References to sexual violence per my typical 'verse (again, see Sweetheart).

Safe

"Please don't cry. I can't stand to see you cry."

For the first few hours they danced around it because there were more important things to do, like hydrate him first of all, and catch their breaths, and break the it's been six months news, and get back to the Falcon and off of this hideous planet, a place she would never, ever return to if she could help it. During that time she put someone's vest on top and zipped up a jacket around her waist and everyone did a wonderful job of pretending that she didn't look ridiculous, which she appreciated, and which she preferred to everyone pretending they couldn't see her and making a big show of not looking at her but didn't they know that made her feel even more seen?

And while wearing this makeshift outfit she thought not for the first time about the strange loneliness of being a small young woman in a large galaxy, where always in the back of your mind was the thought of how am I going to find underwear, and where is my menstrual cup, and what special degradation will be promised to me, will set me apart? And normally she would feel so apart, Leia of the past six months with the secret of a forty-day tryst and a hideous loneliness inside her, except… Except––

Except Han was back. Here. Back. Here. Wrapped up tight in a blanket, her doing, on that bunk that had shifted from his to theirs so quickly it was seamless and blinding. Still bleary-eyed and tired and confused but here, after so many months here, peering up at her fussing over him and just looking at her, mumbling that he loved her every so often because he could, hers and––

"Hey princess? D'you eat today?" he said, squinting up at her.

And saying that again. In that voice of his… Oh…

"Yes," she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. "I had a ration bar just before you showered."

He nodded seriously as best as he could. "Good."

"Good," she repeated, even though that didn't make any sense. She couldn't stop looking at him – he was back, here, back, here…

He reached out to her and rested his hands on her waist as though to hold her, but she could feel the way his hands were making subtle work of searching her hips for the chain. Subtle work like he was trying not to embarrass her, make her uncomfortable. "You gonna shower?"

"I want to make sure you're situated."

"M'situated… Leia…" Oh, and how he said her name… "You can – take a minute. Y'know. Get cleaned up. I'll be fine." He rubbed the raw divots in her skin on her hips just barely, his expression drawn and tight.

She knew it had been stupid but the image in her mind of this reunion had been something closer to that ill-fated kiss – her sweeping him up in her arms, dramatic, sexy, sweaty and desperate and intense but bold, her swooping in – after she saved him maybe not sex, she knew that was unlikely, but something other than feeling anxious and uneasy – maybe holding each other close, murmuring, he wasn't vomiting and sweating and he wasn't looking at her in this knit-brow way, and she didn't feel so nervous on his behalf––

And she wouldn't have spent hours rigid and taut and feeling anxious, feeling like she had failed him damned him, practically guaranteed his death – hours she marked by thinking Han should be hydrating right now, Han should be resting, how could I have been so stupid––

"I need cutters," she admitted in a low voice, straightening her spine each time he softly pressed another tender spot. Remembering how even when made to lounge she'd kept impeccable posture.

"Grey box with the red stripe. Probably the––" Very subtly, almost without moving and without changing his expression, his fingers shifted to feel the width of the band. "Second biggest," he finished without missing a beat.

"Okay," she said, sucking in a breath. She kissed his forehead. "I'll be right back."

She found the box easily, grabbed the second largest cutters. They were quite large. She took them into the 'fresher and slipped them to grip the strap of the top. Tried to stand in a way so she couldn't be able to see her reflection. Thought about what it felt like to be saved from certain death by being a woman, by having the body of a woman. Some kind of saving. Some saving. How had she been so stupid to think she could save him all on her own? Someone like a woman, someone having the body of a woman? She squeezed hard.

Nothing. Fuck it all.

She readjusted her grasp, squeezed again. Please, please, please––

Nothing. Her hands ached painfully, the cutters exacerbating the hideous burst callouses from when she'd yanked that stupid chain, but she tried again, squeezing so she shut her eyes, too – please! Please! Please!

