. She imagined him as a small boy stealing food while the merry-makers around him shopped for gifts, and she ached.
"What do you think," Han asked with a waggle of eyebrows, seizing two bags from the shelves before him. "Mint taffy for the kid? Or whiskey chocolates?"
Leia wondered, then, if Han could tell, as he held up the packages of candy, that she could see through this—distraction—this blatant means of defense as easily as she'd seen through the mercenary mask upon their first meeting. As easily as he seemed to see right through her.
Could he tell, as she peered down at the stacks of confections piled high before them, as she said, "Get him the bacoanut creams," that she understood him, was sparing him?
The look that passed between them was like mutual allegiance.
When they were heading back to the Falcon at last, rosy with whiskey and with the cold, taun-taun ornament, bacaonut creams, and chocolate-covered nerf jerky for Chewie in hand, Leia was seized by abrupt decision. She would not leave the planet before purchasing something for Han. After all he had done for her, how could she not get him a Yuletide gift? How could she do nothing to thwart another empty holiday for him, bereft of care and acknowledgement?
"I'll be right back," she murmured easily, tilting her chin at the women's 'fresher nearby, and the long line that emerged from it. Blushing—wondering why she was blushing—she shook her little styroplast cup a bit, so that he could hear it was almost entirely empty.
The way Han's eyes shaded golden and determined warmed Leia—in her belly, hotter than the hot drink.
"What do you say, Hotshot? One more for the road?"
Han reached for her cup, their fingers touching as he did, and their gazes met. For one instant they did not move, his hand over hers. He looked into her face, expression searching and yearning, and Leia felt a sense of calling, then. Of inevitability. It was as though she could sense that they were moving—mutually and irreversibly—towards some kind of deep entanglement. Like they were a ship and their coordinates had long before been set.
Like they would end up kissing under a thatch of thistletoe, if not that day then someday, she felt so certain, and when Leia moved through the crowd she felt almost trancelike, she was so shaken by the powerful sense of premonition.
Navigating the crowded marketplace was more difficult alone, the aisles densely packed with shoppers, their arms laden with parcels, swigging from thermoses and flasks and the little styroplast cups; the Corellians were loud and raucous in their merriment. Leia passed by displays of cards, jewelry, clothes, and felt suddenly jolted from the spell. In the middle of the path, she stopped. The flaw in her plan was glaring and obvious: what the kriff was she supposed to buy for Han Solo? She'd thought—what? That with ten minutes of frantic shopping she would find him the absolute perfect Yuletide gift, one that would make up for all his bleak Yuletides passed? From one of the stands that sold wooden taun-taun ornaments?
Biting her lip, Leia cast around at all the booths. How hard could it be? Surely she could find something. She knew Han. She knew what he liked. He was industrious, practical, efficient. She would get him something useful but meaningful—something special and personal, that would show him that she thought of him, held him in esteem, understood him. But as she darted through the market, ever conscious of her dwindling time, she began to sweat. She passed by a stall selling expensive, luxurious liquors, but didn't stop. Han knew far more than she did about Corellian alcohol, and she suspected that a flowery, fancy whiskey would do nothing for him, anyway.
She passed a stand selling various tools, but frowned and kept walking, confident that the flashy toolboxes and kits couldn't have compared to the reliable, proven equipment Han used daily on the Falcon. She walked by racks of cold weather gear, thinking to keep him warm on Hoth, but somehow presenting Han with a scarf and hat struck her as all wrong—she wanted the gift to say everything that she had thus far been too stubborn and frightened to tell him.
She considered some kind of modification for the Falcon, but knew such a thing wouldn't be found at the market. Glancing down at her chrono, Leia felt a spike of panic; she had been gone for a while, and Han would surely soon come to look for her. She stood in the middle of the crowd, getting jostled by the shoppers, dismayed to such an extent that she was embarrassed. How obvious it was to her, then, how she felt about him, if the prospect of failing to buy him a Yuletide gift could cause her such crushing disappointment.
Then Leia saw it, across the way, and her heart soared. Han was superstitious, sentimental, prideful yet humble, discerning and—she knew—in ferocious pursuit of her regard—
Leia darted back through the market with her purchase secure in the pocket of her coat.
"Get the drinks, Captain?" she asked as she found him leaning against a pole near to the Falcon's docking bay, in front of the lot of Corellian Yuletide trees.
Han straightened up, beaming—not smirking, not a crooked grin—the largest smile she'd ever seen animating his face.
"Even better," he told her.
As she watched, Han turned and grabbed hold of one of the netted trees behind him. It bore a red tag that was emblazoned Sold.
_xxx_
"So, why do you decorate plants and put them in your houses?"
"So that tree farmers can make a living—and that looks more like a krayt dragon than a snowflake, kid."
Leia laughed, hard. The stalwart little tree was perched in the main hold. It was a bit lopsided—some sections were a sparse. Han had whispered in her ear, as they'd hauled it up the ramp—It's scrappy, Sweetheart. Know how you love an underdog.
