Happy Friday! Thanks so much for reading and for all your comments! Special thanks to my guest reviewers who are just nailing my intentions and exact thoughts behind this story!
Leia heard them before she saw them. All three of them were individually louder than a standard galactic citizen, but the three of them together were not easily ignored.
It was Chewie's heavy footfall, Han's mouth, and Rayah's giggles that interrupted her in-depth conversation with Mon as they reentered the living space. She would be lying to herself if she didn't admit to the pang of jealousy she felt as Han entered carrying Rayah, happy and content grins adorning both their faces.
Chewie growled something at them that she only caught the end of, but it sounded as if he said something about their speeder.
"Are you going somewhere?" Leia raised one eyebrow, turning her upper body to follow their movements through the room and heading towards the front door.
Han stopped his forward motion and turned to take a step closer to her. "Yeah, I already told you." His tone wasn't accusatory, but it wasn't friendly either. "Me, Chewie, and Rayah are headin' to the Falcon."
"You're taking her too?" Another pang of jealousy, this one too sharp to hide.
[I'll watch her, Princess.] The Wookie assured her, as if that was her worry, which it wasn't.
Han also took the pang in her voice the wrong way as he tensed, his eyes narrowing as he challenged her. "You don't trust me?"
She was keenly aware they were doing this all in front of the Chancellor of the New Republic, but she did it anyway. Her retort was biting and accusatory in its own right. "Of course I trust you."
She stared him down, eyes meeting his in stubborn intensity. She was waiting for him to either escalate or deescalate the situation. She could easily see him throwing another verbal barb that hit one of her pressure points. And experience had shown he knew every pressure point to press.
She waited, her breathing all but stopped. And then, he backed down.
"Okay." He took a step back, eyes glued to hers for a second more before dropping them to the girl still on his hip and cradled around both his arms. "We'll be back soon."
Leia found her blinking more rapid as she nodded towards them.
"Chancellor." Han tilted his upper body in a salute as a farewell to their guest before swaggering across the floor and out of their sight.
Chewie was following more slowly. [Comm me or the Falcon directly if you need anything.]
She waved him off with another nod of assurance. She would be okay right now.
It took the hiss of the closing front door to make her realize her body was still facing the empty space where the rest of the group had disappeared from. Quickly turning back with an apology to her guest on her lips, she was quieted by the beguilement on Mon's face.
The Chancellor let her mouth part for a moment before her light, inquisitive voice came out. "I would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to ignore the tension that just passed through here."
Leia knew Mon was none of those things. She let out a huff of air as she repositioned her legs to cross over the other. "Han and I are still figuring things out."
Whether Mon was asking as a friend or as an intrigued interviewer, Leia didn't know. But Mon's next hesitated statement sparked Leia's own curiosity.
"I never asked you about this because it was irrelevant by the time we were able to casually converse about anything other than war and government strategy…" She paused, tilted her head. "Were the Hoth rumors true?"
This was news. This was more interesting to her than the unrest on Nar Shaddaa. "What rumors?" She asked as her body bent slightly into the conversation.
Mon shared what she knew, a slow caution to her story. "I received information that the entire base was engaged in a betting war over whether and when the two of you would get together."
She felt a scoff release. "Me and Han?"
The Chancellor nodded confidently. "I only receive verifiable intel."
"Well." She recomposed herself at this childish game bored recruits played. But she was also willing to continued this conversation. After all, it was something she could actually speak on relative to her recent past. "I knew nothing about this… sport. And I'm afraid a lot of people lost a lot of credits. Nothing happened on Hoth."
"Oh no," Mon contradicted her with the shake of her head. "The bet still played out after the base was abandoned, credits were exchanged, mostly to Chewbacca if I remember correctly."
She knew how this story ended. Or how it ended in the previous existence of Han and Leia. They got together somehow and had a child to prove it. But hearing someone else talk about it was odd to say the least. First Chewie and now Mon.
"He's a good man, Leia," the older woman firmly assured her, eyes presenting nothing but absolute sincerity. "I'll admit, I certainly didn't approve at first. He doesn't make a good first impression."
"You can say that again."
"But he has a heart of pure gold. And I'm glad you insisted I give him a chance."
A heart of gold.
She took a moment to pause, a moment to stop anticipating what was going to happen next. She cleared her mind of all the catch up she knew she needed to do to prepare for her job. All the confusion and responsibility she felt with a child relying on her.
