Notes: My first attempt at writing fanfic. A tribute to Carrie Fisher on her birthday, based on her joke that anything could happen "On Location" when explaining her affair with Harrison Ford.
Leia contemplates her next move with Han following their first real kiss.
I would be grateful for constructive feedback! Worth turning into a few one shots?
Millennium Falcon, Long Trip to Bespin
Leia sighed as she sat on the acceleration couch with her hands framing her tired face, and her elbows on the dejarik table.
Her "first" kiss with Han in the circuitry bay still consumed all of her thoughts two days later.
She ran out of ways to avoid him and stay busy helping Chewy earlier today and needed to come to a decision. They had a long trip at sub-light speed ahead of then.
When she had whispered a breathy "OK, Hotshot" and kissed Han with wanton need, was she consenting to just that kiss or something more?
She could rationalize all of their prior, very hot kisses as not counting. They were, after-all, on location and undercover. Location meant away from base where anything could happen.
In the case of her and Han, the on-location kisses served as necessary release valves to increasingly intense sexual tension. A way to use being undercover as an excuse to passionately grope each other in the name of the mission without it having to be discussed later or mean anything.
She had tried for a year or so to deny she was even attracted to him, obnoxious and self-centered as he was.
Eventually, she had to acknowledge what started out as a subtle pull became an all-consuming lust and a partnership that was important to her.
She was an introspective woman, even if she didn't discuss her feelings with others (as in not anyone).
Maybe it was a meaningful friendship with a strong attraction? She loved him, but wasn't quite ready to decide if she was in love with him. If she was, he would never hear about it unless he joined the Rebel Alliance officially.
She was quite certain the attraction was mutual and that Han had a certain tender fondness for her, but couldn't imagine it was love if he was going to leave for good this time.
Ord Mantell… It had felt like significant momentum was building up by the end of that trip - something achingly more than just attraction as they let their guards down and enjoyed the other's company over a dinner at an intimately lit bistro and luxuriated in a successful mission accomplished.
She had been a little tipsy after dinner and had leaned into him on the walk back to the hotel. Han had told her over apéritifs he was going to stay. He had a dopey grin and her unusually open face lit up with delight and relief.
He FINALLY was joining the fight and not leaving her! Feeling bold and elated, and yes definitely drunk now as they arrived at their conjoined hotel rooms, she had screwed up her courage as she pulled him in by his shirt and whispered an invitation to come to her bed.
Han's face registered shock, then his eyes grew dark with desire. He tenderly cupped her face in his elegant fingers, and tilted her chin up as if to kiss her.
"Ask me again when you're sober, Princess, and I'll make sure it's a night you'll never forget." He whispered in a seductively low voice against her ear.
She was left with her lips parted waiting for a kiss that didn't come, and absolutely shaking in rage and shame at his rejection. She angrily shoved his chest away from her and slammed the door in his face.
The next day, on the way to the hanger to return to Echo base, a bounty hunter got the jump on them while they bitterly fought over something entirely inconsequential.
Before she could react in her hungover state, the Bounty Hunter had a blaster pointed at her head.
Han's quick reaction and hidden ankle blaster got them out of the mess, but not without Leia getting a superficial blaster burn to the temple in the melee.
Han furiously blamed himself and said he was a danger to her and the rebellion, as if she didn't have a death mark against her too.
He said he had to leave and face Jabba. He didn't spare her an extra glance as she stormed away.
He had hurt and humiliated her (ok she humiliated herself). She felt the hurt far more deeply than she could have possibly calculated.
After Alderaan she didn't think she was capable of feeling the sharp knife of getting your heart broken again and it pissed her off.
She wasn't sure what was more cold after that - the temperature of their "relationship" or Hoth. Every time she saw him after Ord Mantell she had to battle her temper, hurt, and attraction. It was infuriating!
She could readily admit in retrospect that he was being a gentleman when she had drunkenly propositioned him.
But couldn't he understand that if he was leaving she had to protect her heart, pretend her overture never happened?
He thought she had rebuffed him for years because he was a smuggler and she a princess, but that was never her concern. The problem was, he was wrong for her in myriad other ways.
Most importantly, he wouldn't commit – always threatening to leave. If he was a true-believer in the rebel cause, he did his kriffin best to obscure it. Could he ever even commit to her?
Secondly, she had promised herself after Kier's death when she was 16 that she wouldn't make herself that vulnerable again to betrayal or heartache.
She sure as hells would not endanger the rebellion for the sake of her heart ever again.
Han could make her breath hitch with his gorgeous crooked smirk, but he was too tall, or maybe she was too short? Obviously a sign of their incompatibility.
No, they couldn't be in a relationship, even if they made a helluva team in the field.
She admitted that under cover of his bravado was a good and decent man. Flawed for sure, but crazy intelligent and loyal, especially to her, Luke, and Chewy.
Their witty banter battles were the stuff of legends and their intellectual compatibility had long been a major turn-on and source of secret fun for her.
And he did smell very nice. Also, she fit just right tucked under his chin and felt safe against his broad chest.
She of course couldn't discount that the way he kissed her set her body on fire. Even under the guise of being under cover as a couple during a mission, she had lost herself in the heat of their kisses.
If they all hadn't taken place in public, she could imagine it would be hard to resist taking it further.
They had, on occasion, shared a bed while away on missions, but nothing had ever happened. Ha! No one could deny her ability to deny herself.
The tension was so strong after these uncomfortable sleepovers she would lie awake all night for fear she would lose control of herself and start something that couldn't be dismissed as on-location.
One of them always picked a fight just to find a safe outlet to avoid devouring each other.
She hadn't been with anyone since before the Death Star. While not inexperienced, she suspected he held the advantage of experience over her, if not by the age difference, then by the rumors around the base of his hookups.
Giving up her power to him, being vulnerable and intimate with anyone scared her, but especially with Han, who seemed to know her so well. Was he force sensitive? Wouldn't that be ironic!
On location…this long flight to Bespin was technically on location. They were stuck on a ship together for weeks- away from everyone and everything.
No one to know except Chewy, who had been trying to get them together for years. Even Goldenrod remained powered down.
Ugg, Han's nickname for the droid sounded so phalic, now that she thought of it!
She pivoted from that imagery and considered that what this sub light opportunity offered was the option to choose happiness for a short time. Who knew how much longer either of them them would even be alive, caught up as they were with death marks, bounties, and Most Wanted by the Empire rankings.
She doubted anything permanent could come from it, and she would probably be nerf-headed enough to get her heart broken further when he took off if she wasn't careful.
But she was tired of fighting the pull towards Han.
Kriff, she had it bad for him. She wanted him desperately and decided the best option was to keep it light and casual.
Mind made, she pushed up from the acceleration couch and strode determinedly toward the cockpit where Han was on watch.
"Miss me, your worsh… Leia?" Han corrected himself. (She secretly thrilled at the familiar way he occasionally used her real name, and luxuriated in just being a person and not the princess to him).
He saw the set look on her face and raised an eyebrow. Was she going to pick another fight with him or did he see some other intent on her face?
She approached him with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips as he twisted to see her from his captain's chair, now eyeing her curiously. Three steps away, then two, then one as she closed the distance to him.
She paused before placing her arms on either side of his chair, and then slowly moved towards his face, making eye contact with him.
Han's eyes widened in surprise at the proximity before they quickly brightened with both desire and something much deeper that threatened to scare her off.
Gathering her courage, she paused to inhale deeply. Right before their lips met, she whispered in a sultry tone, "I want you."
He simply replied, "I know" before bringing his lips to hers.