Now they sat around with Luke and Chewie, eating the bacaonut creams and some more of the spiked cocoa—homemade from supplies in the galley—decorating. The wooden taun-taun ornament was in a place of honor right at the front, and they'd strung utility wire through nuts and bolts to hang from the branches. Smirking, Han had cut up a piece of scrap metal into a surprisingly symmetrical star, which was tied to the top of the tree.
"At least I'm trying," Luke defended, grinning down at his snowflake. Leia had tried to teach him how to cut snowflakes from sheets of folded flimsi, but she had to admit that his snowflakes were a bit deformed. "I don't see you making any!"
"I did my part," Han huffed. "I provided the ship, the tree, the star, and all the ornaments—"
"The rusty nails you mean—?"
"Better pull your weight, kid, or I can take back the candy—"
"[More whiskey, Little Princess?]"
"Thank you, Chewie," Leia held up her cup, and didn't even protest when the Wookiee poured more whiskey than there was cocoa. She sat back against the acceleration couch, full, warm, and utterly content.
"What, you can't use the Force to cut in a straight line?"
"I think they're better like that, Luke," Leia murmured. Indeed, their humble tree, with its makeshift ornaments, and improvised star that despite its crafters deflecting comments had been so clearly fashioned with care—somehow all the little nuts and bolts caught the light, shined like glimmering candles…
Han's teasing smirk softened to such tenderness that she was certain he didn't think she'd seen.
"Y'know what? Think they're better like that, too."
_xxx_
Three days later, Leia took a shuddering breath, shivering from more than just the chill of Hoth. Light from within the Millennium Falcon spilled down the open ramp, illuminating the otherwise dim hangar bay. She stood just beyond the light's reach. Smoothing a hand over her braids, Leia shook her head, astonished with herself. Of all the many trials she'd faced with nerves of transparasteel, this was what would shake her? Princess Leia Organa, nervous to walk onto this bucket of bolts and see Han Solo?
In her hand was her gift for Han. For days she had debated when to give it to him—days spent watering their tree, listening to holiday music on his little portable radio, throwing marshmallows across the main hold for each other to catch—You're good at it because you've got a big mouth, she'd said, and he'd smirked, You're the one with the mouth, Sweetheart, as a marshmallow had landed square on her tongue, Mouthiest princess I ever met. Each day thinking perhaps she should fetch him his gift, bestow it upon him during the marshmallow tosses, possibly, but it somehow seemed wrong. She thought maybe she should wait for the Corellian solstice, when his people would celebrate Yulis Corellisi. Or maybe she should wait for the intergalactic New Year, when the majority of the galaxy would exchange gifts? After several late nights arguing with herself alone on her cot, she finally came to a decision. Though at first she had shied from just the thought—refused to even consider it, for a while—she'd ultimately decided to go to him on what would have been the Eve of Midwinter on Alderaan.
It was true that she was seized by awful longing for all the holiday memories she would never live to see again—the winter palace fragrant with balsam, her mother's crystal ornaments, her father sneaking her spice cookies from the kitchen to eat before the holiday feast, even their public appearance, when she and mama and papa had addressed the people of Alderaan to bid them good tidings and blessings as the planet's northern hemisphere saw the worst of winter behind them and emerged into the waning season and promise of spring. On Alderaan it had been a time of giving and charity. Candles were lit and traditional logs were burned to signify kindled hope—light to see them through their longest night and heat to sustain them in deepest winter. Families placed traditional wax candles in their windows, and Aldera city was illuminated by countless sparkling lights. How she longed for the ceremonial lighting of the Midwinter log with her parents—for the quiet morning they spent together the next day, after a season of activity. She would never have any of it back, but maybe she could reclaim some of her culture for herself, salvage it from the emotional wreckage left in the wake of the planet's destruction…? She could forever allow Alderaan's memory to remain blackened by grief and despair, or she could kindle light in it again just as the lights of hope had once been kindled all across the planet in celebration of the holiday. She found that she wanted that, desperately. And somehow, she wanted it specifically with Han. She wanted to take this step towards healing with him, by giving him his gift on the night when all of Alderaan would have exchanged tokens of affection before roaring hearths.
Reclaiming the holiday for the both of them, she told herself firmly. It was only fitting, after he'd asked about her holiday customs at the market.
Still, she wavered outside the ship.
Only now that it was finally time to give him his gift did Leia suddenly fear that he wouldn't like it. What she'd deemed perfect and appropriate in the spaceport marketplace suddenly struck her as all wrong. What if he thought it was silly or useless? Or maybe he would think it too mushy, or—worst of all—maybe he would—no, of course he would—understand the significance of the gift. And maybe she was mistaken about what she thought was happening between them—and he would find her present to be too binding, that accepting it would somehow shoulder him with obligation. Would he think that she would have... expectations? That by giving him something so personal she was offering her heart, and by taking it he was guaranteeing her not to break it? Like her gift was some trick, with enlistment and commitment inscribed somewhere on it in minuscule print? Like, What's the catch? And the catch was entrapment?