Han Solo was the most annoying and frustrating being she had ever come across. He had no regard for her status, he taunted her with petty names, he disregarded her authority constantly. It took her well into the first year of knowing him to begin to see why he was like that around her. That's when she actively took notice of the times he would check in on her, battle with her on mission strategies, mainly when it involved her own personal risk, and trust her with his own life.
And he trusted her with his life. She risked her reputation, standing, and her safety to rescue him. What pull did he have on her that superseded her own life?
She meant it when she told him earlier that the idea of them was not an improbable concept in her mind. But as an image of their life together formed in her mind, she felt a jolt in her chest that made her breath hitch. Suddenly, everything about this was more real to her.
"I fell in love with him."
Once she said it, it was completely obvious. Her head turned from staring into space at Mon's voice.
"From what I've observed," the other woman shared. "Completely and irrevocably."
In Han's timeline, he was on the Falcon two days ago. So the rush of adrenaline when he entered the hanger was unexpected and seemingly unnecessary. She looked exactly the same, maybe a little less cold than the last time he saw her. Everything was still in place; same landing gears, same turrets, same glorious rounded cockpit at her top right.
Chewie held Rayah's hand as they followed the galloping man up the ramp and into the ship.
He paused for a moment as he got to the top, his palms pressing against the sides of the entrance with as loving of a caress as he knew how to give. The insides looked the same. Maybe an updated coat of paint here or there. And there was less dirt. Still some dirt, but less.
"I guess we've had time to clean up, what with no war and all."
Chewie growled an affirmative from behind him.
Breaking his euphoric state, a tiny body wizzed by him to the right as fast as its little legs could move.
"No you don't…" Han was quick with his own movements to respond, comedically quick as his long legs twisted around each other and to keep himself from tripping, he slid into the side wall. His feet semi under himself again, he stretched his arms to stop the girl from getting any farther.
[It's okay, cub.] The calm and amused Wookie shared. [Everything's child proofed.]
He stood back to full height as he watched the little girl bounce around the corner into the gallery. "Good thought, pal."
[Wasn't my thought. You insisted.]
"Oh." Han turned his head back. That sounded like something a good dad would do.
He took in the familiar halls as he followed Rayah into the main area. He grinned as he saw the Dejarik table firmly in its place and the same slippery coverings on the bench seat. All the mechanical systems looked in one piece. He could point out three or four switches or grids that looked new and there were some modifications to some of the hard corner edges of some of the equipment. There was some rounded foam covering them, he assumed to avoid an injury to the speedy little girl currently being chased by a large Wookie in circles.
Following the hallway, he left the main area and curved into the cockpit. Sure the back seats were different and more safe looking and there seemed to be a security lock programming that was keeping all the instruments disengaged in case of little fingers, but all in all she hadn't changed.
Han reveled in the action of sitting himself in the pilot's chair.
"She looks good, pal." He heard the familiar sound of Wookie footsteps behind him.
He stopped behind the seats. [We've taken good care of her over the years.]
"This feels…" Han thought of the best word for how comforting and familiar he finally felt. "It feels right. It's as if none of this…" He didn't finish. Didn't have to, Chewie knew.
[Turn your head this way, Cub.]
When he did, Han could see the point. Rayah, his daughter, was hoisted high against Chewie's body, stretching her arms to try and reach the shiny buttons and lights along the wall.
[You're still in this reality.]
Through all the comfort he found here, there was enough changed to remind him this is not the life he had been living.
"I wonder…" He brought his hand to his chin, rubbing over the small bump of a scar. "Maybe one day I'll wake up, or someone will say somethin' and then like that," he snapped his fingers with a pop. "I'll remember everything. Everything I missed in the last four years."
[We can try,] the Wookie replied with an overabundance of skepticism.
"Alright," Han twisted his chair to better face his friend who had just claimed the co-pilot chair. "Start at the beginning."
Han tried to not get his hopes up too high, but he did everything he could to clear his mind and focus.
"We were on Hoth. Luke never made it back to base so I went out to find him." He leaned forward, ears open and eyes attentive. "Then what?"
[The flight crew found you both the next morning, safe and alive.]
Although that was a relief, it wasn't surprising. After all, his daughter was right in front of him as proof he made it out safe and alive.
[We didn't have much time back at Echo Base before you and I went to check out a radio signal. Turned out to be an Imperial probe droid.]