If she could at least cut herself out of this fucking degrading filth, if she could at least be the one to splinter it into a million pieces, if she could at least be the one to cut herself free then she was – she would be – everything would be––

She squeezed again even as she felt blood on her palms and thought of the hideous paralysis when they'd raced away from the barge, the moment where she couldn't decide if she would let herself stay stuck in the slick, ugly hairstyle someone else had put her in to make her more fuckable or else take her hair down in front of all these people so to restyle it, even if they were her friends they weren't all Han and they weren't her family, that paralysis made her so angry, why did she have to choose between two options that made her feel disgusting, if she hadn't been a woman had the body of a woman they would've locked her with Han and Chewie and she could've tended to him, she could've––

Her hands were bloody and they hurt. She'd made a small indent in the strap but nothing else. Why did she feel so impotent? Why was she so – if she were stronger she could––

But that wasn't right. It wasn't. She stilled her trembling hands and washed them in sink. She closed her eyes and she thought about how she had murdered her lover's torturer and she'd done it with ease. She scrubbed her hands and she remembered how there'd been a third option: how she'd wrapped the ugly twist into a bun. Something else, something new, her own choice. How she had ensured Han's rescue, herself, doggedly tracking and tracing for six months, obsessed and never giving up and here he was, she did that!

She did that. She wrapped a towel around herself and took the cutters back to his cabin. Said, "Han? It's me."

"Hey. How'd it––"

"Can you do it?" she blurted out. "I tried and with my hands I can't––"

"'Course," he said, sitting up as best he could. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Thank you," she said softly, and she dropped the towel and walked over to beside the bunk, grimacing at the rustle of the silken fabric against her legs, the sound she made when moving. Like something whose location someone else would always be able to known.

She handed him the cutters and guided him to the spot she'd weakened, her back to him slightly. She bit her lip and he dropped his head slightly, so his forehead was resting on her bare lower back.

"Feel like," he mumbled, barely audible, into her back, "failed you."

"Failed me?" she said faintly.

"Put you through that again."

"Again? You've been in carbonite another time and I merely forgot?"

"Leia…"

"This was nothing like that. This was nothing, Han, really."

"What happened, sweetheart."

"Nothing happened, no one touched me like that."

"Those're… two different things."

"They just tried to scare me," she said softly. "Stripped me and groped me a bit. It was nothing. Comparably? It was––"

"That's not the – I just don't – I hate that you were. Were scared." She could hear him inhaling sharply. "I hate that so fucking much."

"It was worth it," she said suddenly, without thinking. "I'd do it again – to have you back? You don't know – six months, Han––"

Suddenly she jolted at the sharp sound of metal shrieking. He touched her hip lightly and she turned and he cut the other side and she carefully stepped out of it, glancing briefly at the angry red indents at her crotch and below her hips.

"Top now or do you want to put on some pants first?" he said, peering up at her and blinking rapidly.

"Pants first," she said, and she rifled through his drawers to find a pair of his boxers, pulled them on.

"Don't say that 'worth it' stuff, please," he said hoarsely. "I can't – think of. Of you getting me out – like I had to bargain away your."

"My what?" she said tightly, moving back over so he could cut the top.

"Sense of – security," he settled on after struggling. "I don't – I would never – make that fucking exchange."

"Sense of security is nothing, Han," she said before guiding his hands. "We lead – dangerous lives, we – here, let me move my hair – right there, yes." Grimaced a bit as he cut.

"You don't get it," he mumbled, very slowly moving to kiss her shoulder blade – so slowly, so tenderly, like the first time they'd slept together on the way to Bespin, how he'd moved almost at half speed so she could anticipate every movement and every sensation without her even having to ask… said is it okay if I touch you like this, is this alright princess, said how does this feel, what about this – good, she'd gasped in a near-revelation, good, oh gods it feels so good…! "I don't – I don't just want bad things to not happen to you anymore, Leia," he said against her sunburnt skin, his voice almost shaking. "I want you to know that. I want you to feel that."

She pulled off the top and grabbed a nearby shirt, caught off guard by the emotion in his voice. Please don't cry,she thought suddenly, even though she'd never seen him do so, even though he wasn't – he just looked so – distraught… I can't stand to see you cry.

"Want you to feel safe," he said again in that choking voice. "Want you to feel secure – I––"

"Yes, love," she said, crawling into bed next to him even though she was still sweaty and smelling awful and sandy and raw. With you, I do feel safe, she thought in a bright, clear revelation. Not because she was small and weak and needed him – but because he made her feel strong, secure in herself – not only like he would look after her but also like, when she was with him, she was a person strong enough and tough enough to look after herself. Take matters and chains into her own hands, feel ready and strong and purposeful, like when she'd been sitting on that horrid throne and suddenly straightened herself, readied herself, focused herself once she saw him – capable of saving him and saving herself. Of getting back up. "Yes, I understand."