Leia ran her thumb anxiously over the present. The wrapping was humble, foiled papers and bows in short supply on base. She'd covered the box in plain brown utility packaging, but on it she'd drawn a simple design of stars, for his Corellian goddess.
She'd tied one of her own hair ribbons around it.
Leia bit her lip, feeling her palms begin to sweat. Suddenly she wished she wasn't wearing her snowsuit and vest. She smoothed her hair again. Was it too intimate, the hair ribbon? Too telling, the clusters of hand-drawn stars? And those things in combination with the highly sentimental gift? And what would she say to him, walking unannounced onto his ship at this hour? 'Hey, Flyboy, I have something for you...' She cringed there in the hangar. 'Good evening, Captain, it just so happens that on my obliterated planet tonight would have been a sacred, ancient holiday and here I brought you a gift and tied it up with my own hair ribbon...'
Leia groaned and massaged her temples. She was being absurd. It was Han, for goddess' sake. He would smirk, make a wisecrack about 'can I open it, or is there some protocol about tearing royal wrapping—?' and then he'd say, 'well, hey, Sweetheart, thanks,' and it would be the end of it.
Tamping down the inexplicable and ridiculous trepidation once and for all, Leia marched surely up the ramp. At this time of night he was probably in the main hold; loathe though he would surely be to admit it, Han was a creature of habit, and each evening until he locked down the Falcon he sat himself at the holochess table like some kind of sentry, some part or another dismantled before him... Leia rounded the ring corridor, smiling, thinking of the crease between his eyebrows as he tinkered, his exasperated 'aw, fucker—' when some mechanical component didn't cooperate with him—how she'd caught him a few times watching Corellian soap operas while he worked… Maybe that was how she'd find him, now, with her gift, and he'd glance away from the melodramatic holoprogram to find her before him, and she'd do the smirking—'Am I interrupting, Hotshot?'—
Leia emerged into the main hold and froze.
"—have a little something for you, Captain. A Yuletide present. To unwrap."
For the barest instant, Leia couldn't make sense of what she was seeing. She stood, unmoving, just inside the hold. The moment her brain seemed to finally process the scene, her vision swam. There, at the holochess table just as she'd anticipated: Han. And there, before him—kneeling—climbing—astride him—a woman. A tall, blond, voluptuous woman—
They must have heard her boots on the deck plates for the pair turned to her at once, and she could see the dread that animated Han's face immediately.
"Leia!" he gasped, grasping the woman's shoulders, and it was not lost on her that the blond did not move to clamber off of Han's—lap, she—
Leia didn't wait to see anymore.
"I beg your pardon for intruding," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. She thought it sounded as cold as she suddenly felt.
Then she turned and fled the ship. She heard, as she hurried back through the ring corridor, Han's voice.
"Ysla, move—Leia! Leia, wait!"
For the first time in a long, long time, Leia cast aside dignity completely. She ran away as fast as her feet would carry her.
_xxx_
"Come on, Leia, what's going on between you two?"
"I don't know who you mean."
In her peripheral vision, Leia watched Luke set down his lunch, and she grimaced.
It had been three days since she'd run off the Millennium Falcon, and though she planned on vehemently denying it to Luke, she'd been avoiding Han ever since. He'd shown up at her quarters twice—a few minutes after she'd found him under his guest, and then again the next morning. But Leia hadn't let him in—in fact, she hadn't even gone to the door. She'd listened to him knocking, imploring from out in the corridor—"Leia, c'mon, open up—know you're in there, Princess, it's not what you think—gonna leave a guy out here all night?"
Yes, she'd thought emphatically at the time. Yes, I will leave you out there all night. She'd curled up on her cot, still in her clothes, feeling sick. And it wasn't usually part of her nature but suddenly Leia had relished the idea of Han Solo shivering his Corellian ass off out there in the icy hall. Maybe then he'd feel even half of what she felt, to find him with that woman, in that compromising position, there before their Yuletide tree. That should fit in with his shoddy moral code perfectly, shouldn't it? An eye for an eye? A hurt for a hurt?
She'd squeezed her eyes closed, but she was unable to banish the sight of the leggy pilot—she'd realized who it was. Ysla Tekx of Blue Squadron. The woman was beautiful, bold, sensual and familiar in all the ways Leia was so painfully not. She couldn't bear it, the image of her kneeling over Han's lean hips. And she knew the root of her fury was that damn voice that whispered the idiotic 'Mine,' because if she were honest she felt betrayed. All at once Leia had been confronted by the full strength of her feelings for Han—like a slap to the face, because shouldn't she have been the only woman Han would want in his lap? Wasn't it abundantly clear that she'd staked her claim all over him? Her flyboy, her partner, her scoundrel across whose hips if any woman should be sat straddled it should be her, Leia? And hadn't he intimated so many times that the feelings were mutual? The flirting, the acts of valor, the heated looks and the lingering touches? Apparently not, and she was a fool for thinking otherwise.