"We had to evacuate," he stated, easily following along so far.
Chewie finally let Rayah's grabbing fingers move towards the co-pilot's controls. Nothing happened. Han was grateful future him was smart enough to make that happen.
[And quickly,] the Wookie continued. [They were in the sky and on the ground within an hour. Most of the crew got out on the transports and we were loading up the Falcon…]
Chewie's furry head turned as he paused.
"And?"
He continued, his tones more emotive than his previous factual analysis. [You went to find the Princess. You wanted to make sure she made it out okay.]
He was pretty sure how this one ended up too, with his little princess again as Exhibit A. "And she did?"
[She was the last commander in headquarters.]
"Typical, never takin' her own safety into account." Hearing that didn't surprise him, but it did kick in his protective instincts. "She needs someone lookin' out for her, that's for sure."
Chewie continued. [The escape to the transports was blocked, so you brought her to the Falcon and we took off. Almost made it through the Star Destroyers but…]
Han waited with bated breath.
[Hyperdrive was shot.]
"You gotta be kiddin' me!" Though he chose to be dramatic, it didn't surprise him. The Falcon was held together precariously, something could go wrong at any time. Especially after the damage they took on Ord Mantell.
[You know perfectly well how likely that is to happen to her.] Chewie called him on his mock shock before continuing. [You out maneuvered the Imperials, but we were still left in the middle of nowhere without light speed capabilities.]
It was as if he was reliving the moment, contemplating what he would have done. "Wait a minute, Bespin is near there." Some pieces were starting to come together. "Cloud City, Lando!"
The Wookie nodded again as he helped steady Rayah who had stood on his knees to reach the far away buttons. [We set our course.]
"That must have taken…" He did some quick calculations from Hoth to Cloud City. "What, like three weeks?"
[Four.] The tone of his growls turned deeper, stressing the importance of the next phrase. [Four weeks alone in space with the Princess.]
Four weeks alone… "This sounds like a story of Stockholm syndrome."
That theory was dashed with Chewie's next confident words. [Not for you two. We hadn't even outrun the Imps yet and you were already at each other.]
He did his best to translate his friend's last phrase. Its direct meaning was 'eat each other' but Han took the liberty to adjust that translation.
"So…" he shrugged, needing to ask the next question for historical accuracy. "What did we do?"
The Wookie had no problem answering. [I know of your activities about a quarter of the time,] he shared. [The other three quarters you spent locked behind your cabin door.]
His chin shifted down so his eyes were now looking at Chewie from under his brows. "With Leia…"
[Yes, with the Princess.]
As if Han actually had any doubt the context of how this story went.
[You were happy, cub.]
That he believed, but he wasn't the question mark here. "Was she… happy?"
He nodded. [Both of you were.]
The Princess of Alderaan was happy… with him. That idea was the most inconceivable part of this new life he found himself in. He knew he wasn't space garbage. He had more self respect than that. But the Princess, Leia, she was almost other worldly, divine, untouchable.
The more he got to know her, really know her, she became less deity, more real. And oh so easy to fall in love with.
[It was four weeks without orders to follow, without any work to do, without anyone else there except for me and See Threepio.]
"That bucket of bolts was there?" He complained seriously. "Way to ruin this fantasy."
The Wookie growled out a laugh as he pulled Rayah's back upright after she almost tipped over.
The side comment didn't break him away from his deep musings and the single question that remained.
And so he asked, his hesitation uncharacteristic of his outward bravado but very representative of his inner insecurity. His eyes again softening.
"Did she… love me?"
[She did. And you loved her.] It was almost poetic how his friend shared this vital piece of information while the manifestation of this love curled up in his furry arms. Her eyes were still wide awake while she indulged in her cuddle.
Leia loved him. Gods he hoped his instincts hadn't been lying to him for the past year. And it seemed he was right. She finally opened up and let him in.
"And then that stuff on Cloud City happened…" Han tried his best to fill in the timeline. "What with Jabba. And she came after me."
[She really loved you.]
She did.
Past tense. That Leia was not the same person in front of him now. This Leia was even more of an enigma: intense, closed off.
His lips turned up in the same smirk that melted many a heart. Melted Leia's heart at one point. And he was confident he could do it again.
With a cool confidence, he leaned back, his legs kicking out on the dashboard, crossing over each other as his arms swung across his chest.
"I knew she couldn't resist me."