And with that thought had come crushing humiliation, heartache, and anger with herself, because Leia didn't own Han and Han hadn't committed to Leia and 'they' weren't a 'them' so she had no right—none—to be angry with him.
When she'd finally heard the crunch of his boots striding away, Leia had reached for the tiny wrapped parcel where she'd dropped it at the foot of her bed—his Yuletide gift, with her hair ribbon bow.
Leia had gotten up, strode to her desk, and dropped the package into the top drawer, satisfied with herself as she'd slammed it shut. She didn't want to look at it, the stupid inky stars, the stupid kriffing ribbon. No, it was fitting, she reasoned, to lock it away, out of sight—entomb this hurt with all the rest, where it couldn't touch her, and he would never know that she'd scrubbed away tears, left wounded among the debris, the sweet potential of the Midwinter's Eve and all that she'd hoped for incinerated with cruel precision, only this time Han Solo had brought the Death Star to her instead of saving her from it.
Now in the mess hall, at their usual table from which Han was conspicuously absent, Luke gaped at her.
"Don't know who—? Han! I mean you and Han—I may be from a backwater planet but I'm not that dumb—"
"I would never use that word to describe you," she said truthfully, sipping her caf.
"Well what word would you use to describe Han?"
Leia looked diplomatically down at her meal, keeping her expression neutral. She had been expecting Luke to ask what had happened at some point, but his dogged interrogation was catching her off guard. Leia felt a burst of irritation. Yes, she knew she had been behaving immaturely. It had been immature not to answer the door when Han had knocked. It had been immature to leave the lunch table when he'd sat down the day before. It had certainly been immature when he'd walked into the command center during her shift the previous night, when she'd informed him that only authorized personnel were allowed entry.
"C'mon, Your Worship, just five minutes—just wanna talk—"
"I'm on duty right now, Captain. Might I suggest hangar bay 3? I believe Blue Squadron's shift has just ended—why don't you try one of them, if you're looking for a chat."
At the lunch table, Leia schooled her expression. So what if it was immature? So what? That was nobody's business but her own. And, she thought with a spike of anger as she took another spoonful of soup, she was entitled to this, wasn't she? She couldn't let herself succumb to the ever-beckoning abyss that was her grief for Alderaan. She certainly couldn't now give into the more tender feelings she'd begun nurturing for Han. And if she couldn't be allowed that, then she'd damn well allow herself this anger.
Luke watched her impatiently as she sipped more pomato bisque.
"Opportunistic," she said at last.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Luke, really—"
"You haven't spoken to Han in days," he pointed out blandly.
"I've been busy—"
"Well then why isn't Han here right now?" he asked, with a pointed look at the empty seat across from her.
"Maybe he's busy."
"Leia," Luke sighed. "Han wouldn't tell me what happened but I've never seen him like this before. Please, could you just go talk to him? It's the holidays..."
"Does Tatooine suddenly celebrate the Yuletide—?"
"It's the holidays for you and Han!"
"Han and I have nothing to discuss."
"You know what, Leia? This is... this is starting to get ridiculous."
Leia looked up from her soup.
"What's ridiculous?" she asked dangerously. Luke's answering expression might have been pitying if he weren't so clearly frustrated.
"All this fighting and—I mean even the flight crews know—"
"Know what, exactly?" Oh, so the flight crews knew that Han flirted with her, waggled those damn eyebrows at her, called her Sweetheart, and yet failed to commit to her? Failed to join her cause? And messed around with pilots from Blue Squadron—?
Luke threw up his hands.
"How you guys feel about each other!"
"Han has no feelings for anything besides his ship, his credits, and himself," Leia said coldly.
"That! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You know that's not true, Leia, you know if Han didn't care he wouldn't still be here, going on all those missions—"
"Captain Solo is in it for the paycheck."
"Oh yeah?" Luke sat back in his chair. "What about that blaster bolt he took for you? What about when he gave you his bunk for a week when you were sick? What about that mission to—"
"This discussion is over, Luke."
"You guys are both my friends, and maybe it's not my place—"
"It's not!" she hissed. She was truly angry, now—not at Luke for pressing but because of how wrong he was. A joke, it was a joke, how could he sit there chastising her when Han Solo was the traitor who'd—
"But trying to pretend Han doesn't care about you—?"
"If Han Solo cared about me he wouldn't have been celebrating the holidays on his ship with Ysla Tekx!"
She tried not to take satisfaction in the way Luke's jaw dropped, blue eyes wide, silenced. Face burning, breath staggering, Leia began gathering her things, suddenly desperate to escape in the wake of the truth.
Luke grasped for her shoulder.
"He wouldn't," he said firmly. "Leia. Han wouldn't—"
"I'll see you later, Luke," Leia muttered. "I have to get back to my post."
_xxx_
A Yuletide present to unwrap. Unwrap, she had said. How many times had Han unwrapped her before? And how many other women on Echo base had gleaned the intimate knowledge of Han that Leia could only dream of?
Lying on her cot late that night, Leia grit her teeth. Could she not close her eyes for five minutes without thinking about that damned man? She couldn't decide what was worse—the thought of Han sleeping with all the women on base, or the thought of him sleeping with only Ysla Tekx. That Han might have been taking his pleasures with any pretty female that would have him made Leia's stomach turn. It was not the idea of casual sex that sickened her, but rather the notion that all this time she had spent slowly allowing him to chip away at the dense layers of crippling fear she'd amassed around herself—all this time that she'd spent slowly letting him in, slowly giving him her trust, slowly entertaining fantasies of handing him her divested heart—all that time, he might have been hissing 'Sweetheart' against the breast of another woman? She had found herself, a few times, tempted to kiss him, and each time after she'd bit her lip, wondering what it might be like, his mouth on hers. Had she been yearning for a damn kiss while he'd been fucking his way through the Rebel Alliance? Leia had to close her eyes against the terrible, vicious sting. But the possibility that perhaps Ysla was special, singular, privy to such private Intel when no one else was, and that 'no one' included Leia, too? Awful. Why did she want to be the only woman with any kind of special insight into Captain Han Solo? Leia felt like she'd been living with some curtain in her head, not knowing what was behind it, and then she'd seen Ysla Tekx perched above his groin and it was like the curtain had been drawn aside to reveal her unwanted prize: tremendous desire for him and only him.
It abraded Leia's pride that even while she seethed over the thought of him with someone else, she still wanted him. She'd had a nightmare the night before, in which she'd been naked, on top of him, moving in his lap in intent rhythm that was foreign in her waking life but all too natural in the dream, and Han was kissing her neck and groaning in her ear—lighting her skin on fire—only when she'd whimpered his name against the sweet ache building between her legs he'd growled, Yes, Ysla, and Leia had awoken to a thundering, furious heart.
She wanted to shriek into her pillow. She hated him. She hated that she had become this jealous, ungracious version of herself. She hated that Han Solo had such power over her that he could affect her to such an extent.
She was just about to give up on sleeping and take a 'fresher when the alarm above her door went off, the siren shrill—all essential personnel were to report to the command center.
_xxx_
"What is going on?" Leia demanded when she found the command center milling with activity. At the late hour—hours after her own shift had ended—the command center should have been staffed by only minimal overnight crew, but the scene before her was one of chaos.
"Something entered the atmosphere and touched down near Crater Ridge, Your Highness," said the closest ensign. Leia looked at where he was pointing on the topographical projection of the terrain, the impact sight glowing on the monitor.
"Well, what was it?" Leia asked impatiently. "Did we send a scouting expedition?"
It suddenly dawned on her that the ensign—and everyone in the command center—looked frightened.
"We don't know yet, Princess—a volunteer rider was dispatched but his comms seem to have failed—"
She knew. A sudden, violent twist low in her stomach stole Leia's breath—a dread so powerful that she had to grasp the edge of the console before her. Somehow, before she even asked, she knew.
It was 2300. The outside temperatures were critical. And he was out there all alone, his only means of communications shot…
Beneath the collar of her snowsuit her pulse hammered frantically.
"Who volunteered?" she barked even as she reached for the nearest headset.
The ensign swallowed.
"Captain Solo, Princess."
Leia set the headset to the proper frequency with trembling fingers.
"Command Center to Echo Seven," she called into the mouthpiece. On the other end she could hear only static. "Echo Seven, do you read? Echo Seven? Come in, Echo Seven?"
Every rebel seemed to be watching her, and Leia didn't know what came over her, then. All she knew was that Han could have been hurt and that someone was responsible.
"Who authorized this?" she demanded, moving to scroll the databanks for the commanding officer's authorization, but the ensign only paled further.
The young man seemed to shrink.
"Your Highness, as Captain Solo was the only person present with experience riding the taun-tauns and given the fact that he is not enlisted and there were no stationed members of High Command—"
"No one is allowed to leave this base once the shield doors are locked for the night without authorization—no one, ensign—"
"Yes, Your Highness—"
"When General Rieekan arrives, inform him that I've gone out after Captain Solo," Leia instructed, checking Han's last known coordinates before his comms failed.
"Princess?"
"As you said, no one else here has experience riding the taun-tauns," she said shortly, brushing past him.
"But, Your Highness—"
But Leia was already out the door, heart pounding. As she navigated the frozen corridors at a sprint, visions of Han collapsed in the snow, or mauled by a wampa, or immobile with hypothermia ran a loop before her eyes—by the time she was hauling herself astride a taun-taun, she was sweating. Shaking when she pulled down her goggles and adjusted her cold weather gear. The unsuccessful attempts to raise Han on his comm, the as yet unidentified object that had entered the system, and the dangerously low temperatures beyond the shield doors seemed to loom before her.
If he was hurt, if he was dead—Leia urged her mount forward, breathing heavily. 'He would do it for me,' she thought with a pang. She would search for him all night if she had to, his betrayals be damned. The shield doors slid open as she approached, the biting air that rushed in so bitterly cold that Leia felt it like a slap to the face, and she braced herself, leaning into her seat, the temperature so extreme that it hurt, and she probably didn't have much time to find him—
And Han Solo rode in on Berta.
"Woah, woah," he soothed as the animal jumped around nervously. The visible parts of his face appeared chapped from the cold, and as he hunched by the neck of the taun-taun and pulled off his hood, face shield, and goggles, it was clear that he was exhausted.
Leia practically collapsed in the saddle.
"Leia," he said as he heavily dismounted, snow drifting off his shoulders and clinging to every surface of his gear. "Was just a meteor—"
All at once, something inside Leia burst ferocious and snarling, baring teeth, hysterical. She wanted to grab Han Solo by his big, broad shoulders and shake him.
"What were you thinking?!" she demanded, dismounting herself. She heard the tone of her own voice, saw the shields shutter down behind Han's eyes as he heard it, too. He tugged his scarf away from his neck and turned to stand directly before her, Berta the taun-taun still stamping her feet anxiously behind him while the handler attempted to lead her off.
"What do you mean, what was I thinking?" he asked slowly. "I was scouting—"
Leia pounced.
"Protocol dictates that a scouting party must comprise a minimum of two personnel, Captain!" she practically shouted, angrier than she could process, angrier even than she had been when she'd found him with Ysla Tekx. "Two—"
Han's entire face seemed to darken.
"Yeah well we didn't have two personnel on hand—"
"What were you even doing in the command center?! As I've already told you, access is restricted to authorized personnel only—"
"Well, hey, I'm glad you asked—I was there looking for you seeing as you've been avoiding me like the Outer Rim Plague since—"
"If you were enlisted you'd be facing disciplinary action for—"
Han's eyes widened incredulously. He gestured at his snow-caked clothes and at the still antsy Berta. "For what?! For volunteering—?!"
This only incensed Leia further. Oh, so he couldn't enlist with the rebels—as she had been practically begging him for years—but he could so cavalierly, at a moment's notice, volunteer to freeze to death astride a taun-taun? As if she wasn't the one who would have to organize the search and rescue, as if she wasn't the one who would be forced to identify his frozen corpse, to tell Chewbacca that he'd gotten himself killed—
"And since when do you volunteer?!" she pressed, stepping closer to him. "What could possibly possess you to—"
"Is this a kriffing joke, Leia?" Han snapped. "I got to the command center, they're getting readouts that something crashed down a few kilometers away from base, hardly anyone has been trained for the kriffing taun-tauns yet, so yeah, I volunteered—"
"Well I hope you aren't expecting monetary reimbursement for your recklessness—"
"Reimbursement?" She despised him for his disbelief. Did he forget his favorite recitation? Only in it for the money? Did he forget how he'd rubbed it in her face time and again? Leia balled her hands into fists. "Recklessness? Princess, the sensors were picking up energy emissions, I thought—"
"You thought it was a probe—"
"I thought it was a probe so sorry for trying to make sure we weren't about to have the Empire raining down—"
"Well, at least now I understand. If the Empire showed up, that would certainly throw a wrench in your plans to take off and visit Jabba the Hutt! Had to make sure there were no Imps in the system so that you could safely leave atmosphere? That makes perfect sense—"
Berta the taun-taun let out a trilling yowl as Han pointed a gloved finger in her face. Leia wanted to slap it away. How dare he loom over her like that? How dare he use his larger stature to impose and intimidate! When she was the one who had been prepared to ride out and drag his frozen hide out of a snow bank!
"Hey! If you wanna be pissed at me for what happened the other night, fine! You don't wanna let me explain, fine! But don't you pretend that I was trying to save my own kriffing ass by going out into that frozen hell—"
"There's nothing to explain, Han—"
"When you know damn well whose ass I was looking out for—"
"You are completely at liberty to entertain whomever you want on your ship on your own time—"
"Ysla Tekx marched on board saying she had something for me! I figured it must've been a message from Rieekan or you—next thing I know she's propositioning me and then you walked in—and if you'd just heard me out in the first place you would've known—fucking hell, Leia, at liberty to entertain whoever I want? We both know damn well there's only one woman around here I want!"
Leia actually felt her jaw drop.
Han stopped, breathing heavily, his face red now from more than just cold, as Leia stared at him speechlessly. A single chip of ice fell from the ceiling as she stood before him, stunned, chest heaving while Han glared at her, his words echoing beneath the frozen ceiling.
A sudden commotion came from around the corner, and Leia whirled around to see General Rieekan and the ashen-faced ensign hurrying toward them. She saw Han's bitter sneer.
"It was just a rock," he said shortly. "No probes at the site."
He pulled off his gloves, shoving by her as the others arrived, not even giving her a passing glace.
"Consider that my report," he called furiously as he strode down the corridor and out of sight. Leia watched him go, his scruffy head disappearing around the corner. For the first time all night, her anger was dissipated, and what she felt instead, while Rieekan began to question her, and while the ensign stammered at her, was crushing, encompassing shame.
_xxx_
When Leia lingered outside the Falcon the following morning, before the open ramp, she found she was somehow—impossibly—even more nervous than she had been on Midwinter's Eve. Loathe though she was to admit it, Leia sometimes found it difficult to swallow her pride—especially where Han Solo was concerned.
The truth was that Leia had spent another sleepless night on her cot, only this time instead of imagining in gruesome detail some carnal encounter between Han and some other woman, all she could think about was the way he'd taken charge and volunteered in the rebellion's hour of need, risking his own personal safety for the sakes of the rebels again—for her again. And she hadn't been able to drive away the fear that had settled in her, when she'd learned that Han was out in the cold alone. What if something terrible had happened to him, and she hadn't been on speaking terms with him because she was jealous that she wasn't the one perched in his lap? The very thought of Han hurt or in peril had made Leia feel sick—sicker even than she'd felt after walking in on him with Ysla, and the adrenaline that had coursed through her as she'd mounted the taun-taun, resolved to save him, had buzzed through her veins all night. It seemed that she was hardwired to care for him, to leap into action to go to his aid. In the night this had disturbed her; it was an undeniable weakness to have Han Solo so deeply lodged beneath her skin, so thoroughly imprinted upon her that she would completely forget her station and ride a taun-taun into the night of Hoth…
But was there any point in fighting it? She couldn't stop it, now. If the preceding several days attempting to avoid him and nurturing her ire had taught her anything, it was that she could not have purged herself of this if she'd tried.
Whether she liked it or not, Han was irrevocably important to her. More important perhaps than anyone else in her life.
And so she needed to make things right.
Yet again she drew a deep breath and marched up the ramp, only this time with much less optimism and much more caution. It was still early, but she knew Han would be awake. Likely, like her, he hadn't even slept after his midnight outing. Shaking now with trepidation, she entered the main hold.
The first thing she saw was their Yuletide tree. It looked stubborn and resilient in the dim light within the ship.
The second thing she saw was Han, hunched over a cup of caf at the holochess table.
For an instant, she saw it again: Han, and that beautiful blonde, right in that very spot. Then she recalled, with an acute ache, his impassioned voice: We both know damn well there's only one woman around here I want.
"Han?" she whispered.
Han glanced up, startled. She saw that there were circles under his eyes, and his face appeared haggard. She had been right, then: he hadn't slept.
She watched as he set his face, apparently resigned to the conversation to follow.
"You here to accuse me of something else?" he asked dully.
Leia bit her lip.
"Actually, I'm here to apologize."
To her surprise, Han snorted and shook his scruffy head, taking a sip of caf. Leia didn't move, however, or start to berate him, and Han must have realized that she was in earnest. She watched this knowledge transform his expression, his exhausted face stilling warily.
"Forget it, Sweetheart—" he began. Like when she'd indulged his candy talk at the marketplace instead of pressing on to discuss his sad childhood Yuletides. The difference though was that Leia had committed to this, and would not allow him to let her off the hook. Han was, above all else, her friend, and she owed him her heartfelt apology.
"No, please," she murmured, remaining where she stood a few steps away from the table. "You were right. About everything. I'm sorry. I was—angry—when I saw you here with Captain Tekx, and I treated you unfairly—"
"Nothing happened, Princess—"
"That doesn't matter—"
"It does matter," Han insisted. We both know damn well there's only one woman around here I want. Leia's stomach flipped nervously, as he gazed at her fiercely. She stared at him—his jaw was darkened with stubble, his hair rumpled in such a way that she wondered suddenly if he'd been running his fingers through it. He certainly seemed a man afflicted by all the feelings that had been plaguing her: anger, frustration, guilt, want.
Finally, Leia glanced away.
"I'm also sorry for how I spoke to you last night," she murmured. "I was... out of line."
"Don't worry about it, Leia." He shrugged. "I mean it. I was yelling, too—"
"I'm... I'm glad you're alright."
Han stood from the table.
"Princess, I swear it, nothing happened with Captain Tekx, and nothing would've happened even if you hadn't turned up—"
"It's really not my business—"
Han took a step closer to her.
"'M making it your business, Leia," he said lowly.
Leia swallowed, taken aback. This was terribly dangerous and uncharted territory that they were venturing into, and even though there were a hundred reasons why she should have kept Han at a distance, she couldn't bring herself to care about them anymore. All that nonsense she'd been feeding herself about his failure to enlist, his threats to leave? Didn't his every action leave all that moot? What had the night before been, if not an act of selflessness and commitment? What about when they'd strolled together in the market, and decorated their tree? Had she cared about his freelance status then? How many times would she watch him prove himself, only to continue to hide behind her shoddy excuses?
Shyly, Leia met his gaze.
"Okay," she whispered.
Neither of them moved, both silent in the main hold beside the watching tree. She felt that Han was scrutinizing her, as uncertain for once as she had felt for days, neither willing to make the first move.
"I have something for you," she said at last. From within the pocket of her snowsuit she drew the little wrapped package, still tied with her ribbon, and held it out to him. "Happy Yule."
Han blinked down at the gift as though startled.
"Oh, Sweetheart, you didn't have to—"
"I wanted to."
She watched him draw one finger along the length of scarlet ribbon and glance up at her, keen eyes so razor sharp, his look at once questioning and pointed. Leia blushed to the roots of her hair.
Very carefully, Han tugged the end of the ribbon, unraveling the bow. He said not a word about the drawn-on stars but Leia knew his handsome face so well, knew at once that he noticed. He found the edge of the wrapping and gently broke the seal of the adhesive strip on the bottom. Paper and ribbon he set almost reverently on the holochess table, and then he turned to face her once more, somehow even closer than before. With one more glance into her face, eyebrows raised, Han lifted the lid of the little box she'd wrapped. To Leia it seemed that his anticipation and nerves were as apparent as her own, like they both held their breath when he opened the gift.
For one long moment, Han didn't speak, staring at the contents within. Lifting it by the short golden chain, he held it in the air between them, where it hung and spun slowly. Still, he said nothing.
Leia couldn't take the tense silence anymore.
"It's a falcon," she said pointlessly, gesturing at the little golden medallion that hung at the end of the chain. "And it's holding a sprig of holly in its talons… On Alderaan, holly was a symbol of good luck, and gold symbolized good fortune… I think it's meant to be a tree ornament, but I thought maybe you could hang it in the cockpit, for—for luck…"
Han was staring at her. He turned the medallion wordlessly around and held it so that the backside was facing her, where there was engraved a date.
Now Leia's face was burning.
"Yes, I—I had it engraved. I, well, while you were buying the Yule tree—"
"This is the date we met," Han said abruptly.
Leia forced herself not to retreat now.
"Yes. Well… That was the day you escaped an Imperial battle station, earned yourself a large monetary sum, shot out Darth Vader and survived imminent death about a dozen times, so it seemed a fitting example of your Corellian luck, and—"
"Leia," Han breathed, voice pained. "Alderaan—"
Leia stood straighter, made herself look directly into his eyes.
"I lost a lot that day, it's true, but I also gained very much. As far as I'm concerned, I… I was lucky that day, too."
She watched as Han rubbed his thumb slowly over the date. He seemed to draw a crucial breath that staved off some wave of impending emotion—Leia could almost see in his face the effort he exerted to keep himself composed, and when he finally spoke he sounded hoarse.
"I got something for you, too," he said at last, still watching her like he thought perhaps she was some hallucination ready to disappear. "Don't move."
She obeyed with her heart in her throat as he wheeled around to grab something out from behind the tree. When he turned again his expression was sheepish—embarrassed, even, but Leia almost didn't notice, for in his hand he held…
A log.
Leia's eyes welled with immediate tears.
"Oh."
"It ain't big," Han muttered at once. "More of a branch than a log, really, but—"
Beyond her control, the tears spilled down her cheeks, and she saw Han's face crumple in undisguised dread.
"Hey, we don't gotta—listen, if it was a bad idea—"
But Leia was shaking her head, reaching out for the little log with a joyful laugh. The Midwinter log she'd burned with her parents each year, those tender memories she'd laid forever to rest, revived and honored now by his gift. He'd listened to her. He'd heard her. And somehow this more than anything else made Leia feel known in a way she hadn't in so very long.
"No. It's perfect," she smiled. "It's… scrappy, like our tree."
Still she had to brush away another tear, the feelings welling in her so much more than just this token of Alderaanian tradition. "Oh, Han, thank you."
Han lifted one hand to brush her wet cheek with his thumb, and Leia allowed herself to lean into his touch.
They sat together then on the floor in the main hold, envirosystem set to filter while they burned the little log in a big metal bucket. Through the thin, winding tendrils of the fragrant, rising smoke, their Yuletide tree had never looked lovelier, and to Leia the burning wood had never been more precious. As Han draped an easy arm around her as he had so many times, at that point, before, and Leia leaned her head against his shoulder to rest against him on the day of the Corellian Solstice, burning together an Alderaanian vessel of burgeoning hope, still and quiet together in utter harmony, Leia thought again of the premonition she'd felt at the marketplace: of inevitable entanglement. Silently she lifted Han's rough, strong hand from where it rested against her and laced her fingers with his. He drew her closer under his arm, and upon his outstretched legs, crossed at the ankles, her own legs rested, bodies inclined towards one another, Han's head resting upon her own.
The rebellion was momentarily forgotten. Their bitter argument forgiven, harsh words all but erased as they felt each other's heartbeats, the movement of their breath. Sitting together, heads so close, fingers and limbs entwined, watching the log burn, Han and Leia felt only peace.